From Crafting Text to Crafting Thought: Grounding AI Writing Support to Writing Center Pedagogy

TL;DR

This paper explores how AI writing tools can be aligned with writing center pedagogy to support student voices and critical thinking, proposing guidelines and a prototype to ensure pedagogical integrity.

Contribution

It introduces design guidelines for AI writing tools grounded in writing center principles and demonstrates their application through a prototype and expert review.

Findings

Writor helps revise text without generating it verbatim.

Expert review shows alignment with pedagogical goals.

Design guidelines promote trust and pedagogical soundness.

Abstract

As AI writing tools evolve from fixing surface errors to creating language with writers, new capabilities raise concerns about negative impacts on student writers, such as replacing their voices and undermining critical thinking skills. To address these challenges, we look at a parallel transition in university writing centers from focusing on fixing errors to preserving student voices. We develop design guidelines informed by writing center literature and interviews with 10 writing tutors. We illustrate these guidelines in a prototype AI tool, Writor. Writor helps writers revise text by setting goals, providing balanced feedback, and engaging in conversations without generating text verbatim. We conducted an expert review with 30 writing instructors, tutors, and AI researchers on Writor to assess the pedagogical soundness, alignment with writing center pedagogy, and integration contexts. We distill our findings into design implications for future AI writing feedback systems, including designing for trust among AI-skeptical educators.