Pen and Paper Play: Countering ChatGPT with 20th Century Close Reading and Writing Practices

• In Event: Imagining the Future(s) of Close Reading

Abstract

1. Objectives
This paper explores the future of literary analysis in secondary and post-secondary classrooms through close writing practices. Such exercises ask students to attend to language at microscopic levels, focusing on aesthetic and grammatical choices at the level of word, punctuation and sentence. By inviting learners to look closely at compositional choices, this research posits alternatives to technologically-mediated forms of writing and analysis. In doing so, the project discusses close writing in relation to compositional care, attention, and its potential for reinvigorating close reading in the classroom.

2. Theoretical Framework
Close writing discourse draws on pedagogical theories of close reading (e.g., Gallop, 2000) and extant research on writing pedagogy (Luce-Kapler et al., 2006). This paper builds on the authors’ (2022) theorizing of the concept, as well as recent uptake amongst international scholars (Authors, 2025), to reposition writing as an analytic practice which aids both students’ capacities as writers and their development as readers. That link—between the development of literary writing and reading practices—is crucial to theorizing what close writing offers today, and going forward: an opportunity to engage deeply with language that differs drastically from that afforded by technologically-mediated practices.

3. & 4. Modes of Inquiry & Objects of Study
This paper is an analytic essay rooted in the tradition of humanities-oriented research, which
“investigate[s] the history, meanings, values, and discourses that human beings employ in the production of social life.” (AERA, 2009, p. 482). In this vein, we take up theoretical considerations of writing and textual analysis, taking as objects of study theories of close writing and putting them into conversation with emergent discourses on AI-integrated writing in classrooms.

5. Findings
Our study suggests that, given its capacity to summon and arrange whole creative products on command, the use of large language models negates much of the potential of compositional process altogether. As Warner (2025) argues, such models do not “write”, per se; they generate syntax. But as the long tradition of close reading demonstrates, syntax, among other formal components of language, is not incidental to meaning—rather it is precisely the site of it, which is why teachers of close reading ask students to linger there.
Close writing teaches writing differently. Such exercises, often conducted with highly accessible technologies or analogue materials, prompt careful attention to language and provide structured opportunities that demystify writing practices and focus textual spaces during their formation. As such, they are a critical precedent to experiences with technologically-mediated writing and reading.

6. Scholarly Significance
This study contributes to scholarly discourse at the intersection of reading and writing pedagogies, and responds to their disruption by emergent AI technologies. Coupling considerations of close reading with classroom writing practices, it expands possibilities for textual analysis in secondary and post-secondary curricular contexts. At a moment in which writing pedagogies, and literary studies more broadly, face existential threats, this paper delineates paths for their sustenance and evolution.

Authors

• Scott Jarvie, San Jose State University

• Michael Lockett, Michigan State University