Generative artificial intelligence is reshaping how universities think about teaching writing. Some scholars across the nation have even called for eliminating the near-universal first-year composition course, or FYC, claiming that the skills around which it typically centers — namely grammar, structure and research — can now be so easily offloaded to AI that there is no longer any real human need for them. Indeed, no discipline, department or institution can be fully equipped to handle and adapt to the changes posed by AI models’ rapidly expanding capabilities. In the case of the University’s own FYC — dubbed the ENWR, or English Writing requirement — it is certainly true that students could rely on AI to complete at least some of their coursework.
But, the FYC has not quite outlived our need for it — precisely because writing is a mode of human thought, inquiry and learning. Writing allows us to clarify complex ideas, wrestle with ambiguity and engage critically with texts and concepts. It is a practice that teaches us not only to communicate, but to think critically, reflectively and independently, developing skills that no model can yet replicate and that remain central to human learning. The University’s ENWR stands as an incredibly clear commitment to these ideals, and thus, underscores the continued importance of writing education.
Years before the release of the large language models we are now so familiar with, the University put forth their goal of creating a “culture of writing,” in which students engage in writing across academic disciplines in two distinct ways. These consist of writing to learn, which involves personal reflection on topics, and writing to communicate, involving academic research assignments meant to be read by others. While the craft of writing is central to the ENWRs’ aims, technical ability is far from the sole objective. Indeed, the University’s two requirements, which center on subject-matter engagement, community involvement and curricular flexibility, provide a compelling framework for writing education amid an era clouded by concerns about its obsolescence.
When students arrive on Grounds, they are first split into one of three ENWR pathways, dependent on either their SAT score, ACT score or the University’s official placement test results. The first pathway — which consists of the two-semester course pair ENWR 1505 and ENWR 1506 — provides students with a decelerated pace for completing the ENWR requirement in smaller class sections.
The second pathway, encompassing the ENWR 1510-1530, shares the first’s goal of critical inquiry, but ENWR 1520s distinguish themselves through community-engaged writing that grapples with issues affecting the University or the Charlottesville area. Some of these classes even take students out of the classroom to work directly with local organizations, such as Assoc. English Prof. Kate Stephenson’s 2023 course ENWR 1520-02, “Where We Live: Writing about Housing Equity.” Stephenson describes them, in a Madison House interview, as the “intersection of activism and coursework,” and critically, she notes that her students’ writing skills improved “perhaps because they felt a greater sense of purpose.” ENWRs of this sort provide qualities resistant to mechanization, such as lived experience, personal and communal reflection and lasting memories. Students engage deeply with both course content and real, tangible issues, with strengthened communicative ability being an apparent byproduct.
Even the strongest writers, as measured by placement tests, are not exempt, adding to the University’s commitment to their culture of writing. In the third pathway, engagement only deepens, and students are encouraged to think, create and communicate at higher levels, which requires direct engagement with course material and proves more challenging to replicate. First-years in this pathway may fulfill the requirement through ENWR 1510-1530, 2000-level English Literature and Creative Writing courses or an ENWR 2510 — ensuring that even the most advanced writers continue to develop their skills. This insistence on sustained writing extends beyond the classroom — the creativity, critical thought and communication prove incredibly useful skills in any number of career paths and fields of study. Indeed, in a highly automated world, they may be what employers will come to value the most.
ENWRs rarely put composition at the forefront of their curriculum. They do not emphasize that which is easily mechanized. AI can mimic syntax and structure — and to be certain, it can do this very well — but it cannot replace reflection, nor feeling, nor real-world engagement. It cannot supplant inquiry, nor learn for us. Its ideas and outputs are an amalgam of an existing body of human knowledge and art.
Students in ENWRs are expected to write often, study rhetorical and structural choices, read deeply, draft and revise essays. But, in such courses, writing is more so understood as a means of deep engagement with a topic, not merely an abstracted exercise in technical skill that can be offloaded to algorithms. In my ENWR 2510, we used writing to probe a number of questions about Japanese aesthetics, the ethics and limits of translation and the specific works of literature we had been assigned. Although topics differ greatly, courses across the program utilize writing to foster critical thinking and reflection. Thus, students become acquainted with the process of writing to learn — and machines cannot yet learn for us.
Nevertheless, AI is changing education. But, with the ENWR and the many opportunities for learning that it provides, the University is well-situated to face these unprecedented times. Its mission and structured approach to writing instruction remind us that the most valuable sort of writing is that which develops our personal ideas, insights and connections to the world — things an algorithm can never replace.
Grace Clippinger is an opinion columnist who writes about politics for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions represented in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
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