The field of Writing Studies has been responding to and theorizing the relationship of writing and technological inventions for decades. Writing is itself a technology that has been changing for hundreds (and even thousands) of years. From the advent of written language, to the invention of the eraser, to the development of the internet, scholars and practitioners have analyzed and innovated in response to constantly evolving challenges. If you’d like to read more about this history—or include it as part of a course you are teaching—this section offers you a place to start.
History & Past Technologies
- Baron, Dennis E. A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers, and the Digital Revolution. Oxford University Press, 2009.
- Baron, Dennis. “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies.” Passions Pedagogies and 21st Century Technologies, edited by Gail E. Hawisher and Cynthia L. Selfe, University Press of Colorado, 1999, pp. 15–33. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctt46nrfk
- Connors, Robert J. "Invention and Assignments in Composition-Rhetoric." Composition-Rhetoric: Backgrounds, Theory, and Pedagogy, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997, pp. 296–328. Project Muse.
- Graff, Harvey J. "The nineteenth-century origins of our times." Literacy: A critical sourcebook (2001): 211-233.
- Haas, Christina. Writing Technology: Studies on the Materiality of Literacy (1st ed.). Routledge, 1996. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203811238
- Hawisher, Gail E., and Cynthia L. Selfe. "The Rhetoric of Technology and the Electronic Writing Class." College Composition and Communication, vol. 42, no. 1, 1991, pp. 55–65. https://doi.org/10.2307/357539
- Kress, Gunther R. Literacy in the New Media Age. Routledge, 2003.
- Purdy, James P. "Calling Off the Hounds: Technology and the Visibility of Plagiarism." Pedagogy, vol. 5 no. 2, 2005, p. 275-296. Project MUSE.
- Risam, Roopika. “Rethinking the Human in Digital Humanities.” New Digital Worlds: Postcolonial Digital Humanities in Theory, Praxis, and Pedagogy, Northwestern University Press, 2019, pp. 115–38. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv7tq4hg.9
- Trimbur, John. "Literacy and the Discourse of Crisis." The politics of writing instruction: Postsecondary (1991): 277-95.
Generative AI/LLMs
- Akayoglu, Sedat, et al. New Directions in Technology for Writing Instruction. 1st ed. 2022., Springer International Publishing, 2022.
- Gee, James Paul, and Qing Archer Zhang. “Cybersapien Literacy: Integrating AI and Human.” The Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 106, no. 3, 2024, pp. 32–38.
- Halaweh, Mohanad, and Ghaleb El Refae. “Examining the Accuracy of AI Detection Software Tools in Education.” 2024 Fifth International Conference on Intelligent Data Science Technologies and Applications (IDSTA), Sept. 2024, pp. 186–90. https://doi.org/10.1109/IDSTA62194.2024.10747004
- Krenz, Joanna. “Virtual Conciliation: (Un-)Coding the Split between Tradition and Modernity in Chinese Artificial Intelligence Poetry.” Digital China: Creativity and Community in the Sinocybersphere, edited by Jessica Imbach, Amsterdam University Press, 2024, pp. 97–122. https://doi.org/10.2307/jj.13049278.10
- McIntyre, Megan. "Equitable Writing Classrooms and Programs in the Shadow of AI," Computers and Composition, vol. 75, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2024.102908
- Michalak, Russell, and Devon Ellixson. “Fostering Ethical AI Integration in First-Year Writing: A Case Study on Human-Tool Collaboration in Artificial Intelligence Literacy.” Journal of Library Administration, vol. 65, no. 3, 2025, pp. 361–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/01930826.2025.2468136
- Morrison, Aimée. “Meta-Writing: AI and Writing.” Composition Studies, vol. 51, no. 1, Mar. 2023, pp. 155–61.
- Ravichandran, Geetha. “Will AI Choke Creative Writing?” Indian Literature, vol. 68, no. 4 (342), 2024, pp. 125–30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27317027
- Roe, Jasper; Renandya, Willy A.; and Jacobs, George M. (2023) "A Review of AI-Powered Writing Tools and Their Implications for Academic Integrity in the Language Classroom," Journal of English and Applied Linguistics, vol. 2, no. 1. https://doi.org/10.59588/2961-3094.1035
- Wang, Zhijie. "Computer-Assisted EFL Writing and Evaluations Based on Artificial Intelligence: A Case from a College Reading and Writing Course." Library Hi Tech, vol. 40, no. 1, Jan. 2022, pp. 80–97.
- Yang, Tianxiao, et al. “Undergraduate Students’ Perspectives of Generative AI Ethics.” International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, vol. 22, no. 1, 2025, pp. 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-025-00533-1