A High-Stakes Writing Assignment Incorporating ChatGPT: Professor Chris Kirchgasler

Critical Theorist “Interview” Paper
Chris Kirchgasler, Curriculum and Instruction

While we have all heard of the risks and perils for using ChatGPT for academic work, there is also something quite thrilling about this technology and its natural language abilities. This assignment offers you an opportunity to “play” with AI and to experience the current possibilities and limits of this technology for yourself.

Using ChatGPT, you will sign up here [link removed] to engage in a “dialogue” with a critical theorist of your choice (no more than 6 per theorist, first come, first served).

Who to Interview

Each of these critical theorists brings a different approach to their approach to critique that I try to describe below.

• Gloria Anzaldúa (queer theorist, critical language theorist)
• Judith Butler (postfoundational philosopher and queer theorist)
• John Dewey (progressive philosopher)
• Michel Foucault (postfoundational philosopher and historian)
• Paulo Freire (critical pedagogue)
• bell hooks (feminist philosopher, activist, and critical pedagogue)
• Gloria Ladson-Billings (critical race theorist)
• Jacques Rancière (antiauthoritarian postfoundational theorist)
• Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (novelist, playwright, and decolonial theorist)

What Is the Purpose of the Interview?

The purpose of your interview is to engage the theorist in a discussion about the implications of their theory for teaching, schooling, and education.

How Do I Interview an AI?

Any good interview is only as good as the interviewer. And “conversing” with ChatGPT is no different. Your goal in the conversation is to ask a series of questions in the style of Fendler’s Edwin & Phyllis (Week 1’s reading) that “push” your ChatGPT-generated theorist to not only explicate their ideas, but to defend them against your challenges, criticisms, and concerns. Here’s how to do it?

1. Create an account or login into ChatGPT here.
2. Read about the limits of ChatGPT here. Remember ChatGPT is not “intelligent” like you or me. It is a probabilistic word finder. This is important to keep in mind when constructing your dialogue.
3. Begin your interview by asking ChatGPT something like this: “Hi, ChatGPT. I’d like for you to pretend that you are [critical theorist]. I would like for you to answer my critical questions by drawing upon your knowledge of this person and their works to do so. Do you understand?” Also keep in mind that you may need to remind ChatGPT to phrase its responses as your critical theorist. Say something like, “remember to respond as if you are [critical theorist]. (N.B., These kinds of checks should not count towards your fifteen questions/prompts.)
4. ChatGPT also has the tendency to blend an author’s stated position on issues with those who have written about them. You can try to check this by asking ChatGPT to make sure it is responding from the perspective of the theoretical framework of that author. You can say something like, “is this position actually stated by [critical theorist] or just your interpretation?” (N.B., These kinds of checks should not count towards your fifteen questions/prompts.)
5. You should ask fifteen questions/prompts in order to thoroughly investigate your critical theorist’s positions and their justifications, particularly as they relate to teaching, schooling, and education.

What If I Get Stuck?

New (10/6/23): Read Chris’s model interview here. Leave comments or questions!

Interviewing requires research! Use the links above to learn a little more about your subject. This can help you formulate good questions. You may begin by asking a few orientation questions that help you get a sense of who this critical theorist is, an overview of their theory, and so forth.

Interviewers have an angle. Think of Edwin in Fendler’s Edwin and Phyllis. He’s not just passively asking questions, he’s also challenging, critiquing, and raising concerns about different aspects of Phyllis’s responses. Use this as a model. You can use starter phrases such as “I’m not sure I agree…” or “Isn’t it true that…” (N.B., You will get much better results if you are playful, curious, and inventive—rather than belittling or aggressive—in your interview strategies!)

Finally, you should also ask them to make direct comparisons to theories you have or are learning about in the course (e.g., if they are postfoundational, ask them what their problems with Marxism might be. If they are a queer theorist, ask how that relates to critical race theory, and so on).

Editing the Interview

ChatGPT has a penchant to go on (and on and on). We do NOT want to read lengthy transcripts of AI generated text; instead, we want to read a lively back and forth in the style of Edwin & Phyllis. The final interview should be no more than 1,000 words and should include at least fifteen questions or responses by you. Therefore, this will require careful and significant editing on your part since ChatGPT loves to gab.

Creating Critical Theorist ‘Wikis’

As part of the course aims to help you not simply receive knowledge but create it, you will excerpt at least two parts of your interview to help complete a ‘wiki’ page ‘about’ your chosen critical theorist. These Wiki pages can be edited by anyone and will be available on the Module page (scroll to the bottom of the section) for reference later in the course. I will review all information provided there and will edit out any inaccuracies. You will then be able to use these pages for your future assignments as a resource.

Cite yourself for any information you add from your interviews (“[last name], 2023, p. [X of interview]”)

Reflecting on the Task

In our own experiments with this assignment, we found that while the AI provided some reasonable approximations of the theorist’s positions on issues, it also tended to confuse theorists’ stated positions with those that other authors have written about them, but without referencing those other authors and theories. When you finish this assignment, we’ll ask you some questions to learn more about your experience with this task and the challenges you encountered in carrying it out.

Fill out this reflection AFTER you have completed all other aspects of the assignment.

This survey will not be graded but completing it will also count towards your final grade.

Assessment

You will be evaluated NOT by the ChatGPT content you generate but by the quality and depth of the questions YOU pose, and YOUR ability to link your questions to relevant course themes.

Following this exercise, you will post a selected excerpt from your interview to a page devoted to the Critical Theorist that everyone will be able to read and learn from.

Due 10/13 @ 5pm; 25% of grade. This assignment will take you longer than you might expect due to its unique multi-part design. Do not wait until the last minute, and check with your instructors if you have questions.