#Take5 #157 On GenAI and Reading: An emerging perspective

In this opinion piece, Angela Newton shares a perspective on responding to GenAI by equipping university students with confidence and skills in academic reading.   As the nature of knowledge, work and access to information are fundamentally changed by GenAI technologies, Learning Developers – and all who facilitate learning – in higher education can and should work with students to ensure that they can productively interact with texts, not as an act of nostalgia, but because we understand that fragmentary, instrumental reading is an incomplete educational ‘meal’.

Introduction

Almost every workplace discussion I’ve been involved with over the last two years has been focused on or sidetracked by the behemoth that is GenAI and the ways in which it is changing our jobs, workplaces and the nature of what it means to learn. The concept of ‘having knowledge’ is made elastic in a world where we can access ideas and information readily online and even more so if we ask AI tools to mediate which ideas we want to choose from amongst millions of potential possibilities.

What is knowledge?

For example, I asked GeminiAI ‘what is knowledge?’ and it almost instantaneously gave me a list of epistemological concepts, all nicely parsed and easy to understand. I can read this list and perhaps explain it to someone else, but it is illusory knowledge, I don’t ‘know’ this stuff, and whilst GeminiAI gives me a list of its sources, it does not invite further scrutiny. ‘Here’, it seems to say, ‘take this information at face value, trust that it is true and impartial’.  There are of course, as many competing philosophies of knowledge as there now are AI tools, beginning with Plato, running the gamut of Hobbes, Locke and Gettier, it is not for me to unpack them here (and I’m not qualified to do so), but this specific juncture of human/technological development feels like an appropriate point for someone to do so, and publicly.

My life experience (empiricism) encourages me to take GeminiAI’s list and question it; I notice for example, that the concepts presented are predominantly (or maybe even entirely) ‘Western’. To ‘know’ that this is a shortcoming and which perspectives are missing, I’d really need to do further research into what theories of knowledge consist of in other philosophical traditions (rationalism). And when I say ‘research’, that could now mean anything from Googling, using a library catalogue to find and read authoritative texts in depth, finding an expert to ask, right through to asking GeminiAI again. It strikes me that the concept of ‘research’ like ‘knowledge’, has acquired an elasticity of meaning as our choices pertaining to both have expanded in step with technological changes. 

Cognitive tools

There are a number of recurring words and phrases in conversations about GenAI in HE – “authenticity”, “assessment design”, “cheating”, “accessibility” and my own favourite, “AI isn’t going away”. We’re quite right to be focusing on GenAI in universities and to question how large language models might reshape what we think of as education, learning, research and what it is to acquire and possess knowledge beyond information recall. Dave Cormier’s wonderful book ‘Learning in a Time of Abundance’ (2024), nails this with precision: 

One of the most important things we learned as students in school was how to learn. If we learned by finding an authority (our teacher, a book) and trusting that authority, then that’s going to impact how we approach learning now. We’re going to find someone or something that can tell us what to believe, remember that thing, and be rewarded for believing it. But what if there are 1,000 authorities and a million websites? How do we find the trusted authority when the information is everywhere? We still need to choose what to do. How do we face this uncertainty? (Cormier, 2024, p.11)

The gap in authority that Cormier identifies is now being filled by ChatGPT, GeminiAI and all variations thereof. Whether you subscribe to one of these services or just use a free version, are you also signing up to the idea that they are more likely to present you with an authoritative version of the truth you’re looking for than you could have found with a standard search engine? I guess it depends on your reason for searching, what problem you are trying to solve, or whether you just want a debate and require a bespoke conversation partner. 

My view of this in relation to learning development in higher education is best described as ‘emerging’. Having lived through and actively participated in some great technological shifts in my career, this one feels different; yes, the emergence of Google and Wikipedia and Web 2.0 were all seismic, but the emergence of GenAI tools is more like a new toolbox rather than a singular tool.  It’s as if we’ve discovered the potential of iron all over again and not just remade all of our previous tools but also made new items which could not have previously been imagined. As with other great technological changes in communication, we’ll see enormous societal and environmental benefits from the use of AI as well as frivolity and harm. Here’s Douglas Adams on the subject of tools: ‘Tools have enabled us to think intentionally, to make things and do things to create a world that fits us better’ (Adams, 2002, p.130).  There are also many ways in which those tools have been used for the specific benefit of those with power, to withhold that same power from others with the intention of creating a world that fits the needs of a subjugating minority – a pattern that appears unchanging with the emergence of a tribe of people known as ‘tech bros’.

One of the ‘tools’ that we’ve been using for around five thousand years to create our world is writing (and therefore necessarily reading). Symbolic mark making as a precursor to writing goes back an astonishingly long way, paleoarchaeologist Genevieve von Petzinger reckons on at least 41,000 years (D’Arcy, 2017); our need to record thoughts and ideas beyond a tradition of oracy is now engrained. Whilst here and now in 2026, we (and by ‘we’ I mean in a sweeping generalisation, the #Take5, JLDHE and ALDinHE readership), are reading more than ever before, it is arguably reading with much less depth and less attention than in the previous 5, 10, 20 years of our lives. We might further speculate that in previous centuries, those who were able to read were also reading in more depth and with greater attention.  

Fragmentary reading

Our present-day digital lives are scattered with a litany of written distractions; marketing mostly, but also as we scroll through LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook etc, we are continually assailed by subtitled video content trying to persuade us to think about things in this or that way. This fragmentary reading is unsatisfying and usually takes place without our permission or intention to engage. Deep reading (specifically on paper) therefore, becomes more effortful as our lives are dominated by personal screens. Sticking your face into a book for an extended period is harder and harder but, I would argue, incredibly valuable and personally grounding.   

The emergence of the e-book form in university libraries is an additional,  complicated and complicating factor in our academic reading lives. They are at once more accessible, searchable and available than print, but again, invite a fragmentary approach to reading; we peck away at the single chapter, paragraph or sentence that suits our needs, and then abandon the tab or shut it down completely.  This instrumental use of information is inevitable as speed of production of text, ideas, research bids etc is prized above deep, slow thinking. I’ve found the work of Maryanne Wolf to be incredibly instructive in this area, her research into the reading brain has illuminated so many aspects of this remarkable cognitive act that I approach reading afresh (Wolf, 2018); not just my own reading, but my practice as a teacher of deep reading at the University of Leeds.

Shifting reading identities

This academic year, I’ve spent many hours creating and delivering new learning experiences for undergraduate students which focus solely on the skill of deep reading. Acclimatising our students to reading more than they are used to, reading with energy, attention and a questioning mindset are critical in the age of GenAI.  Conversations with these students are enlightening; everyone has a different set of experiences or attitudes towards reading, because we all have a reading identity shaped through our earliest interactions with books and literacy right through our education and relationship with digital technologies.  

I’ve been thinking about the issue of reading identities for quite some time, shaped by discussions with friends, colleagues and students all of whom have different relationships with texts and unique attitudes to the process of reading. I am indebted here to a wonderful thesis by Chelsea Swift on “Negotiating Contexts for Reading: Becoming ‘someone who reads’’ (2016), which illuminates aspects of reading identities in ways that I find hugely useful.

UK ‘home’ students are largely experiencing an education system which, far from managing to promote joy in reading or the personal value of reading for pleasure, is arguably fixated on using literature to instil ‘British’ values (Swift, 2016). We might see teaching pre-determined lists of ‘classics’ as a misguided attempt to “…redistribute cultural capital…” (Swift, 2016, p.9), the implication being that one’s existing cultural capital is inadequate and lacking in legitimacy. There are obvious social justice issues here in the politicisation of reading as well as a large helping of snobbery, none of which helps to capture or maintain children’s attention on reading for pleasure or development.  

As much as teachers, teaching assistants and school librarians (although the latter are increasingly rare) labour to make reading a pleasurable part of children’s and young people’s lives, they also inadvertently destroy much of the love that young people might have for reading (and writing) through excessive testing and instrumental teaching to those tests. Most UK schools of course, have no choice in this, they must teach in line with government policy. However, the damage to individuals here is potentially very deep and I theorise that the educational ‘labels’ that are applied to us at a young age through SATS, streaming of ability levels etc may become internalised and affect our self-perception in relation to reading and other skills. 

Let’s look back, for example, at Michael Gove’s 2011 ambition to get teenagers reading 50 books per year; this scheme was inspired by a visit he made to a school in Harlem, New York: “… children…competed to be quickest to read all seven Harry Potter books.” (Telegraph, 2011). Such pointless competition-based reading rewards (common to many UK schools) and a culture of testing are antithetical to the ethos of reading as a deeply pleasurable and personal experience, leading directly to what Swift calls “…literacy shaming.” (Swift, 2016, p.158). Why should reading 50 books per year be considered a greater achievement than reading ten, five or two? If we read deeply and with enjoyment, speed and quantity are irrelevant.

Learning Developers can play a crucial role in enabling new university students to acclimatise to academic reading and potentially overcome any negative reading identities which have been previously imposed upon them. To do this without incurring ‘literacy shaming’ (Swift, 2016, p.158) or implying that individual students are lesser if they do not have an established reading habit would be a gift. In doing so, we must be mindful of the individual reading identities that students carry with them, and which may be deeply ingrained. We should consider attending to these identities in the form of reflective activities and suggest a range of tools and approaches to reading to enable them to thrive.  

Reading as a response to GenAI

To return to, or to cultivate wide, deep and attentive reading within our student bodies, is no retrograde step, nor is it a rejection of GenAI technologies. It is instead, an acknowledgement of the importance of a multiplicity of potentially authoritative voices from which we can learn, it is also a step towards criticality, a slowing of information consumption and a methodology for building personal knowledge frameworks both within and beyond the classroom. Teaching deep reading to our students should be a part of our response to GenAI, not because we want to resurrect our own educational experiences in an act of nostalgia, but because we should want students to have the advantage of choice. Choice is illusory if we can’t use the tools at our disposal and when GenAI tools are seamlessly integrated into numerous personal technologies, books (whether printed or electronic) whether we want them or not. 

Students need to be able to navigate these tools with the same ease and confidence with which many enter a prompt. Our industrial education systems do not habitually equip students with these skills, but universities can and should offer individuals the opportunity to cultivate new reading identities which empower rather than restrict them. Learning Developers are ideally placed to lead this reskilling in partnership with academic and professional staff, including librarians, both academic and public.  In doing so we can embrace all opportunities to work inclusively with our students in their reading lives, get beyond trivial questions such as ‘is listening to an audio book reading?’ and cut to the essential fact of reading being a universal psychological good.

References: 

• Adams, D. (2021). The Salmon of Doubt.  Pan Macmillan.
• Corimer, D. (2024). Learning in a Time of Abundance.  John Hopkins University Press.
• D’Arcy, P. (2017).  What the mysterious symbols made by early humans can teach us about how we evolved.  https://ideas.ted.com/what-the-mysterious-symbols-made-by-early-humans-can-teach-us-about-how-we-evolved/ 
• Graeme Paton. (2011, March 22). Gove’s 50-book reading target for all pupils; Academic demands ‘too low for too long’. The Daily Telegraph (London). 
• Swift, C. (2016). Negotiating contexts for reading: becoming ‘someone who reads’. University of York.  https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/15327/ 
• Wolf, M. (2018). Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World [Online]. HarperCollins. https://www.perlego.com/book/1212012/reader-come-home-the-reading-brain-in-a-digital-world-pdf 

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