Rhetorical Engagements

These assignments ask students to consider how computational machines have already and will become enmeshed in communicative acts and how we work with them to produce symbolic meaning.

Collaborative Research with ChatGPT

John Gordon
University of Utah

This assignment actively integrates ChatGPT as a virtual research team participant in a student group research project. Each team is provided with a specific topic prompt and a theoretical framework to guide their research. All team members, both humans, and ChatGPT (through a moderator), formulate research questions, undertake research to address these questions, and participate in cross-team peer reviews to evaluate the outcomes of each group. Additionally, a unique aspect of the assignment is for each team member to collaboratively identify the distinctions in writing style and research approach between their human peers and ChatGPT.

GenAI Platform Privacy Impact Assessment & Remediation

Emily Gillo
University of Memphis

This assignment asks students to critically analyze and annotate a Generative Artificial Intelligence platform’s Privacy Policy or Terms of Service (TOS) Agreement. Students then remediate a selection of those annotations to better align with their own personal ethics surrounding data privacy, authorship, and intellectual property rights. Analyzing the TOS for these platforms challenges students to reflect on the data and privacy surrendered when interacting with these platforms. Asking students to revise the agreement and compare their revisions to revisions suggested by the GenAI platform allows them the opportunity to examine bias that is often reflected in GenAI output.