Need an assignment that is ChatGPT-proof? Look somewhere else. I’m not sure one exists, but here’s a model for a kind of writing assignment that might at least use the program in a way that stimulates — rather than replaces — student critical thinking. In creating this assignment I tried…

Just when I think of something ChatGPT probably can’t do, I do a little testing and… bam. It does it. Which makes me think that the problem is less the AI model and more my ability to prompt it. (Keep this in mind.) Today’s challenge. …

People who write about GPT point note how its default output has a pretty plain style. In fact, I’d probably say its style approaches the Uncanny Valley. It’s… empty. It feels like it’s got less style than Wikipedia, which at least has that authoritative declarative style inherited from encyclopedias. When…

So a colleague asked: Can ChatGPT write better than we can? For now, the answer seems to be “hopefully not.” But last night I wondered what my syllabus would look like as an Escape Room. Let me show you what my version of that idea would have looked like. My…

In preparation for an upcoming college writing course at USC, my teaching partner said we could offer a take-home diagnostic about students’ experiences with community engagement. I wondered if this was true. So I gave ChatGPT the following prompts and variations just to see. Skip down below for the TL;DR tips for prompts The Experiment: Have ChatGPT write a personal essay So first, I thought I’d use…

This past month I had the pleasure of testing out 2 new immersives by interlocked theater troupes in Los Angeles. The first was Stardust by Alterea, an ambitious multi-threaded tale of the dreams we pursue and what we’d sacrifice to gain them. The second was Abandoned by Last Call Theatre…

As a long-time writing instructor, of the dreaded and despised mandatory composition course, I thought I had already reached the most humiliating moment in my teaching career, but I was wrong. Here I am in table top. There is a goat on my back. …

This week closes out a run on a moving and surprisingly intimate piece of immersive theater called Casting, created by Koryn Wicks, written by Sam Alper, and performed by them and a skeleton crew that includes a snake. …

a review of an interactive experience set in the world of the SCP Last Father's Day I was looking for some immersive theater. We eventually found an escape room, but I wanted something more playful, where we could act as well as play. USC’s game guru Jesse Vigil pointed me…