Abigail Michelini
Assignments & Activities Archive
Assignment Description
This assignment brings generative AI into the writing classroom with the goals of learning about what it can and cannot do well, enhancing students’ ability to critique it, and engaging it responsibly without compromising critical thinking. The best place for this assignment is in the second half of the semester, after students have read and engaged with a variety of texts. In this assignment, students first identify a text (e.g. short story or poem) they connected with from the course and write about why they liked or selected it. They then ask generative AI (e.g. ChatGPT) to write a research paper with secondary sources that makes an argument about or interprets their selected text. They work with the generative AI platform, reading its responses and altering their prompts to try to produce the best possible research paper it can write on the text. Because students have established a personal, unique, and human connection to the text first, they are well-suited to critique and help shape the text written by generative AI. Once students are satisfied with the generative AI written paper, or they do not think it can produce a better paper, they examine the generative AI paper on four points: critique, praise, viewpoints, and source evaluation. Ultimately, they write their own paper, summarizing their analysis of the generative AI paper and then returning to their own specific connection with the text. Additionally, they must include two or more secondary sources in their own paper to support either their own points or a solid point that generative AI made, but it did not have legitimate sources for.