The Central Utah Writing Project Open Institute is a three (6) credit, cohort-based hybrid learning community offered in partnership with the Central Utah Writing Project and the BYU Public School Partnership. The course will run from May 2025 to Spring 2026.

This year’s inquiry theme and cohort title is Integrating AI into Secondary Writing Instruction.

This learning community will address pressing questions about the implications of Generative AI (GenAI), including Large Language Models (LLMs) and chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Co-Pilot, or Google’s Gemini, for writing instruction in secondary classrooms. As part of the cohort, participants will become familiar with the history of GenAI and the range of tools available today. They will also identify and evaluate key values and principles of writing instruction as well as a pedagogical framework for considering how to integrate technologies such as GenAI in classroom instruction and their work with students. To demonstrate their understanding of these principles and frameworks, participants will propose, carry out, and assess the impact of curricular revisions to their current courses that thoughtfully integrate GenAI into their instruction.

Directed by teacher leaders who are CUWP Fellows, the strength of this workshop comes from the community of teachers who participate. Together we will cultivate a dynamic environment to hone both our writing practice and our pedagogy. We know that the best teachers of teachers are other teachers, and that teachers who are writers themselves are the most effective writing teachers. Our aim is for teachers to learn together and come away from this institute with a renewed excitement about and commitment to writing and the teaching of writing.