Reimagining writing education as a liberal art in the age of generative AI and literacy

This paper discusses the transformative potential of writing education and literacy within the framework of liberal arts, particularly in the context of the ongoing discourse regarding the capabilities of generative AI, such as ChatGPT, to replace human-generated writing. Generative AI is characterized by its ability to easily generate various texts based on learning from large volumes of data. In light of actively integrating generative AI into writing education, measures to efficiently utilize it and address its challenges (loss of human subjectivity, reliability of data, etc.) are proposed. However, the intrinsic value of literacy cultivated through human writing experiences is often overlooked in such writing education. Therefore, this paper discusses the need for conceiving writing education as a facet of liberal arts, with a focus on the “writing experience” rather than the mechanical “production of texts.” When the objective of writing education revolves around nurturing literacy, such proficiency is mostly manifested in the writing process itself, rather than the production of texts, due to the meta-linguistic and cognitive nature of writing. Based on the above discussion, this paper advocates for utilizing generative AI as a tool for enhancing reading experiences rather than writing endeavors, thus enabling learning literacy based on learners’ writing process experiences.