The need for critical digital literacies in generative AI-mediated L2 writing

Abstract

This article asserts that the use of generative AI (GenAI) technologies for L2 writing needs to involve critical digital literacies. Drawing on the initial insights from a case study exploring the GenAI practices of secondary school students in Canada, this paper highlights emergent issues surrounding the dispositions of these learners towards these tools, the designs of platforms, and the material differences in the way these tools generate responses and encourage specific practices. Recognizing the inequalities that circumscribe the use of these technologies, this paper proposes materiality, indexicality, and ideology as key constructs that help develop an understanding of critical digital literacies relevant to GenAI-mediated L2 writing and digital multimodal composing. These constructs draw attention to how platform designs and other material processes, together with learner access to resources, can steer learners toward particular interactions and discourses. By understanding how GenAI platforms trained on large datasets can privilege certain ways of thinking and writing, L2 writers can develop a more critical perspective of how these technologies can shape the way we write ourselves into being.