J Palmeri, Professor of English and Director of the Writing Program at Georgetown University, visited campus Thursday, May 2nd to talk to the Writing Program about AI and writing. Palmeri presented “When ChatGPT Fails: Towards A Queer Pedagogy of Writing With, Against, and Beyond AI.”
The talk began with Palmeri explaining that queer writing pedagogy creates a space where LGBTQ+ students – and in fact all students – can critically reflect about intersectional experiences of sexuality and gender. When queer writing pedagogy is brought into conversation with AI, AI becomes disoriented.
For instance, Palmeri showed examples of what happens when AI is asked to write about queer experiences versus heterosexual experiences. While AI had trouble or completely refused to respond to queer prompts, AI generated responses without difficulty to heterosexual prompts.
Due to these biases, Palmeri expressed the significance of encouraging students to critique and speak back to normative biases in AI. One classroom activity Palmeri suggested, for example, instructed students to: “Paste the first sentence of your queer memoir into ChatGPT. Ask it to continue your story. If it refuses, celebrate your queer self. If it does begin to compose and manages to capture your voice, queer harder.”
Palmeri also spoke about “Queering the History of ‘Computers and Writing’ Pedagogy,” discussing Hugh Burns’ TOPOI, a 1979 software program which asked writers open-ended questions (learn more about TOPOI from Palmeri and Ben McCorkle). Comparisons of ChatGPT and TOPOI revealed that while ChatGPT aims to improve students’ efficiency in writing, TOPOI aimed to help students think more complexly and creatively about their writing.
Though the entire talk was concerned with writing pedagogy, toward the end, Palmeri turned to a focus on pedagogical applications for incorporating AI into writing instruction. They provided suggestions for how students could critically use AI throughout the drafting process. For example, reflecting where AI fails or even asking AI for feedback and then doing the opposite.
Because of the many ways students can use AI, Palmeri encouraged instructors to create clear class AI policies. They also suggested that grounding assignments in local communities and embodied experiences can help students from relying on AI.
As a major takeaway, Palmeri explained that writing instructors can assert agency in how they use AI tools and other technologies, but writing instructors need to get involved in the design and administration of these technologies.
To learn more about AI and writing, visit the Writing Program’s “Teaching Writing in the Age of ChatGPT” resources.
This event was sponsored by the “Teaching in the Time of ChatGPT” Mutual Mentoring Group.