Like many other university composition instructors, I am learning about the advantages and disadvantages of artificial intelligence. I don’t want to be a dinosaur, relying only on chalk and paper in my classes. I don’t want to be an ostrich, putting my head in the sand and ignoring new technologies. I want to be a wise owl, thinking calming about how this generation already uses technology and integrate technology appropriately into my classes.  

My colleagues sent me a few good websites. I read how MIT is coaching teachers and parents to talk to children about AI. I read an article from the Washington Post about how we can shape students’ understandings of what AI is what it isn’t. Time magazine posted articles about how teachers are already using ChatGPT in classrooms. All of this was super helpful.  

But I wanted to make it real for my freshmen university composition students. I teach about using “voice” in academic writing, but I needed to really bring home the concept of voice.  

For the past two weeks, my students have been working on a comparison – contrast essay. They chose a topic from a list of topics about culture. The task was to compare or contrast one aspect of culture in two different countries. For example, one student compared weddings in Iran and Ukraine. They started by writing about their own culture. Their only source of information about another culture was to interview an assigned classmate about their culture. I am lucky to have students from 9 different countries in my class, so I created pairs of students from different cultures. We are not ready to use internet sources in our essays yet.  

Michael (pseudonym) wrote an essay about female athletes in his home country of Germany and female athletes in Lithuania.  

Meanwhile, I gave ChatGPT the instructions to generate an essay “about female athletes in Germany and female athletes in Lithuania. Include an introduction. Include a conclusion. Include several body paragraphs.” And in ten seconds, ChatGPT generated an essay.  

Then I omitted all the words “Germany” and “Lithuania” from the ChatGPT generated essay. For example:  

This essay seeks to explore the similarities and differences between women's sports in ___ and ____, shedding light on the cultural influences that contribute to the athletic experiences of women in these nations. 

The next day, I took the ChatGPT essay (with the blank spaces) and Michael’s essay to class. I hid the identity of the authors.  

First, my students read the ChatGPT essay. I asked them to guess the countries that the essay was referring to.  

“Germany and America.” 

“Ukraine and Lithuania.” 

“India and Canada.”  

“We can’t tell which countries this is about.”  

Second, I asked about their general impressions of the ChatGPT essay.  

“Dry.” 

“Vague.”  

“There is no humanity in this essay.” (My personal favorite answer!)  

Next, they read Michael’s essay. They saw that, while it was not perfect, Michael added details about specific teams and players. He added information about marketing and the fan base. Yes, Michael still needs to shape up a few sentences grammatically, without a doubt, my students easily recognized the voice in Michael’s essay.  

The entire exercise lasted about 8 minutes. They got it. ChatGPT cannot generate “voice” or originality in an academic essay. ChatGPT is a dull, vague computer voice that is easily recognizable when compared to an essay written by a human student.  

I will try other activities to demonstrate voice. But for now, I took my first step into conversations about AI in our classroom.

Author: Robin Gingerich, Ph.D., MA TESOL Program Director at LCC International University.