Resisting AI with Paper: Possibilities, Concerns and Protest

While there are a number of commercial benefits involved in incorporating AI usage and training into college composition classrooms, to many the perils and problems involved in student AI use outweigh these possibilities. A growing number of composition instructors have chosen to return to requiring assignments to be handwritten on paper as an increasingly viable, and even necessary, strategy to combat the growing use of ChatGPT and other AI text generation software as an essay-writing tool. This strategy has a number of potential benefits – the ability to regulate AI usage, to create better memory retention, and decrease student screen-time – but there are also many potential drawbacks. This panel aims to discuss the viability and sustainability of this option in the AI debate, with special attention to the environmental costs of paper vs. AI, the practicality of implementing paper assignments, and overall where the instructor’s priorities in the modern college composition classroom should lie. The debate might ultimately come down to whether in training for AI usage in the workplace or focusing on the retention of composition skills should be the modern priority. Overall, the question of whether the paper option is a viable solution is a somewhat underdiscussed topic in the AI debate, and this panel aims to consider thoughts from college instructors on the pros and cons thereof.