How to Use ChatGPT in Class

 From this Edutopia article: "Some ideas for Using ChatGPT in Middle and High School Classes"

SPOT THE COMPUTER ESSAY 

John Warner, blogger for Inside Higher Ed and author of Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities, reminds us that these tools are only rearranging words and not applying feeling, heart, or other emotional components; the results lack energy. In a language arts classroom, we might describe such a piece of writing as having a weak “voice.”

For a playful exercise, share two or three pieces of human writing from the past year or two and slip in an example from ChatGPT, and have students discuss what makes these examples human—or decidedly not. Nuance, passion, and, perhaps, even fallibility will be clues that students can investigate.

USE PRIMARY SOURCES AND FIRST-PERSON ACCOUNTS 

My colleague Joy Xu in the English department asks students to interview someone and connect this person’s experience to a text. First of all, the narrative/expository combination provides more points of entry for student writing.

Second, this synthesis ensures that no machine prompt can provide language to express new learning.

COMPARE TWO READINGS 

Peter Greene, a senior writer for Forbes magazine and a high school English teacher of nearly 40 years, suggests that we require students “to compare and contrast a pair of literary works (provided the comparison is not a time-worn one).”

Students will create unique essays that demonstrate their learning, the connections they’ve made, and the meaning. Again, because these AI tools are trained on what can be found on the internet, the rarer the story, the rarer the computer-generated analysis.

EXPECT CLASSROOM DISCUSSION TO BE USED AS A RESOURCE 

This idea, loosely based on another Peter Greene suggestion, considers a key component of what he calls “authentic writing” class discussions. He recommends that the discussion “[become] one of the texts being considered.”

A rather positive result that would likely emerge from this idea would be students paying closer attention during classroom conversations. Dare I say they may even take notes?