Ground Truth GenAI Pedagogy: A Framework for Writing and Literacy Program Coordination Work

Since the broad launch of OpenAI’s LLM ChatGPT in 2022, writing and Literacy Program Coordinators (WLPC) have grappled with the implications for their programs, classrooms, and students. WLPC have been confronted with a technology that upends assumptions about composing, academic integrity, assignment design, and program outcomes. This article introduces a framework drawn from cartography and machine learning, Ground Truth GenAI Pedagogy (GTGP), focused on three commitments. GTGP, a mode of engagement and method of response, aims to help writing teachers and program leaders chart paths forward that are drawn from systematically gathered (if provisional) knowledge about their local fields; recursive and dialogic decision-making, and pedagogical content knowledge. This article lays out the problem facing writing programs, a way of thinking that accommodates multiple positions on GenAI, and a worked example of a program’s operationalizing of GTGP to illustrate one way of navigating the incursion of GenAI on the work of college literacy instruction.