Professor Lisa Reilly Explores AI as a Tool for Writing Instruction

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Following two days of intensive workshops for the AI Faculty Guides at the start of the 2024-25 academic year, Lisa Reilly was eager to apply what she had learned. She decided to integrate AI into her classes, using it as a tool to teach writing. 

We recently caught up with Reilly, Commonwealth Professor of Architectural History at UVA School of Architecture, along with a few of her students, to discuss their experiences with AI-assisted writing. We also discussed Reilly’s involvement in the AI Faculty Guides Program, a new initiative led by UVA's Office of the Executive Vice President and Provost in collaboration with the Center for Teaching Excellence (CTE). Reilly and Assistant Professor Kyle Schumann represent the School of Architecture in this university-wide effort. 

As an AI Faculty Guide, one of Reilly’s responsibilities is to seed discussions about AI among faculty. To that end, she has hosted two workshops with colleagues from the School of Architecture and the Departments of Art and Medieval Studies. “One of the best things was the really rich discussions about AI,” she reflected. Notably, Reilly was the only one actively using AI in her teaching, underscoring the importance of these conversations in shaping how faculty engage with emerging technologies. 

Reilly’s approach to AI in the classroom is rooted in inquiry and experimentation. “My goal is to help students develop a critical understanding of AI’s role in writing and research,” she explained. Rather than viewing AI as a replacement for traditional skills, she encourages students to see it as a tool for idea generation, structural organization, and iterative refinement. Reilly was surprised to learn that over 80% of businesses expect college graduates to have a critical understanding of AI. “We’re not doing enough to train students on the uses of AI. Saying that AI is cheating isn’t particularly helpful, because as soon as students enter the work force, the expectation is they know how to use this technology.”   

To further inform her teaching, Reilly and the other AI Faculty Guides spent last semester reading Teaching with AI: A Practical Guide to a New Era of Human Learning by José Antonio Bowen and C. Edward Watson. She found the book, along with other resources like CTE’s Teaching Hub gallery, Generative AI in Teaching and Learning, to be valuable in shaping her approach to AI-assisted pedagogy. 

Students in Reilly’s courses have responded with curiosity and thoughtful engagement. Some have found AI tools useful for outlining their ideas, while others have questioned the reliability of AI-generated content. We spoke with Anthony Caruso and Isabel Hamilton, third-year architecture students who took Reilly’s seminar Lay Piety: Religion in Everyday Medieval Life (ARH4591/ARTH4591) last fall. 

Caruso reflected on the structured approach to using AI in the course: 

"We used Microsoft Copilot to aid various stages of the research and writing process alongside our manual efforts. Specifically, we experimented with AI for brainstorming ideas, annotating sources, outlining, and peer review. Each step was done first by us, and then we used AI to compare outputs and assess its usefulness. Personally, I found it most helpful for brainstorming and outlining but didn’t trust it for source annotation or peer review. We were not allowed to use AI to write our actual papers." 

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Some of Reilly’s students initially approached AI with skepticism, concerned about its implications for academic integrity. Isabel Hamilton was among them, hesitant at first but ultimately appreciative of Reilly’s openness to experimenting with Copilot. “My other classes have taken a cautious approach to AI or dismissed it altogether,” she noted. “It was helpful that in this course, AI was a clearly defined and transparent part of the learning process. We were testing it together, with clear boundaries set by Professor Reilly, which made it feel more like a tool than a shortcut.” 

Beyond her teaching, Reilly is also experimenting with AI in her own research. As she works on a new book, she has begun using AI to assist with organization and revision. “I recently drafted a 50-page section, and I’m going to ask AI to outline it as a way to reorganize it,” she shared. Just as she encourages her students to use AI as a tool for refining their writing, she sees its potential to support her own scholarly work.

Reilly’s work aligns with broader AI explorations at the School of Architecture. Last spring in the Landscape Architecture Foundation Studio IV (LAR 7020), taught by Brad Cantrell, students used AI image-generation tools like MidJourney and Stable Diffusion to craft speculative narratives about ecological resilience. The Hybrids showcase, a forthcoming exhibition of work and images representing the School of Architecture, also utilized AI in the curation process, highlighting the school’s growing engagement with digital tools in creative and research contexts.

By integrating AI into writing pedagogy, Reilly is equipping students with the skills to navigate an evolving academic and professional landscape. Her work not only enhances students’ writing abilities but also fosters a deeper understanding of AI’s possibilities and pitfalls in academia and beyond.