On South Park, Pong, and Chat GPT4:

A tool to teach writing in a college English class

By Jamie Steckelberg

#Chat GPT4, #Pong, #South Park, #college English

I’m thinking of the first few days of class last spring. My college freshmen had finished discussing ethos, pathos, and logos in one of the Proctor & Gamble commercials they chose. The energy in the classroom was still high. I locked eyes with Wyatt. He was a clever student who at least pretended to laugh at some of my jokes and took time after class to chat with me about various things. We quickly bonded. One day I asked students about their experience with Chat GPT4. Wyatt smiled broadly. He was proud to share that he had successfully used Chat GPT4 to write most of his high school papers, without the knowledge of his teachers. When I asked more about the reasoning why he chose to use this tool, he explained that it saved him so much time. He did not necessarily turn in the results of Chat GPT4; instead, he explained, he would “juege (sounds like a slant rhyme with rouge) it up.” Since I love Ru Paul, I decided to forgive Wyatt for his past writing mistakes. He thought his high school English teacher hated him. Clearly, he did not care to think about, discuss, or reason what the “green light” in The Great Gatsby meant. Also, any sense of ethics did not enter Wyatt’s mind until he entered my classroom. Then he discussed how he would not use Chat GPT4 to write his college assignments.

I asked other students what they thought about this idea as a topic, and some students seemed enthused. Another student I’ll call Ben first learned about this tool from watching a South Park show. Ben explained: “The episode featured one of the main characters, Stan, having trouble with his girlfriend, Wendy, feeling appreciated. This was because Wendy would see the texts her friend was being sent by her own boyfriend and were leagues more engaging than Stan’s texts. To remedy this situation, Stan asks the other boyfriend how he texts his girlfriend so well. It is revealed that the boyfriend is using Chat GPT to craft responses and isn’t even reading the texts he has sent or is sending; instead, he just lets Chat GPT handle it. In the episode, Chat GPT isn’t only being used to interact with the boys’ girlfriends more personally but is also used in the classroom to write essays. The school becomes weary about the improved grades and hires a Chat GPT detector who ends up being a person along the lines of a goofy ghost hunter. The AI detector senses that Wendy’s phone has Chat GPT writing on it (because of the texts Stan sent her) and detains her to try to get her to confess to cheating on essays. Stan decides he must formulate a plan to come clean to Wendy, save her from the AI detector, and still be seen as the hero. Stan is unsuccessful in developing a plan when he realizes he should have Chat GPT create the plan. The AI’s plan ends up working and everything is returned to normal.”

I had some ideas for where the next unit was going, but I also like to be flexible. My original plan was to introduce students to various themes to have them choose from and to follow the writing prompts for the semester long portfolio. I had recently read some articles on the latest phenomenon and been in conversation with colleagues about it. While I did not feel like an expert on this topic or anything technology related, I thought perhaps I could allow students a choice to focus on Chat GPT4 as a topic. I imagined Chat GPT4 as something of an invisible floppy disc attached to a word processor with green flashing lights that emitted results faster than Pong. I shook off my fear of the unknown alien monster and redesigned the rest of my units to include it. I had students read an article on Chat GPT4, summarize it (without using Chat GPT4 to summarize it), and respond with critical analysis of the article. The students could choose between a Forbes article “No, Chat GPT Is Not The End of High School English, But Here’s The Useful Tool It Offers Teachers,” or Daniel Halpern’s The Atlantic’s article “The End of High School English.”

The Atlantic article discussed the historical ways students have tried to cheat the system, for example, by using Cliff Notes. One main point I found interesting is: “I suspect that test runs with ChatGPT depend in part on the richness of the prompt given, which in turn makes me wonder how rich and detailed the prompts given by the cheating high school students that we’re all imagining and fretting about might be. If they put a great degree of thought into designing a prompt, would that not mean that they were doing something involving real learning?”

I scaffolded the assignments into smaller sections. For the preview and discussion paragraph, I asked students to write one paragraph on:

What prejudgments have you already made? Tell me why you want to write on this issue. Consider part two of the writing project where you will conduct either an interview, create a survey, craft a series of questions, or practice a set of new behaviors. For example, you may decide that you want to take a digital break, learn yoga, try a new study habit. Read two of your peers’ responses and respond to them.

Ben discussed his reasons for choosing the topic of Chat GPT4. He stated: “Some things I already know about the topic are that it is a tool not created with the intention of helping students cheat, but it can be utilized to do so. Also, I know that many educators are panicking due to the work of the chatbot being mostly undetectable. Some prejudgments I have already made about this topic are that the threat the chatbot poses is being blown way out of proportion and that it can be used more as a tool than a means of deception. I wanted to write about this issue because it is very current, and I see it constantly whether it be on the news or the new episode of South Park.” As Ben described his first exposure to Chat GPT4, I decided definitively that I did not want to be seen as a “panicking educator.” I even reimagined South Park as The Simpsons.

For part 2 of the writing project, I encouraged students to write various prompts as part of this project. CHAT GPT: There are several options for you to explore. If you don’t have an account, you will need to visit CHAT GPT 4 and sign up. I have created three different questions for you to essentially “feed” to CHAT. However, feel free to create your own writing prompt. Here are my examples:

• Write a scholarship application to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater for a scholarship for first generation college students. Explain what it means to be a first-generation college student and how receiving a scholarship will help you to afford attending.
• Write a letter of application to transfer to the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. Discuss the importance of learning how to use CHAT GPT 4 as a learning tool for critical thinking. Share how this experience has developed your interest in computer science.
• As a college student, it is important to learn about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Write a three- page essay for an introductory sociology class that discusses the importance of intersectionality and marginalized communities.

Then develop a writing prompt for university students. Submit to CHAT GPT. Record and analyze results. Write a reflection and analysis of the results.

Ben submitted several different prompts to feed to Chat GPT 4. He chose to create some of his own prompts, which I think allowed him to analyze the results even more in depth. After he received the results and analyzed them, he concluded: “I believe that if your first attempt on Chat GPT does not come out exactly right the first time, you should regenerate the response with the same prompt a few times before any changes.” This response was similar to Wyatt’s conclusion that the results of the Chat sometimes can become more cohesive after being more specific and clearer with the prompt itself.

In the second part of this blog post, I will share additional mini-assignments that led up to the final portfolio, the critical thinking students shared, what I have learned, as well as my hope to continue to refine my thinking and teaching about Chat GPT4.