A College Essay Alternative
A few months ago, a colleague at the university where I teach declared “I’m so glad I’m retiring.” News had just broken that ChatGPT, a free and easy to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) program, was capable of writing a five-part college essay. It seemed that every conversation on campus or at the dinner table was finding its way to that topic, and reactions seemed extreme. A friend who teaches at a rival campus told me he would no longer accept writing from a student that wasn’t in a blue book and crafted by pen. His wife who teaches classics made what seemed to me a more sober and creative response, saying she would assign ChatGPT to her class and then ask students to analyze its output for factual as well as conceptual errors. The goal, she said, would be to improve on the AI’s writing. The computer science department on our campus hosted a series of town hall meetings last quarter to explain ChatGPT in layman’s terms and to offer a variety of perspectives and strategies to cope with this new beast. Gauging my colleagues’ mixed reactions, the meetings stirred as much anxiety as it assuaged.
I haven’t used the program myself, but I admit its sudden emergence is both intimidating and intriguing. It intensified my leeriness of the college essay, prompting me to wonder if I too will need to alter the assignments that I give in my architecture history courses. As I ponder what I will need to change, there is one assignment I feel is robust enough to continue using. It was devised years ago, specifically tailored to an upper-division course populated by graduating seniors in the spring quarter. In the spirit of chipping in to the collective response to this pedagogical challenge, I offer a description of that assignment.
The college essay is a fine intellectual exercise that students benefit from. It can improve research skills and conceptual acumen, while challenging them to structure ideas in a coherent fashion while also asserting a point and supporting that point. I’m not sure what can be done to adapt this form to the era of AI, but even before this new challenge to its efficacy, the college essay had its limitations. The first is uniqueness. A well-crafted essay stands independently and can be read on its own. External references are handled systematically and brought into the logic of the paper cogently, while the argument needs no other document to assert itself nor to back it up. It stands alone. Quite frankly, the well-crafted essay can be a pleasure to read, and informative. In many cases, however, new graduates are often posed just the opposite task.
Figure 1. Dell Upton’s Architecture in the United States published by Oxford University Press in 1998.
Students who take my courses go on to pursue a variety of careers and enter disparate fields, but most tell me that the first order of productive business (for them in their new job) is to be a team player. Rather than be asked to write a stand-alone essay, they must contribute to a larger document or project. That means their first move is to digest that project in order to understand its content and style, and then their own contribution must expand on that content while employing a consistent structure and style.
How to prepare students for this? Although I don’t believe every assignment should be tailored to job skills as in a trade-school program, I do feel that some should provide students with real-world preparation. In my class, a course on the history of architecture in the United States, I prefer to use a textbook written by Dell Upton, Architecture in the United States. It was originally published in 1998 and its second edition was published in 2019. Each chapter is devoted to a theme, and each is accompanied by a two thousand-word case study focusing on a single building or community. Curiously, the book lacks a concluding chapter, but this provides an opportunity. The class spends the bulk of the quarter reading this book, one chapter a week, and then the book becomes the subject of their term project.
This project is a three thousand-word writing assignment that requires a thorough knowledge of the book, both its content and its style. The three thousand words must be crafted to serve as a compelling conclusion to Upton’s book, and it must also echo the format of the case studies. This means the student must select a building, conduct research about that building, and format ideas and interpretations about what they’ve learned as a case study, but one that touches on all five themes of the book. I tell students that they should not write an introduction, a challenge that often lands like a brick in the middle of the class. Accustomed to writing an introduction, learning that the success of their conclusion rests on writing a fluid and engaging transition takes some getting used to. “How should I cite sources,” I get asked (a lot). “What does Upton do in his case studies?” I respond.
“Even before ChatGPT, the college essay had its limitations.”
What charms me about this assignment is that both in-class and one-on-one discussions settle on matters of writing structure and style. We drill down to deep matter, deeper than what my courses usually deal with, and it’s rather refreshing. I’ve witnessed spontaneous debates break out about the standard length of Upton’s sentences, as well as his sentence structure. The most engaged and capable students learn that ideas in the book are presented in concrete ways, and they tailor their own sentences by employing an appropriate specificity of language. Students must read this book and re-read it to comprehend the challenge and tackle it effectively. For the graduating senior it tends to be a satisfying last challenge, one that can feel like a bridge between the late-adolescent world of the college campus and the adulting world of graduate life.
Unfortunately, some students still end up submitting standard college essays, sometimes well-written, and I suppose quality is some consolation. It used to be, but should I remain confident? It used to be just disappointing, but now I wonder about the tools in the student’s tool kit. Was the co-author ChatGPT?
Citation
Jeremy White, “A College Essay Alternative,” PLATFORM, July 10, 2023
