My opinions on collaboration

As we reach the end of making our AI syllabus statement, I would like to reflect on all of the work done in this class. Bruffee was such a great introduction to collaborative writing, as it opened my eyes to new ideas. A major concept that Bruffee discusses concerning collaborative learning is that “it provides a particular kind of community” (642), meaning that the collaboration of peers results in a connection. I previously did not realize the effect that collaboration had until doing the collaborative discourse community assignment.

That assignment brought me closer together with classmates I probably would not have talked to, if we were not put together as a group. Although my group members’ interests were different than mine, we were still able to find common ground and relate with each other. This was nice because I got to meet other students that have niche interests like me.

I used to only enjoy doing independent work, because I like my work done in a specific way, but collaborating with my peers this year has made me more acceptable to the idea of doing group work. I liked how collaborative projects feel less stressful than regular assignments, because each person contributes small parts to create a whole assignment. Now looking back on it, if I were to write the AI syllabus statement independently, that probably would’ve been more stressful and time consuming. I also enjoyed that we were able to give feedback to our peers on the AI syllabus statement, as it allows us to give constructive advice to others, and shape our work to fit our own preferences.

Bruffee also explains how collaborative learning helps students “learn skills and partnerships of re-externalized conversation” (642) which I learned to be very true. I’ve learned a lot from my peers as they bring up certain perspectives that I would have otherwise not even thought about. I remember working on the AI post-it activity, when Victoria mentioned AI and art. That was something that completely slipped my mind, as I realize how AI can be used to profit off of other peoples art.

Before this class I was more prone to doing independent work, but now, I realize how helpful it is do complete group work with people that you trust.

Works Cited

Bruffee, Kenneth. “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’” College English, vol. 46, no. 7, 1984, pp. 635-652

Reflections of Last Week/ Gallery Walk

I really enjoyed all of the group work we have been doing regarding our AI syllabus statement. I feel like the gallery walk activity was really fun because it was not only collaborative, but it also sparked more ideas inside my brain. I remember when Professor Andrea gave us a moment after reading everyone’s contributions to write something down that we might have missed; and I was immediately inspired by someone else’s post-it note, to add another idea. I remember someone mentioning AI art in our discussion, so I quickly added a post-it saying “AI art steals from artists” under the prompt; “What are some ideas I’m missing”.

AI art was not specifically talked about in any of the articles, but I feel it’s really important to touch upon ways in which AI can be negatively impacting people. The way AI art works is: it takes thousands of images from a web based database and is able to create an image based on a prompt that you give it. I’ve seen many artists on Twitter claim how their art was used by an AI program, and many other artists have claimed the exact same occurrence as well. 

In general, I support the use of AI in schools. I feel like technology is always changing and people are always originally spooked until they get used to it. For example people hated the popularity of computers because piracy became popular in the 90’s, and people were concerned that these websites would put music/entertainment companies out of business, which later turned out to not be true at all. I believe AI is helpful in an academic setting, but it is necessary that a teacher goes over what is plagiarism and what is not. For example, you can ask AI to check for spelling mistakes on your essay, or help to organize your paragraphs, however, asking ChatGPT to write a whole essay for you is not academically moral, which is why I believe this discussion must be had with students. This reminds me of how schools teaching students about sex used to be really controversial. But I look at it this way: kids are gonna use AI anyways, you might as well teach them how to correctly use it.

I understand the fear behind new technology as Marantz quotes, “The parallels between nuclear fission and superintelligence were taken to be obvious: world-altering potential, existential risk, theoretical research thrust into the geopolitical spotlight.” (21) Although this is a valid concern, I believe this way of thinking is not productive. Although cautionary, fearing A.I. and thinking of all its negativity is not as productive and better for one’s mental health rather than thinking “Will A.I. make positive life changing discoveries?”

Works Cited

Marantz, Andrew. “Among the AI Doomsayers”. The New Yorker. 2024

A.I. Syllabus Statement Group Work

Generative AI pretends that there can be writing without writers, which is as nonsensical as suggesting there can be swimming without swimmers

In class on 3/14/24, we searched for different definitions of what a syllabus statement contains. My group referred to The University of South Carolina, where we found some very interesting syllabus statements. Some examples of what we found are listed below:

• There are different goals and purposes of different syllabus statement sections
• Serves as an agreement between the instructor and student. It outlines policies , expectations, and the course objective. 
• Certain sections are meant to inform and provide sources (ex: students’ rights.)

A main problem we had with their syllabus statement is that they were very contradictory. For example, the university claims to care about the mental health of students, but then enforces a rule where “If an assignment is not handed in on time, even by a minute, then it is late.” We found this message very threatening, and it completely goes against their syllabus statement regarding mental health, where they expressed that the universe will be understanding and help accommodate those with mental illness. Mental health can greatly affect your time management, which the university does not take into consideration as they claim that points will be taken off even after “one minute” of it being late.

We also played with A.I. a bit. My group and I asked ChatGPT to write a syllabus statement regarding the use of A.I. Of course ChatGPT was biased, and wrote a whole script explaining how the use of A.I. will be allowed in the course, and that A.I. is now a key element in English classes.

In my opinion people are too fearful of A.I. I agree with Morrison’s quote when she says, “Generative AI pretends that there can be writing without writers, which is as nonsensical as suggesting there can be swimming without swimmers” (160). I agree with this point because A.I. would not even be able to function without human input. A.I. relies on us, and to say that they can completely take over writing jobs is not very believable.

Morrison. Aimee. “Meta Writing: A.I. and Writing”.

A.I. and agency

Brandt brings up a very important area of focus pertaining to literature in general, there is power in writing. There is an aspect of power that comes from one’s original ideas, thus giving importance to the reader of said literature. Concerning ghostwriting, Brandt explains how there is “the lending and borrowing of power and perspective that ghostwriting always entails” (47), meaning that the power of what is written is distributed between both the subject and their ghost-writers. 

In general, the reader will most likely value an authentic piece directly coming from the author. Now, this is not to say that asking for help does not decrease this value. Oftentimes those who are more experienced in the matter can advise or help authors to form their thoughts and ideas into a comprehensible manner. This is where the lending of power occurs within ghostwriting. There is a difference between fully relying on other agents to complete your writing for you, versus asking for help from more knowledgeable agents. 

This brings up the idea of new technology and how it fits into the idea of agency and ghostwriting. Different opinions vary regarding the academic morality regarding using agents as A.I.; mainly due to the enforced idea by schools that using A.I. programs such as ChatGPT are academically dishonest. Brandt discusses the emerging popularity of internet resources used as agents, stating that, “the internet seems to be favoring a less original form of writing: creation by citation, sampling, cutting, and pasting which blurs the roles of writers and readers” (46). 

In my opinion, there is power in literature as long as the ideas from the author are displayed. The problem lies within dishonesty in terms of claiming your ideas are truly your own, when in fact they are not at all. A piece that has the author’s name attached to it, despite the author not agreeing with their perspective at all is disingenuous. The whole point of writing is that there are feelings and emotions attached to them, which then has an effect on the reader. The whole idea that an author gets to voice their perspective on a certain situation. 

There is nothing inherently wrong with using artificial intelligence, as long as it is not doing all of the work for you. A.I. is helpful for writers in terms of exploring new ideas, or helping to reword an already completed work. However, asking A.I. to write an essay in its entirety for you, is not honest, nor is it accurate. I have played around with A.I. concerning essay writing. Out of curiosity I prompted ChatGPT to write an essay about the theme of race in James Baldwin’s Another Country. After reading what the A.I. had generated, I realized that almost all of its information was incorrect. ChatGPT said that the character Vivaldo, who is a white male, was a black man. If I had copy and pasted what the A.I. had created, I would have certainly failed. It is important to notice that A.I. can be helpful in terms of helping write an essay, but in and of itself cannot write the essay for you. Although A.I. takes the information inputted by humans, as of now, the structure of A.I. outputs lack emotion and are clearly robotic. 

Brandt, Deborah. The Rise of Writing. Cambridge UP, 2014.

Agents and Agency in Writing

Reflecting on Nowacek’s “Agents of Integration”, the mode of writing that immediately came to mind was essay writing. As all English majors know, essay writing is one of the most core skills one must acquire to survive any college level English class. All works of writing include the integration of agency and agents. Agency as defined by Nowacek is, “a student’s ability to act and make change in the world” (39), which is a very important concept when it comes to discussions about any field. There are agents and agency in every subgroup of life, which means in every activity there is some sort of goal or message to be spread. For example, lawyers are agents, teachers are agents, etc. An agent is any person or thing that’s main goal is to assist one in creating something that could help others. Agents can be inhuman, such as computers which serve as a means of typing or looking up information to help one further continue their goals. An agent can also be a book, as books have the capability of changing the world. The power of literature is important in the hands of those who use it, which is why it is important to bring awareness to the relationships of agency and agents. 

In my own experience I find essays a form of writing which allows some agency, depending on how much freedom you are given by your professor. The process of essay writing includes many agents, such as my computer, books, and outside sources. Through essays and literature, I am able to make a difference in the world. I can bring up points that many others might not have seen. For example, I wrote an essay on how Othello was a feminist play, (which is not a very common take), however, after my professor read it, he agreed with many of my points, and he expressed how he never looked at the text that way before.

Nowacek, Rebecca S. Agents of Integration. NCTE, 2011.

Our Collaborative Writing Plan

My group consists of 5 people (including me): Kallisse, Mariana, Mitchie, Persephone, and Victoria. I really enjoyed talking to my group. We have a lot in common which is really nice, and I feel like I immediately clicked with everyone which is pretty rare. We got straight to business when we started discussing. Victoria volunteered to be the task manager and immediately began to start creating the task schedule and straw document. We each discussed what our collaborative posts had in common and quickly began to write down certain topics we would like to discuss in our project. We assigned an even amount of work to everyone as well. Here are some topics we are most likely going to include in our work: the toxicity and positivity of a collaborate group, competitiveness within the community, etc. All of the topics are listed in the link I will provide at the end of this discussion post.

Everyone was assigned to write a short introduction along with one paragraph of a draft of the topic they decided to write about. Everything is going really well right now. I would say my only concern is that we do have a lot of members in our group, so I want to avoid writing an overly long essay. The examples we read in class had two speakers in both personal essays, so we’re going to have to think about how we want to format it.

Overall, i feel really excited to start my project :3

Link to the doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1P8ISVVZTqfU4h0jY695CpCmj7zVPmYyCslOuyomm87E/edit

1/30 Class Writing Prompt

Throughout my years of school I have always been taught to write essays in a specific structure. The introduction must always start with a “hook” to make the essay more engaging. I have never been encouraged to write creatively, which I prefer to do, but instead, I have been encouraged to write academically. What I mean by this is that writing in a school setting strives for academic achievement rather than the art of writing for enjoyment. Now that I am in college and have the freedom to write about topics I find interesting, I notice myself enjoying the writing process more than I did before.

Bruffee and the Power of Collaborative Learning

Having read Bruffee’s essay, I now recognize that I am a part of a distinct community–the gaming community– particularly centering around the game: League of Legends.

A major concept that Bruffee discusses concerning collaborative learning is that “it provides a particular kind of community” (642), meaning that the collaboration of peers results in a connection. Bruffee also explains how collaborative learning helps students “learn skills and partnerships of re-externalized conversation” (642) meaning that this now formed community is able to learn things from each other, thus creating new ideas.

To put into comparison with my community that I am a part of, communication is a very important part of the game. You must alert your teammates if an enemy is nearby, if you want to slay the dragon, or if you are planning on pushing mid. You are constantly conversing with your teammates in order to achieve something that we all want: to win.

In order to work towards this goal we must all collaborate through text chat and pings, to help our team stay on track to gaining a win.

Sometimes, you genuinely learn new information, for example when I was a beginner player, a teammate would suggest that I use certain items to enhance my game play, or, how to combo with a certain character that I might not be familiar with. Feedback from teammates is nice when it can genuinely help your gameplay.

A major theme that Bruffee discusses is authority and how it can shift from person to person. As a group, we all contribute new information that results in new knowledge. This collaboration is effective in any circumstance, not just in gaming. Collaborative learning allows for the acquisition of new information from peers you can learn from.

Something that Bruffee did not discuss which I think would be interesting to talk about, is the fallbacks of collaboration, especially in the gaming community such as toxicity. When teammates are overly rude, dismissive, and offensive, what would Bruffee say?

Works Cited

Bruffee, Kenneth. “Collaborative Learning and the ‘Conversation of Mankind.’” College English, vol. 46, no. 7, 1984, pp. 635-652