Every day, I hear more news (both panic and hope) about ChatGPT. I’ve loved the articles some of you have sent me about how other professors use this Artificial Intelligence chatbot in the classroom. As I ask ChatGPT various prompts, I find its limitations immediately. But I’m still fascinated by what it can do. I used these prompts today with clever, efficient, and smart responses:
Write a chiasmus using the word “education.” (Education is not just about filling the mind but mindfully filling the soul.)
Write a paragraph using two analogies to explain what good writing is.
Give me a marketing plan for my next book.
How do I make the best avocado toast?
Make me a summer playlist with music from the 1980’s.
Write me a poem in the style of Emily Dickinson.
Write me a paragraph that sounds like Holden Caulfield. (So good!)
How do I get a better night’s sleep?
Try these prompts, and you’ll see how smart and fun this bot is!
But the limitations? It cannot find and write accurate citations for recent research. It cannot use rhetorical appeals itself. I asked it, for example, to write a paragraph appealing to ethos, pathos, logos, and kairos (persuasive techniques we use in writing courses). While the bot can define and explain each word, it tells me it cannot use them itself. It find the appeals “manipulative.” I laughed at that. So students cannot ask ChatGPT to write an introduction to an essay on prison reform using all the rhetorical appeals; it cannot do it. It can only report and compile. It cannot think about audience and use persuasive techniques in the way we teach writing in rhetoric classes.
I’m also finding that the way I teach writing nearly always stumps the bot. I teach my students to use repetition, varied sentence patterns, strong verbs, advanced grammar, and strategic pacing to create a written voice. When I asked the bot to write a paragraph “in the voice of a scholar” it used more complex diction (using words like longstanding, phenomena, rigor, integrity), but it used many weak verb constructions and nominalization (all which I discourage). It also failed to use any advanced grammar besides an occasional comma. Here’s an example from the bot: “While the process of research can be challenging and time-consuming, the satisfaction of making a meaningful contribution to my field makes it all worthwhile.” I would have students revise to move the verbs to the front of the sentence and condense like this: While the time-consuming research process challenges me, I value contributing meaningfully to my field.
I can imagine using ChatGPT to critique writing, but so far, it doesn’t produce the kind of writing I like to see in a college writing classroom.