ENG 101 WEEK FIVE

ENG 101 WEEK FIVE

PRODUCTIVE & EFFICIENT WAYS TO USE GENERATIVE AI

WHY?

What is Career Readiness?

Why Do Students Cheat?

COST/BENEFIT ANALYSIS

BENEFIT #1:

Using AI will get my work done quickly and free up time and mental space for me to work on other things.

COST:

Using AI will put your grade at risk even if you don't get caught using AI.

• AI writing is, AT BEST, a C level of writing.
• AI has been shown to be racist and sexist.
• AI lacks the ability to Read A Room.

BENEFIT #2

I don't understand what we're doing in class, so I will just let AI do the work so I don't have to ask any questions and embarrass myself.

COST:

If you don't know what's going on, how will you make sure AI knows what's going on? It can't operate by itself!

• There are no stupid questions.
• Chances are good that if you have a question, someone else has a similar question.
• If I am not helping you understand the material, then I need to know to do better.

BENEFIT #3

I am not planning on going into a field where writing is important and/or I don't care about this class so I'm not investing in it.

COST:

You may find yourself far more invested in this course than you wanted to be - if you fail and have to take it again.

• Written communication is an important part of every field.
• Written communication is the top career competency across the nation.

How much time are you really saving? How much free mental space did you create?

While the specter of getting caught looms large?

ChatGPT (OpenAI) – offers free and subscriber access Claude (Anthropic) – favored by business Grok (X formerly Twitter) – offers free and subscriber access Perplexity – chatbot + search engine Gemini (Google) – chatbot + search engine – can integrate with Gmail (Is available for free to AWC students) Meta AI (Facebook) Apple – most limited Pi.ai (Inflection AI) – this is my favorite to use in class and personally – emotional support, kindness, diplomacy, and humor

Prompt #1

Write an analysis of the Disney Pixar movie Wall-E.

What is missing from this essay? What grade would you give this essay?

Prompt #2

Write an analysis of the Disney Pixar movie Wall-E using credible sources.

What is missing from this essay? What grade would you give this essay?

DAY 2

Copypasta the sources from the machine here to look up on day 2

Prompt #3

Using credible sources write a persuasive argument for adding Wall-E to a reboot of Saving Private Ryan.

What is missing from the essay? What grade would you give it?

Using AI to Revise

Find the Paragraph for AI Revision Practice in the Course Resources OneDrive and copypasta it into the prompt box and ask AI to "revise this paragraph for clarity and show your work".

Using AI to Narrow a Topic

When someone tells you to narrow your topic, it means that your topic is too broad to deal with in a short paper. It can also mean that loads of people are debating your topic and there is a ton of information about it and you need to figure out what your rhetorical stance is so you know where to look for information.

Using AI to brainstorm

Coggle & MindMeister are good free apps that will generate colorful and useful mind maps for brainstorming. Generative AI can help you understand aspects of the assignment by breaking dow the prompt and identifying key aspects. Encourage students to consider their personal interests, strengths and prior knowledge in relation to the assignment. It can give students a list of topic idea and suggest specific subtopics within those broad categories. Generative AI can ask you thought-provoking questions about a particular topic to help you find an avenue to explore. It says it can help students with research, but we've already seen some of what it does with sources.

Using AI to do research

Before we can talk about using AI to do research, we need to talk about how it is done "manually" first. It's always better to be pretty decent at walking before you try to start running!

You can use generative AI to create outlines and organize your ideas. You can get help with checking citations. Just remember not to trust 100%. AI can help you define terms, understand information, and explain technical terms. AI can help find relevant sources for you to check.