Thursday, October 9, 2025

CO-WRITING WITH MACHINES: A PRIMER

CO-WRITING WITH MACHINES: A PRIMER

For Student Writers in the Age of Generative Tools


I. WHY THIS PRIMER EXISTS

We are no longer asking "Did you use ChatGPT?"
We are now asking:

"What choices did you make while working with it?"

This primer will help you:

  • Understand the difference between co-writing and copy-pasting.

  • Claim authorship even while using tools.

  • Reflect on your writing process with clarity and integrity.

  • Learn how to shape generative language models to serve your voice — not overwrite it.

II. DEFINING CO-WRITING

Co-writing with a machine means writing with intention, creativity, and editorial control.

You are co-writing when you:
✅ Ask the machine for help brainstorming, rewriting, or organizing ideas.
✅ Feed it your writing, then revise the output in your own voice.
✅ Combine multiple outputs into something new and yours.
✅ Push against flatness, cliché, or generic tone by reshaping results.
✅ Use it like a partner, editor, or mirror — not a replacement.

You are not writing when you:
❌ Paste a prompt and submit the first result.
❌ Have no understanding of what the output means.
❌ Use the machine to fake fluency or mimic voice you don’t own.
❌ Rely on it to do all the conceptual or emotional heavy lifting.

Co-writing is about agency, not automation.

III. WHAT TEACHERS ARE LOOKING FOR

We are not trying to "catch you." We are trying to see you.

In any AI-assisted writing, we’re looking for:

  • Your voice, even if emerging.

  • Your decisions — what you kept, changed, or rejected.

  • Your questions, uncertainties, and creative risks.

  • Your engagement with the topic beyond surface treatment.

If AI was used, we want to know:

"What was the AI's role? How did you guide it? What parts are fully yours?"

IV. REFLECTION PROMPTS FOR AI-ASSISTED WRITING

After finishing your piece, consider:

  1. What was my starting seed (line, idea, image)?

  2. What did I ask ChatGPT to do?

  3. What surprised me about its output?

  4. What did I keep? What did I reject — and why?

  5. What did I add that wasn’t there before?

You may be asked to submit these as a brief reflective note with your piece.

V. EXERCISE: GUIDED CO-WRITING SESSION

STEP 1: Write a sentence or image that matters to you.
STEP 2: Ask ChatGPT to expand, reframe, invert, or remix it.
STEP 3: Read its output. Highlight anything that sparks.
STEP 4: Cut what feels false. Keep what feels alive. Add your voice.
STEP 5: Return to your original sentence. Is it still the center? If not, what is?

Optional: Submit both versions — raw and edited — to show your process.

VI. ETHICS AND OWNERSHIP

Using AI doesn’t erase authorship. It reveals it more clearly.

If your choices shaped the outcome — it’s yours.
If you let it speak for you entirely — it’s not.

Owning your process includes:

  • Transparency: Be honest about what you used.

  • Reflection: Be able to articulate your role.

  • Integrity: Don’t pretend. Don’t plagiarize. Don’t outsource your mind.

VII. WHAT COUNTS AS A “REAL WRITER” NOW?

A real writer is someone who:

  • Makes choices

  • Wrestles with form

  • Refuses to settle for flatness

  • Lets no tool replace their vision

You are still the author.
Even if the machine helped build the page.

You are writing in a new medium.
Learn how to shape it — and it will magnify your voice.

VIII. FINAL WORD

“The future of writing is not human vs. machine.
It is human + machine + memory + meaning.”

You are not being replaced.
You are being called — into authorship, curation, recursion, and clarity.

Use the tools. Don’t hide them.
Shape the tools. Don’t be shaped.

Write something that remembers you.

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