ENG 4060 & ENG 5085: “The Human Nature of Writing”

This website is the official class site and co-created OER space for Dr. Mia Zamora’s Spring 2026 course entitled The Human Nature of Writing, conducted at Kean University in our MA in English, Writing Studies program.

What does it mean to write in the age of AI and natural language processing?

The algorithms can write faster than we can. A.I. has now mastered structure, form, and syntax, and perhaps style. Still, machine algorithms will never be sentient. While AI can mimic consciousness, it doesn’t truly “feel” or “think,” and the ability to have inner experiences remains a significant gap. Still, you can offer a prompt, and the program will spit out something useful within seconds. The prose will be grammatically correct. Words will be coherent. ChatGPT uses the entirety of the open web as its data set. So where does that leave us human writers?  

For time immemorial, human beings have reached out to the world with words, hoping to connect and communicate, hoping to import both information and meaning to those on the receiving end of an intended message.  We have tried to convey what we know, what we experience, what we think, what we feel.  Writers hope to protect their authenticity and intention, and their unique human voice.  But in a world where the machine can do some things more effectively and efficiently, how do we now reckon with the art and science of writing?  What is the impact of artificial intelligence on the world as we know it? How is machine writing a game changing truth?  

If we know that care and community are critical to how we learn, what is the future for learning and education, in a world written (in part) by machines trained on our own human output? 

In The Human Nature of Writing (HNOW) class, we will take a small journey together as we attempt to apprehend the stakes for writing in the age of AI.