AI literacy won’t save us: a reply to Bannister (2025)

Re-Reading the World: Why Critical Literacy Must Accompany the “Back to Basics” Movement

Recent literacy reforms in the United States have prioritized systematic phonics as part of the “science of reading,” backed by extensive evidence on the importance of phonemic awareness and decoding for early reading development. While these skills are essential, narrowing literacy to mechanics alone overlooks its broader cultural and civic purposes. Drawing on Freire’s (1970/2000) conception of literacy as both “reading the word and the world,” this paper argues for a balanced framework that integrates foundational instruction with comprehension, knowledge building, and critical literacy. Building on the work of Luke (2000) and Vasquez (2014), it positions literacy as both a technical skill and a social practice, vital for countering misinformation, addressing inequities, and fostering democratic participation. The paper concludes with practical applications that extend the science of reading into what Freire envisioned as education for freedom.

It’s important, but...

In this article, we provide an analysis of discourses for and against the second language (L2) requirements on American university and college campuses. Facing enrollment declines in language programs, professional advocacy for L2 learning has shifted from liberal arts education ideals to practical benefits associated with multilingualism. Such benefits are often recognized by the discourses that attack the L2 requirement, according to our critical analysis. Often organized in the discursive pattern of “language learning is important, but…,” these discourses tend to argue that 1) L2 learning should be a choice and not a requirement, 2) the L2 requirement is a source of stress and a burden, and 3) the L2 requirement does not aim at full proficiency and therefore achieves nothing. We follow this discourse analysis with a reflective case study of our own experience advocating for the L2 requirement on our university campus, where we have encountered all three of these arguments. Our goal therefore is to show that these discourses are not unique to one institution, but rather common ways of attacking the L2 requirement. We conclude with implications for sustainable and meaningful advocacy that can directly counteract these skepticisms.

[Insert Prompt for Title Here]: Executive Writing and AI-Mediated Philosophy

Abstract This paper explores the contours of AI-mediated philosophy by engaging with both enhancement and diminishment accounts of LLM use from an interactionist perspective. It argues that using LLMs in philosophical writing does not simply strengthen or weaken the tasks, skills, and methods involved in philosophical research; rather, it reorganizes them, potentially combining the displacement of established abilities with the emergence of new practices. The article is divided into two parts. The first part expands the “cognitive enhancement versus cognitive diminishment” debate to consider the potential impact of LLMs on philosophical elaboration (Section 1), introducing the concept of “executive writing” and the fictional case of “Eyde & Second Thought” (Section 2). The second part highlights two core practices elicited by executive writing, analyzing the cognitive reorganization they entail: prompting, conceived as a way of thinking (Section 3), and supervising, understood as a meta-authorial practice (Section 4). Finally, the conclusion addresses the institutional and educational conditions under which LLMs may be incorporated into philosophical research.

Plato, AI, and the art of persuasion: education through rhetoric revisited for the age of generative AI

Generative AI is relatively new, but the way it produces utterances is strikingly familiar. Plato distinguishes Socratic teaching, which aims at truth, and the modes of ‘teaching’ employed by various sophists, rhetoricians, and orators, which aim at plausibility and winning arguments. Generative AI, like these latter figures, works by sounding plausible. This paper argues that there are fruitful comparisons to be made between the rhetoricians-as-teachers portrayed by Plato, and generative AI for education. Five key areas will be considered: (1) truth versus plausibility as aims; (2) how plausibility is established by wide consensus, with implications for AI bias; (3) how the utterances of the rhetorician or AI chat interface can be seen as a form of mimesis, with consequences for what is meant by ‘conversation’; (4) Cognitive and psychic dangers when mimesis becomes an habitual mode of interaction; and (5) the hype and concomitant economic pull that comes with the arrival of the rhetorician-as-teacher and AI education tools, respectively. It is argued that these comparisons have meaningful implications for AI in education, both as a diagnosis of a current state and as a more normative steer for future developments.

ASPECTS OF COLOR-EXPRESSING LEXEMES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY OF ENGLISH AND UZBEK

Between Panic and Hype: Disclose and Defend Pedagogy for AI Writing in Political Science Classrooms in the Global South

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has provoked polarized reactions in higher education, ranging from fears of plagiarism and the “death of the college essay” to claims of pedagogical transformation. Political science, in which writing remains central to learning, is at the center of this debate. This study advances a critical middle ground, arguing that generative AI should be treated as neither an existential threat nor a pedagogical shortcut but instead as a tool whose use must be structured around accountability, critical literacy, and equity. By synthesizing scholarship on AI in higher education, writing-as-process pedagogy, and educational inequality, this article challenges the “replacement” logic that equates writing with text production and examines the limits of framing AI as a neutral assistant. It introduces Disclose and Defend Pedagogy, a design framework that organizes pedagogical responses to AI along two dimensions—openness and accountability—and incorporates equity-aware practices related to access and language. A practice-grounded, instructor-led case study from a political science course taught in Lebanon during Spring 2025 illustrates how disclosure requirements, process-oriented assessment, and classroom dialogue made AI use visible and accountable in a resource-constrained, crisis-affected setting while also highlighting the practical limits and implementation lessons of this approach. The study concludes that Global South contexts clarify what is at stake in AI integration: safeguarding responsibility, judgment, and voice in political science writing while equipping students to use and interrogate generative tools critically under unequal conditions of access.