Dr. Susan Fielding, a silver-haired woman with an infectious smile and the vibrant spirit of a 20-year-old, was no ordinary college professor. She was an institution in herself, teaching English literature at the University of Toronto for over three decades. But her most cherished role was that of mentoring the members of the university’s Creative Writing Club, a position she held with fervour, guiding young minds towards discovering their voice and style.
The club convened every Tuesday and Thursday under the soft, warm glow of the university library’s antique chandeliers. A diverse group of students, some passionate about prose, some smitten by poetry, some eager to give shape to their untamed imagination. Under Dr. Fielding’s mentorship, the creative writing club was a cauldron of innovation and exploration. She often said, “The pen is mightier than the sword, but it must be handled with the same respect and responsibility.”
Challenging Task
In the midst of one of their sessions, a discussion arose about the commercialization of academia. Simon, a third-year student, mentioned his struggle to afford tuition fees and textbooks and his reliance on cheap online essay-writing services like: writessayai.com to save time for his part-time job. Dr. Fielding, ever the attentive listener, saw a teaching moment here.
The following week, Dr. Fielding introduced a rewrite AI essay as the session’s topic. She highlighted how AI had started to penetrate various fields, including literature and essay writing. She explained that the concept was all about using technology to improve one’s writing, proofread, check grammar, or even generate ideas. But she stressed, “AI should be a tool, not a replacement. The true essence of writing comes from the heart, human experiences, and emotions, something an AI still cannot replicate.”
Dr. Fielding challenged the group to take the AI-generated essays and breathe life into them. It wasn’t about criticizing or rejecting technology but rather understanding the balance between using AI as a tool and maintaining the authenticity of human expression. The student’s task was to infuse the AI-produced essays with their thoughts, experiences, and emotions to give them a heart and soul.
In this unique challenge, the students were given AI-produced essays as their starting point, a baseline. These essays were grammatically correct and logically structured but devoid of the soul and heart that make human-written pieces so touching and relatable. They were akin to beautifully crafted mannequins, technically perfect, but lacking life. Dr. Fielding’s assignment was about infusing life into these lifeless mannequins.
The students were encouraged to dig deep into their wells of thoughts, experiences, and emotions and bring those elements into their writing. They were asked to read through the AI-produced content and then to ‘rewrite’ them, not just by tweaking words or rearranging sentences, but by imbuing their unique human touch into them. They had to infuse their perspectives, their insights, their reflections into the material, creating a bridge between the impersonal nature of AI and the deeply personal human experience.
Imagine an AI-produced paragraph about the sunrise. It may have accurately described the changing colors, the positioning of the sun, the time of day, and the expected temperature. The task for students was to make this information come alive. They would add their emotions when they saw the most beautiful sunrise in the Rocky Mountains, or their sense of peace when watching the sunrise after a night of studying, or the exhilaration of seeing the sunrise after their first all-night adventure.
Adding a Human Touch
They were asked to share personal anecdotes, relate theories to real-life examples, question arguments based on their beliefs, and express their agreement or disagreement in unique, creative ways. This process not only gave a ‘soul’ to the AI-generated content but also helped students discover and fine-tune their writing styles.
The transformation of AI-produced essays was remarkable. What started as robotic, impersonal text became a series of engaging, compelling essays that exuded the students’ personalities and perspectives. Each piece became as unique as the student who rewrote it.
In this process, the students learned an invaluable lesson: the power of their own voice. They realized that while AI could provide a solid structure and seamless grammar, the magic lay in their personal touch. Through their thoughts, experiences, and emotions, they could transform any piece of writing into a heartfelt narrative that resonated with readers, thereby truly giving a heart and soul to their essays.
Over the weeks, as the students worked on their challenges, the club witnessed a transformation. The members, once unsure and skeptical about their writing prowess, started to emerge as confident wordsmiths. They discovered their unique voices and styles, their ability to tell a story that was entirely their own. They learned to manipulate words into stunning expressions of their innermost thoughts and feelings. The AI tool was no longer a crutch but an ally in their creative journey.
As the students grew more comfortable and adept at utilizing the AI tool, they began to view it in a new light. It had initially been a crutch, a necessity to aid them in producing essays when they were unsure of their ability to write. But now, they found themselves leveraging the AI tool as a strategic partner in their creative endeavors. It wasn’t there to substitute their skills; instead, it served to supplement and elevate their unique voices.
The AI tool would provide them with a solid base to work with – a logically arranged, grammatically correct piece of text. It was like a canvas, ready and waiting for them to add their personal touch. With this groundwork laid out, the students could focus their energy on enhancing the content, infusing their personal insights, anecdotes, emotions, and experiences to produce a compelling narrative.
Benefiting From Work
Using the AI tool as an ally also empowered them to experiment with their writing. They could take bold creative risks, knowing they had a safety net to fall back on. They could play around with different styles, tones, and perspectives, stretching their creative boundaries. They could try writing on new, challenging topics, confident that the AI tool could provide them with a starting point.
Moreover, the AI tool was an incredible learning resource. By analyzing and rewriting AI-produced essays, the students were learning about structuring their thoughts, using diverse vocabulary, and maintaining grammatical integrity in their writing. They were not just becoming better writers, but more discerning readers, learning to critically analyze and enhance pre-existing content. Please also read an article about how to rewrite AI text to human text and check with an AI detector.
Ultimately, the AI tool transitioned from a crutch to an ally, a tool that was aiding them in their creative journey. It helped the students to express themselves better, encouraged them to push their creative limits, and enhanced their learning process. The students had transformed the AI tool into a powerful collaborator that was instrumental in their evolution as skilled and confident writers.
The magic of Dr. Fielding’s creative writing club was that it didn’t just teach students how to write; it inspired them to express, to share, and to grow. As the semester ended, Simon approached Dr. Fielding, thanking her for transforming his perspective towards writing. “Because of you,” he said, “I fell in love with writing.”
Ultimately, Dr. Fielding’s greatest lesson was this: writing is not just about shaping words but also about letting those words shape you. A beautifully crafted phrase or a compelling narrative is not just inked on paper; it’s a piece of the writer’s soul, alive and pulsating with the vibrancy of human life. And that’s a beauty no AI can ever replicate.