Hive writing: a post-pandemic, audience and AI-aware manifesto for writing pedagogies

ABSTRACT

This article brings together data from two complementary studies of the teaching of writing in Australia. Mobilising motifs of the hum and the hive to think together how our projects resonate, the authors highlight a key concern that emerges across both studies: the absence of real-world audiences for student writing in contemporary pedagogy. Specifically, we refer to the limited extent to which teachers have freedom to craft writing opportunities with “real” audiences through their chosen or conscripted pedagogies. Responding to this, and taking into account the impacts of both the pandemic and the rise of generative AI, we offer a manifesto for an audience-focused approach to writing that foregrounds resilience, agency and sociality. This manifesto offers an alternative and holistic approach for developing students as communicators, in a lively, humming world of words, feelings and people.

KEYWORDS:

• Writing
• pedagogy
• wellbeing
• resilience
• artificial intelligence
• audience

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank reviewers for their valuable feedback and advice in revising this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Australian Research Council; Victorian Association for the Teaching of English; Western Sydney University. Lucinda is the recipient of an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Research Award (project number DE220100515) funded by the Australian Government.

Notes on contributors

Lucinda McKnight

Lucinda McKnight is an Australian Research Council Fellow in the Research for Education Impact (REDI) Centre at Deakin University. She is undertaking a major three-year national project investigating changing conceptualisations of the teaching of writing.

Susanne Gannon

Susanne Gannon is Professor of Education at Western Sydney University, NSW. She has undertaken numerous research projects on writing pedagogy in secondary schools, most recently co-leading the Writing in Secondary Academic Partnership for the state Department of Education.