Human Connections in a Digital World

Composition programs around generative AI often center on refusal, foregrounding instructors’ anxiety in front of AI as an emerging tool that is both disturbing and hard to harness. This session offers an alternative perspective by exploring how composition teachers might approach AI use with less certainty and more curiosity. In Spring 2026, I asked students in a first-year writing course to submit a form titled “Declaration of the Use of GenAI & Labor Statement” along with each major assignment. This form aligned classroom practice with UofL’s “Code of Student Rights and Responsibilities,” invited students to reflect ethically on their AI use, fostered mutual trust rather than surveillance, and made visible the student labor involved in their writing processes. In this session, I will share the form’s design and its rationale, and present an analysis of students’ disclosures.