Using AI to Revise Instructions

By: Catrina Mitchum

Posted On

May 23, 2023

Featured In

May 23, 2023

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When I first started at my last institution, there was an assignment (the second project) in place in our pre-designed courses called a Comparative Rhetorical Analysis (CRA).

The first project was an annotated bibliography (AB) where students focused on gathering interdisciplinary articles on their topic; students were asked to write this next paper using resources that they had already selected and read to complete the first assignment. On paper, it was a beautiful assignment sequence with lots of scaffolding to help students get from AB to CRA.

It didn’t always work out that way, though. In fact, most of the time, students didn’t complete a comparative rhetorical analysis. They completed a comparative content analysis, no matter how many rhetorical analysis scaffolding activities they were given.

The class was 7.5 weeks, which added to the chaos of trying to teach a complicated concept to students, and I quickly received permission to instead have my students create a persuasive digital poster as an alternative assignment (big fan of multimodal assignments).

However, the flop of that assignment has haunted me, and so I wanted to see how AI might have helped me back in 2017.

This is intended to be a “do it with me” piece where I’ll walk you through how I used an AI writing tool to help me revise an assignment instruction sheet with a specific focus on the issues students had with the project.

I happen to be lucky enough to have access to the new AI writing tools in the PowerNotes platform, so that’s what I used, but, you can also, with some extra prompting, do this in ChatGPT.

If you’d like to try out PowerNotes’ AI features for yourself, reach out here.

TL/DR: You need to feed the expertise, context, and EXACT problem to the AI to get what you want. Don’t forget that as the expertise changes for what you’re looking for, you need to tell the AI to put on a different hat.

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Getting Started:

To start, I copied and pasted the assignment instructions into a ‘freeform note’ in PowerNotes and prompted it to:

Act as a rhetoric and writing teacher, and revise the instructions in the note to help with the issue of students not comparing the rhetoric used in the two articles; your goal is to revise for student understanding of the assignment.

It largely kept the language the same, which is a breath of fresh air compared to many editors who prefer their own style and tone. The changes in that first output fell into two categories:

Language additions that refocused students on the current assignment after being given an example.
Making it more concise.

I’ve included the original in the first column and the changes in the second (and noted if it’s type 1 or type 2).

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Original Assignment	AI Revisions
To help answer these questions, you will conduct a comparative rhetorical analysis of two scholarly articles on the same topic: - one from in your major discipline, and/or field - the second from a different disciplinary domain.	To explore these questions (concise), your task is to conduct a comparative rhetorical analysis of two scholarly articles on the same topic. Specifically, you should choose (refocusing) one article from within your major, discipline, or field, and another article from a different disciplinary domain.

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While I appreciated the re-centering and making the instructions more concise, they likely weren’t going to have a huge impact on my issue. I responded with:

This is better, but students often focus on comparing the ideas in the articles instead of focusing on comparing the rhetorical approaches. Rewrite the previous prompt to help students focus more on comparing rhetorical approaches.

This actually produced some changes that could be helpful, and it continued to focus on that same section. Interestingly, it made the language less concise, which I noted below, but it did add a sentence that pointed out the focus on rhetorical approaches. It also didn’t include the focusing language from earlier, but rather just instructed students on the type of articles to choose.

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Original Assignment	AI Revisions	AI Revisions Rd. 2
To help answer these questions, you will conduct a comparative rhetorical analysis of two scholarly articles on the same topic: - one from in your major discipline, and/or field - the second from a different disciplinary domain.	To explore these questions (concise), your task is to conduct a comparative rhetorical analysis of two scholarly articles on the same topic. Specifically, you should choose (refocusing) one article from within your major, discipline, or field, and another article from a different disciplinary domain.	In order to shed light on these inquiries (less concise), your task is to conduct a comparative rhetorical analysis of two scholarly articles on the same topic. The focus should be on analyzing and comparing the rhetorical approaches employed in the two articles, rather than comparing their content. (additional information addressing the issue) Select one article from your major, discipline, or field, and another article from a different disciplinary domain.

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Another instance in the rewrite that was better with this second round was in the goals of analyzing rhetorical approaches.

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Original Assignment	AI Revisions Rd. 2
Rhetorical analyses analyze how and why specific texts function in a particular manner. They help both the authors and audience members to understand the discourse community to which they are entering and/or participating.	Rhetorical analyses aim to understand how and why texts function in a particular manner. By analyzing the rhetorical approaches used in the articles, you will gain insights into the discourse community associated with each major, discipline, or field.

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Down the Rabbit Hole

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Right now, there are a lot of conversations happening about prompt literacy and AI literacy. One of the conversations I recently had was about how specific is ‘specific enough’ in terms of defining the rhetorical situation for the AI. That’s part of what I’ve been doing with these “do-it-with-me” style posts lately.

It only took me two rounds, and if I had been more specific with what students were doing and what they were supposed to be doing, I would have gotten there faster. But how much did the AI need to know about my ethos (my authority and the authority with which to write from)?

To find out, I revised my prompt to:

In the final project, students often focus on comparing the ideas in the articles instead of focusing on comparing the rhetorical approaches. Rewrite the instructions in this note to help students focus more on comparing rhetorical approaches.

Interestingly, the first thing it did this time, that it didn’t any other time, was add to my title:

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Original Assignment	AI Revisions Without Established Ethos
Project #2: Comparative Rhetorical Analysis	Project #2: Comparative Rhetorical Analysis - Emphasizing Rhetorical Approaches

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Additionally, it also rewrote quite a bit more of the instructions - taking out more pieces than would be useful. For example, in the table below the AI cut out a pretty crucial piece of the assignment: it should be two articles from two different disciplines. This is due to a lack of context of who to “be.”

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Original Assignment	AI Revisions Without Established Ethos
To help answer these questions, you will conduct a comparative rhetorical analysis of two scholarly articles on the same topic: - one from in your major, discipline, and/or field and - the second from a different disciplinary domain.	In order to provide insights into these inquiries, your task is to conduct a comparative rhetorical analysis of two scholarly articles on the same topic, with a specific focus on examining their rhetorical approaches (removal of disciplinary focus).. Your analysis should delve into the how and why of these articles' functioning within their respective discourse communities.

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Overall, it wasn’t an improvement. It would have confused my students further because of the removal of too much important info.

I then tried to replace the ethos with the context. I put in:

Use the instructions in the note that are for a project in a freshman writing course. In the final project, students often focus on comparing the ideas in the articles instead of focusing on comparing the rhetorical approaches. Rewrite the instructions in the note to help students focus more on comparing rhetorical approaches.

When I tried to replace the ethos with the context of the class, it was a bit better than removing the ethos entirely, but wasn’t quite as good as the one where I had given it an ethos.

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Original Assignment	AI Revisions Without Established Ethos	AI Revisions Without Ethos but With Context
To help answer these questions, you will conduct a comparative rhetorical analysis of two scholarly articles on the same topic: - one from in your major, discipline, and/or field and - the second from a different disciplinary domain.	In order to provide insights into these inquiries, your task is to conduct a comparative rhetorical analysis of two scholarly articles on the same topic, with a specific focus on examining their rhetorical approaches (removal of disciplinary focus).. Your analysis should delve into the how and why of these articles' functioning within their respective discourse communities.	In this project, your focus will be on conducting a comparative rhetorical analysis of two scholarly articles that explore the same topic but employ different rhetorical approaches: - One article should be from your major, discipline, or field. The second article should be from a different disciplinary domain.

Clearly, it needs an ethos, which isn’t surprising based on my experience so far and what I’ve been reading, but testing to see the impact, I think, is important. I wanted to see how narrow I needed to focus that ethos (how the AI understood the different roles). To my original session (where I had already given it the ethos of Rhet/Comp specialist), I added the prompt:

Please provide a list of scaffolding assignments for this project.

Yes, I can’t help but be polite; I say please to my Google Assistant, too. As expected, it gave me a list of generic activities like:

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AI Suggested Scaffolding
Rhetorical Context Analysis: Instruct students to analyze the rhetorical context of a single scholarly article from their major or field. This assignment focuses on understanding the audience, purpose, and context of the chosen article, preparing them for the comparative analysis.

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Clearly, it still thinks it’s a specialist in rhet/comp, but a rather boring and inefficient one. So I gave it another ethos and asked for more detail:

Update that scaffolding list as if you were an instructional designer and provide more detailed scaffolding activities.

Yeah, this was much better. Not only did it give me 9 instead of 7 options, these were much better activities.

The whole list was actually pretty good for a starting point before my first project (the AB), and the ones focused on Rhetorical Analysis were much more detailed and got at the pain points students have when doing this kind of work.

So basically, as an Instructional Designer (ID), the AI provided actual knowledge building activities instead of generic references to analysis. Not gonna lie, I’m a little disappointed that it didn’t “see” that in the rhet/comp ethos.

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AI Suggested Scaffolding	AI Suggested Scaffolding as an ID
Rhetorical Context Analysis: Instruct students to analyze the rhetorical context of a single scholarly article from their major or field. This assignment focuses on understanding the audience, purpose, and context of the chosen article, preparing them for the comparative analysis.	Rhetorical Context Analysis Worksheet: Provide students with a worksheet that prompts them to analyze the rhetorical context of a scholarly article from their major or field. The worksheet can include questions about the intended audience, author's purpose, and the broader context in which the article was published. Students can complete this worksheet individually and discuss their findings in small groups. Rhetorical Choices Analysis Graphic Organizer: Supply students with a graphic organizer to analyze the rhetorical choices made by the author in the same article they analyzed for the rhetorical context. The graphic organizer can have sections for structure, language, evidence, and referencing. Students should provide examples and explanations of how each choice contributes to the overall effectiveness of the article. Disciplinary Comparison Research Project: Assign students a research project where they explore a discipline or major other than their own. Provide a list of guiding questions to help them investigate the unique characteristics, methodologies, and rhetorical conventions of that discipline. Students can present their findings through a written report, presentation, or infographic. Comparative Analysis Outline Template: Provide students with a template for creating a comparative analysis outline. The template should include sections for introduction, summary of each article, analysis of rhetorical elements, comparison of key arguments, and conclusion. Students can follow the template to structure their analysis effectively.

AI Suggested Scaffolding

AI Suggested Scaffolding as an ID

Rhetorical Context Analysis: Instruct students to analyze the rhetorical context of a single scholarly article from their major or field. This assignment focuses on understanding the audience, purpose, and context of the chosen article, preparing them for the comparative analysis.

Rhetorical Context Analysis Worksheet: Provide students with a worksheet that prompts them to analyze the rhetorical context of a scholarly article from their major or field. The worksheet can include questions about the intended audience, author's purpose, and the broader context in which the article was published. Students can complete this worksheet individually and discuss their findings in small groups.

Rhetorical Choices Analysis Graphic Organizer: Supply students with a graphic organizer to analyze the rhetorical choices made by the author in the same article they analyzed for the rhetorical context. The graphic organizer can have sections for structure, language, evidence, and referencing. Students should provide examples and explanations of how each choice contributes to the overall effectiveness of the article.

Disciplinary Comparison Research Project: Assign students a research project where they explore a discipline or major other than their own. Provide a list of guiding questions to help them investigate the unique characteristics, methodologies, and rhetorical conventions of that discipline. Students can present their findings through a written report, presentation, or infographic.

Comparative Analysis Outline Template: Provide students with a template for creating a comparative analysis outline. The template should include sections for introduction, summary of each article, analysis of rhetorical elements, comparison of key arguments, and conclusion. Students can follow the template to structure their analysis effectively.

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What I Learned:

Focusing on what I wanted the specific output to be reaffirmed the need for giving it an area of expertise to pull from, a context to work in, and a goal to achieve. As your “hat” changes, though, you need to give it that additional expertise to pull from.

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