ChatGPT and online writing environments

Like many of you, I've been inundated with information about ChatGPT. For some, the sky is falling. For others, these generative AI language modeling technologies represent opportunity.

For many of us in the writing instructional world, the response is kind of this: Told ya so.

ChatGPT is more powerful than other AI apps, stretching way back to that old chatterbot Eliza. It can wow and amaze--to a point. If you ask it canned school writing topics/prompts, you'll get back canned responses. What's been surprising to me is how many people will say, "This looks like what a student could have written." That depends on what you've asked those students to write.

If you put students in conversational, multi-audience writing environments in which they write to discuss a variety of texts, not to prove knowledge mastery (or even that they've simply read), even another human trying to help a student cheater would struggle.

Such environments are the foundation of many online writing courses (OWCs).

In online writing instruction (OWI) workshops I conduct for faculty, I have a slide for when people inevitable express concerns about about plagiarism in the type of asynchronous OWCs we focused on. The slide would initially be blank, and then using a Powerpoint animation, a big red heart appears. "Colleagues," I would say, "If someone else is doing all this work, it's gotta be love!"

My point was that the work being done in my asynchronous writing courses was so extensive and involved that anyone who tried to replicate it, week in and week out, for another student would basically have to take the whole course in that student's stead. They would really have to like that person! I guess I could have alternated my big heart with a dollar sign, because such substitute studenting could only be done for love or money.

We may be worried about ChatGPT's ability to respond to writing questions/prompts such as "Describe Hamlet's indecision" or "provide reasons why you are for/against gun control," but teachers should always be concerned about student responses to these kinds of prompts.

To paraphrase crudely: It's the assignment, stupid. (I wrote about this in lay terms on my other blog.)

If you have students writing in multi-audience, multi-text environments such as class message boards, you're going to provide them with very specific rhetorical situations that it would be difficult for someone to engage in without clearly appearing out of place.

I'm back almost to day one on this blog: Use discussions/message boards and other asynchronous environments. Here is a brief example of a prompt I used in my first-year argument writing course plugged into ChatGPT and the AI model's response; I include comments in the text:

Peer review challenges [*My prompt]

Dear class, 

DePeter’s chapter focuses on providing “meaningful” peer review (Reid mentions review too). What has your experience been like through your school years as a peer reviewer? In terms of being a reviewee, what sort of specific revision challenges do you tend to encounter during the drafting process? How do you work with those challenges? 

I asked you this week to read Mai. What peer review advice might you offer this author? 

Thanks,
Prof. Warnock 

ChatGPT response 

As a language model, I do not have personal experience as a peer reviewer or reviewee [*AI honesty]. However, I can provide information on best practices for peer review. 

DePeter and Reid [These are readings from Writing Spaces, a superb anthology series designed for student writers to help them think about and study writing as subject matter] emphasize the importance of providing meaningful feedback during the peer review process [*Peer review is only mentioned tangentially in Reid's chapter]. This includes focusing on the strengths and weaknesses of the manuscript [*The word "manuscript" doesn't appear in Reid or DePeter--it's a jarring, out-of-context word] , providing specific and actionable suggestions for revision, and approaching the review with a constructive and supportive attitude [*This is nice,  highly general stuff about peer review but not specific to DePeter; in short, anyone could have written it, and it doesn't answer the prompt]. 

In terms of specific revision challenges, authors may struggle with organization, clarity, and coherence of their manuscript [*Again]. They may also have difficulty with grammar and punctuation. To work with these challenges, authors should review their manuscript for these issues and consider seeking feedback from beta readers or a writing group [*Both of these terms are also jarring and acontextual considering the readings. These comments are, bluntly, much less interesting that what actual students said, some of whom had visceral, emotional experiences with peer review].

As for offering advice to Mai [*Mai is an award-winning first-year student essay found in Drexel's in-house annual publication, The 33rd], I would recommend that they [*They AI smartly chooses "they"] focus on the organization and coherence of their manuscript [Again, "manuscript"; Mai's piece is clearly an essay or even paper]. They may also consider seeking feedback from beta readers or a writing group [*Again, both of these terms are jarring considering the readings] to help identify any areas that may be confusing or unclear. Additionally, It's important for them to be open to feedback and willing to make revisions based on the feedback they receive. [This advice is obviously not specific to Mai's essay. Students in my course provided advice about her use of personal reflection as well as the kinds of sources she used. Responses like this make it evident the respondent did not read Mai's essay].

ChatGPT is indeed amazing and teachers are finding great applications for it: I've already collected scores of links. Teachers, it won't ruin our lives--but it may sharpen our teaching, if we let it.