ChatGPT, I\u2019m teaching Moby Dick for the umpteenth time this semester. I probably shouldn\u2019t be telling you this, but I just don\u2019t have the energy to come up with a writing prompt for my students. Can you help?<\/p>\n
\u2026<\/p>\n
Is \u201cDiscuss the symbolism of the whale\u201d the best you can do? My eyes glazed over just reading it. ChatGPT, could you spice things up with something a bit more relevant to young people today?<\/p>\n
\u2026<\/p>\n
Opinion<\/p>\n
Get smart opinions on the topics North Texans care about.<\/p>\n
By signing up, you agree to our\u00a0Terms of Service<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Privacy Policy.<\/a><\/p>\n I\u2019ll admit that \u201cComment on Melville\u2019s toxic masculinity\u201d wouldn\u2019t be my own first choice for a prompt. But the kids will like it, so let\u2019s go with it. Now I have another question: how should I grade their essays?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n You\u2019re right about grade inflation, ChatGPT. But did you have to rub it in by replying, \u201cDon\u2019t worry, everyone in your class will get an A or A- minus\u201d? That was just cruel. Anyway, how should I decide who gets the higher grade?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cReward the most original arguments\u201d? Are you for real? (Don\u2019t answer that.) We both know that the students will be using you to write their essays, just like I\u2019m using you to grade them. Speaking of which: How about a rubric?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n Thanks, ChatGPT. Your five-part grading rubric is going to make my life easier. And things will be even easier if I can just feed the students\u2019 essays to you and let you fill in the boxes. Can we make that happen?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cYes, but I might hallucinate now and again\u201d isn\u2019t giving me a lot of confidence, ChatGPT. Full disclosure: I did some of my own hallucinating back in college. Are you basically telling me that you\u2019re tripping?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n ChatGPT, thanks for confirming that you\u2019re not on LSD. And I\u2019ll try to be more literal from now on. Can you please draw up a lesson plan that I can use for my three class sessions about Moby Dick?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n Since you asked: Yes, please design group activities for each lesson. I mean, do I have to do everything?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n ChatGPT, I like the idea of making one side of the room Team Ishmael and the other Team Ahab. But the exercise won\u2019t work unless the students have read the book. How can I make sure they have done that?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n An in-class quiz? Are you kidding? ChatGPT, that\u2019s, like, so high school. My students are grown-ups, and I need to treat them that way.<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cGrown-ups need to be held accountable\u201d is business-speak, ChatGPT. I\u2019m a humanities guy, remember? I want my students to suck out all the marrow of life, just like Thoreau said. How can I help them do that?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cAssign Walden\u201d presumes they\u2019ll actually read Walden instead of skimming the bland summaries that you and your fellow bots generate. We\u2019re back where we started. Any other ideas?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n I take your point: if I want the students to live a life of the mind, I need to model that. But how? When you can do everything, what\u2019s left to be done?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n Sorry, ChatGPT, but \u201cA Large Language Model can scan huge swaths of text, yet it can\u2019t feel emotions\u201d doesn\u2019t really answer my question. My job is to write things, not feel things. And I\u2019m afraid you\u2019re going to take my job soon, along with almost any gig my students might want. How\u2019s that for a feeling?<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n I know, I know, you just said you can\u2019t feel stuff. Sorry.<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n \u201cApology accepted\u201d? So you do have feelings, after all!<\/p>\n \u2026<\/p>\n ChatGPT, please create a 650-word satire of yourself in the voice of an amiable but baffled senior professor. Make it kind of cute, in an old-person\u2019s kind of way. But don\u2019t make it too cute, or everyone will know that you wrote it. Do we understand each other?<\/p>\n Jonathan Zimmerman teaches education and history at the University of Pennsylvania. He is author of \u201cWhose America? Culture Wars in the Public Schools\u201d and eight other books. He really wrote those books. He wrote this column, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ChatGPT, I\u2019m teaching Moby Dick for the umpteenth time this semester. 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