A new AI writing tool, ChatGPT, has K12 teachers and college professors alike scratching their heads and revisiting a fundamental question: Why do we need to write stuff? Derek Thompson’s recent article in The Atlantic has explored this question, and while the professional world might be excited at the possibilities this opens up for their bottom line, teachers are now suddenly faced with the prospect that their students might not need to think very hard at all in order to submit an essay that earns top marks on whatever rubric you want to use. What’s the role of the writing teacher in this new age of AI writing? Do we block, defend, accept, incorporate, or do something else entirely? Is it time to scrap the Chromebooks and write everything by hand? How do we really prove that we know something, anyways?

Classroom teachers will be facing some fundamental questions in the coming months as students become more aware of the ease, accessibility, and quality of AI language models, and we’ll need to be smart about how we talk to them. Plus, Jim’s dog Lucille interrupts the episode. At first he was going to edit her out, but then he thought it was funny and left it in. Happy planning!

Thanks to Alberto Lugo, one of Jim’s former students, for writing and recording original intro music. Thanks to Tom Csatari for allowing us to use his band’s recording of “Woodstock” from their 2020 album, Garden. Thanks to Courtney Milavec for graphic design.

Find Tom’s work at uncivilizedtom.com, and on Instagram @banduncivilized.

Find Alberto’s work at djsynchro.weebly.com, and on Instagram @djsynchro. 

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