Slice of Life 2023: 31 of 31- The future of writing?

   It's March, and March is for slicing.  Anyone is welcome to join us through Two Writing Teachers, slicing, sharing, and commenting on other slices! 

  

ATTENTION VISITORS: 

If you leave a comment, please include your name in it! So often all I see is "anonymous", and I REALLY want to know who is commenting! Thank you!

Last night I played around with Chat GPT. 

Write an adapted Cinderella story at a grade 3 level where Cinderella decides she doesn't like the prince and like the drummer better, I wrote, skeptical of what the result would be. 

In seconds, here's what I was reading. (You're welcome to skim or skip the story if you're not curious about the story. Take my word for it-- the story was more than decent.)

Once upon a time, there was a girl named Cinderella who lived with her mean stepmother and stepsisters. Cinderella had to do all the chores around the house and never got to have any fun.

One day, the king announced a big ball where all the girls in the kingdom could go and dance with the prince. Cinderella's stepmother made her a fancy dress, and her stepsisters teased her about going to the ball.

At the ball, Cinderella met the prince and they danced together. But while they were dancing, Cinderella saw a drummer playing in the corner of the room. She loved music and was curious about the drummer.

Cinderella left the prince and went to talk to the drummer. They played music together and had so much fun. Cinderella liked the drummer much more than the prince. They danced and played music all night long.

The prince was sad that Cinderella didn't want to dance with him anymore, but he saw how happy she was with the drummer. In the end, Cinderella decided she wanted to be with the drummer instead of the prince.

From that day on, Cinderella played music with the drummer and they had lots of fun together. She didn't need a prince to be happy.

I played around with other prompts as well. Throughout the school day, I had some moments to share some of the compositions with other teachers. One teacher who had not heard of ChatGPT yet was pretty jaw-dropped. 

"How is it doing that?" she kept asking. 

I worked with a student who has been learning English. Write a story at a third-grade level about a boy named A. who learns to shoot a free throw in Ukrainian.  His jaw didn't drop when the program whipped off a story in Ukrainian. On the contrary, his whole face lit up. Text that he could read was appearing in front of him in the form of a story with his name as the main character who was doing something he loved at a level he could read. Talk about responsiveness! 

It seems appropriate to write about ChatGPT for my final slice of March 2023. Something big is happening in the world of writing that will probably have greater impact than any other technological advance in my lifetime. Maybe next year, I'll tell my computer what to write and it will whip it off for me each day of March 2024. No, I won't do that. But, I do wonder how my instruction will look different and how I'll be talking about and sharing the developing tools and programs that change how people communicate. I'm programming a reminder to myself to read this post on March 1, 2024. This post will serve as my own personal time capsule.

And with that, March 2023 SOLSC is a wrap. I've especially loved this month since two of my daughters joined in, and reading about Larkin's and Clare's lives has brought me incredible joy. As has been the case every year, I've reconnected with people and I've also loved paying attention to moments and interactions with greater intention and reflection. 

I'll see you on Tuesdays,