An essay this spring on Slate came with a provocative headline: “I Humanize Chatbot-Written College Application Essays for a Living. I Have a Warning for Everyone.”
In the piece, the author talks about how applicants hire her to take the essays they’ve used AI to write, and make them sound more like a human composed them.
Jessica Early is a professor of English education at Arizona State University and said she holds nothing against the author, but found the piece pretty sad as a statement on where we are, in terms of thinking about writing — and that students feel like they need to outsource their own stories and writing in this competitive world.
The Show spoke with her earlier and asked if she sees a difference between a college applicant asking a human to write an essay for them, and having AI write the essay and then having a human editor go through it to make it seem more authentic.
Full conversation
JESSICA EARLY: I think there is a difference. I think the goal of the college admissions essay — and there’s different kinds of genres like this that are high stakes — is to show who you are in connection to this college or university that you want to attend. And the university doesn’t want to read a formula, whether it’s written by you or whether it’s written by a chatbot.
And the ultimate goal in the best-case scenario is that students are writing their stories and they’re telling who they are, and they’ve honed their voices and craft as writers so that they feel confident doing so, and that they share their essays with trusted readers — whether they’re editors or, you know.
MARK BRODIE: Maybe their parents.
JESSICA EARLY: Aunts or uncles — and they get helpful feedback. But I think if you’re creating something in AI to tell your story, it’s not going to be good writing and it’s not going to be a solid admissions essay. And then if you’re further removing yourself from the story by hiring an editor to read something that you haven’t written, then you’re getting further and further away from your own voice and story.
MARK BRODIE: Well, it’s interesting you talk about finding your voice and, you know, you’ve been writing for a long time, I’ve been writing for a long time. I’ve been trying to think back to when I was, you know, 16, 17, 18, writing these kinds of essays to get into college. I’m pretty sure that I had not honed the voice that I have now or really even anything near it.
And you mention, you know, high-stakes situations before. This is a pretty high-stakes situation for a lot of students. I wonder if it’s maybe not surprising that students who are, you know, maybe not confident in their voice or haven’t quite figured out what their writing voice is, when they’re needing to use it for such a high-stakes thing, that they’re turning to another outlet?
JESSICA EARLY: I don’t think it’s a surprise at all. And I think it’s actually a sad example of how we are not preparing students in the ways that we should be to teach writing or to write in the world. And that schools have sort of systematically taken out the opportunities for students to use their voice. Nowhere in the world should an 18-year-old or 17-year-old writer feel fully formed as a writer or completely confident and colleges don’t expect them to have these unbelievably crafted, perfect, smooth-voiced texts.
But they want the text to be authentic to who they are at that age. And very much what we’re finding in the research in schools across the country is that the only kinds of writing that students are doing — with some exceptions, of course, great teachers — is that students are more and more being asked to write formulaic kinds of writing that remove their voice completely.
So they have to write five paragraphs and literary analysis and kinds of writing that are scripted, and they don’t get to hone that voice; they don’t get to share their own stories.
MARK BRODIE: Is it too much of a stretch to suggest that students in many cases — again, not all, but in at least some cases — are being taught to write like AI? Just listening to the way you described, you know, the five-paragraph essay kind of formulaic sounds kind of like AI.
JESSICA EARLY: 100%. And for years and years now, we’ve continued to teach students that writing is the five-paragraph essay or it’s a formula or it’s something we can break down into sentences — do this, thesis paragraph and then these three supporting statements.
And don’t get me wrong, there are strategies that are really helpful in learning to teach writing particularly in the beginning, but we write in the world across all different genres for different purposes, for different audiences and we need to give students the opportunity to do that.
We also need to give them opportunities to share the lived experience they have and the voices they come with and the languages they know. And if we remove the ability to practice and to do that and to experience the joy of writing, then of course we’re going to turn to AI. And the thing that AI does really well is sort of the basic kinds of writing.
MARK BRODIE: Do you think the toothpaste can go back in the tube on this one? I mean, do you think we’re past the point of no return on not just college applicants but just, you know, students in general using AI in ways that maybe they shouldn’t be?
JESSICA EARLY: No, I actually think AI isn’t bad to use. I use it all the time as a tool. If I used it for my actual writing, my writing would be terrible and it wouldn’t get published.
But I’m also, you know, but I’m also asked to do things in my work — publish articles, write memos, write emails, write grants — that are really sophisticated kinds of writing that require my expertise that I’ve honed over years. And for students in order to get there, we need to give them opportunities and give them topics not that we care about but that they care about and that they’re invested in. The more students have agency and interest in what they’re writing, the more they can hone their voice.
So I really — my call is to sort of expand the way we think about the teaching of writing in schools to help prepare students to think of and use AI as a tool but in smart ways rather than replacing their own ideas and their voice.
MARK BRODIE: Is that a level of nuance that can be difficult for at least some students to grasp in terms of using AI, as you say, as a tool, but not using it to write your paper?
JESSICA EARLY: It is a level of nuance, but it’s something we can show students how to do. And I do this in my classrooms, and a lot of wonderful teachers are doing this in so many amazing ways.
It’s like having students use AI and then thinking through, like, what is it offering as an idea that can get me started and that I can run with? Or how are the things that AI kind of pops up in my brain actually limiting my thinking as a writer? And when is AI actually wrong, ’cause it’s wrong a lot of times and limiting. But I think we have to have students practice this, and we need to, as teachers and writers, practice this as well.
MARK BRODIE: Is there something to be said here for making it so that students don’t see writing as a chore or something they don’t want to do but sort of encouraging an interest in writing and a love of writing and the ability to have an outlet to tell your story? And maybe if students are more interested in doing that, they’re less likely to turn to technology to do it for them.
JESSICA EARLY: 100%. So when students are asked to write for real audiences, real purposes or genres that allow them to tell their lived experience and they feel invested and they care about the topic, they want to write. And these can be highly sophisticated research genres.
Then students come alive and writers come alive. And I think that’s something we need to do more of in the classroom and in preparation for students to succeed in the workplace and in civic life and the university.
MARK BRODIE: All right, we’ll have to leave it there. That is Jessica Early, a professor of English education at ASU. Jessica, good as always to talk to you. Thank you.
JESSICA EARLY: Thank you.
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