Document Type

Other

Publication Date

Spring 2025

Abstract

This curriculum unit is a critical literacy unit about AI designed for first-year writing. The introductory composition course prepares students for academic writing with a heavy emphasis on writing-as-process, critical reading, gathering information, inquiry-based writing, and taking research notes. This curriculum unit pairs the writing portion of the course with an AI critical literacy framework for students.

This is a 20-hour, 9 lesson unit designed for an introductory composition course:

  • Prepwork: Preliminary Assessment and AI Policies

  • Lesson 1: What is AI?

  • Lesson 2: The History of AI

  • Lesson 3: How Does AI Work?

  • Lesson 4: AI in Action

  • Lesson 5: Academic Integrity and AI

  • Lesson 6: Ethics and AI

  • Lesson 7: Society, Medicine, Business, and Education: The Current AI Landscape

  • Lesson 8: The Future of AI

  • Lesson 9: Writing and AI

  • Post-Assessment and Reflection

Each lesson follows a similar structure, with some variation:

  • Exploring source material and an inquiry-based assignment

  • Small group note-taking / discussion

  • Whole class discussion / presentation

  • Low-stakes writing assignment

There are also 3 high-stakes essays and a revision/reflection essay embedded at the end of lessons 2, 5, 8, and 9.

Comments

This classroom material was created for the 2024-25 CUNY Building Bridges of Knowledge program funded by the Lumina Foundation to support students to use generative AI ethically and responsibly.

The document shared here is a PDF of a Google Doc. You can access the Google Doc directly here:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1qrYmFVYQhdu_XmTQKaR05mqtR19698kXNjyu341cl8s/edit?usp=sharing

The Google Slides are paired with a set of Teaching Notes, which you can access here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gmcBb83g_9Gsc6jnzCCehQUxPyOneXA1mazb_7--CIQ/edit?usp=sharing

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 4.0 License

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