Generative AI and the Honors Thesis: A Rhetorical Framework for GAI Policy, Pedagogy, and Equity

Authors

• Sean Chadwick, University of ArizonaFollow

Date of this Version

Spring 2025

Document Type

Article

Citation

Journal of the National Collegiate Honors Council (2025) 26(1): 145–171

Abstract

This article offers a rhetorical framework for understanding how honors students engage with the capstone thesis following the emergence of generative AI (GAI) tools. Author reviews the nature of the honors thesis and analyzes some rhetorical models for thinking about GAI and literacy before offering a heuristic framework identifying four interdependent skill categories—writing, social, executive, and subject matter—that shape students’ thesis work. Drawing on findings from an interview study, this framework clarifies how GAI tools interface with existing thesis practices and pain points, allowing honors practitioners to better articulate our values, evaluate use cases, and craft GAI-informed policy. As a signature cultural practice and symbol of undergraduate achievement, the thesis is defined by both its prescribed literacy tasks and its larger purpose of ceremonious social initiation into a community of learned peers. The rhetorical genre of the thesis has historically expanded to accommodate a shifting terrain of social, economic, and technological arrangements and is likely to expand and incorporate GAI tools rather than be supplanted by them. Currently, students navigate a fraught milieu of contradictory messaging and limited support, but honors institutions have a unique opportunity to leverage rhetorical frameworks to help understand and address this moment.