Homework  

Note: homework is typically due the night before class by 11.59 p.m.  

Before the First Class (if possible)

1. Read the syllabus and assignments. Note any questions you have and be prepared to share them in class.
2. Share some information about yourself on this google slide 
3. Go to the Canvas Discussion Board and click on the "Introduce Yourself" thread. You will be prompted to say a bit about who you are, but also to talk about
   your academic interests and potential topics you might want to explore in this class. 

Week 1: Monday 08/21 (Done in class, but can start before if you wish) 

1. Join the course wiki. To do this, go to the front page of the course wiki. At the top right corner of the page click on the “Request Access” link.
   You will soon receive an email inviting you to set up your wiki account (your username will be your email address). Follow the instructions, then try logging
   into the wiki.
2. Share some information about yourself on this google slide 

Week 1: Wednesday 08/23   

1. It is often said we are entering "the age of A.I." Share some initial thoughts, experiences, insights, hopes, or fears. What might this 
   mean for you, your field, your (future) profession, education, the world? What have your initial encounters with A.I. been like?

2. Read the 4 short "possibilities" texts - Mollick, “How to Use AI to Do Stuff” and “Magic for English Majors,”
   Matthews, “If You’re Not Using ChatGPT for your Writing You’re Making a Mistake”; Chandra, “What’s a Word Worth in the A.I. Era?”
   

3. “How to Use AI to Do Stuff” provides an overview of some common AI tools. Note any points you found useful or 
   interesting. Share a little about your experience so far with AI tools.  
4. Mollick, Matthews and (to a lesser extent) Chandra are optimistic about AI. Why? What reasons do they give? How persuasive 
   did you find them, and why? Which points resonated the most, and was there anything you would you like to know more
   about, extend, or challenge?
5. Reply to two of your classmates' posts. 
6. Post to the Discussion board and make a copy in your Google Drive.
    

Week 2: Monday 08/28   

1. The short readings for today (Caplan, Kirschenbaum, Harari et al., Vincent and Chiang) present critical perspectives on AI.
   What are their main claims and concerns? What points really stood out to you? How persuasive did you find their arguments,
   and why? Was there anything you would you like to know more about, add to, or challenge? 
2. Reply to two of your classmates' posts.
3. Post to the Discussion board and make a copy in your Google Drive.

Week 3: Wednesday 09/06   

1. Read O’Neil's “These Women Warned of AI’s Dangers and Risks Long Before ChatGPT.”
2. Many of the most prominent scholars and critics of both "algorithmic governance" and traditional A.I are women of color. O’Neil's
   article introduces some of these scholars and gives an overview of their work. Write a response to this article. What issues, 
   questions, or problems struck you as the most significant or interesting? What were your main "takeaways" from this 
   test, and was there anything you would you like to know more about, extend, respond to, or challenge?
3. Reply to two of your peers' posts. Post homework to the discussion board and to your Google Drive.
4. Read these short, practical "how to" texts by Molllick, “Assigning AI: Seven Ways of Using AI in Class,”
   “How to Use ChatGPT to Boost Your Writing” and “What happens When AI Reads a Book.” Note anything
   that seemed particularly useful to you, or any questions you have. 
5.  If you are in the group doing the first round of presentations, continue preparing to lead discussion of  
   the three Mollick texts. Summarize the texts, describing the parts you think your classmates may find most useful, and say
   why. Test some of the things Mollick describes, and describe the results. For example, What happens When AI Reads a Book 
   explains how to upload a text and analyze it in productive ways. Try doing this and share what you discovered.

Week 4: Monday 09/11

1. Read Abril, “Gen Z graduates are fluent in AI and ready to join the workforce,” And Karp, “Our Oppenheimer Moment: The Creation of
   A.I. Weapons." The "rhetoric of A.I" is important. The frames and narratives used to discuss it, the way it is represented, and the persuasive
   strategies employed to describe the stakes and who/how it should be developed matter. With this in mind, compose a rhetorical
   analysis of these two texts. Start by outlining the main claims, then discuss some persuasive strategies used, and note any critical
   questions you have. 
2. Reply to two of your peers' posts. Post homework to the discussion board and to your Google Drive.
3.  If you are in one of the groups doing the second round of presentations, continue preparing to lead discussion of your assigned texts.
   Summarize the texts, describe the parts you think your classmates may find most useful, and say why. What issues do they raise? Why are 
   important? Create some questions for the class to tackle, and lead the discussion.

Week 4: Wednesday 09/13

1. Take time to absorb, reflect, and experiment with A.I. prompts/tools. Add entries to your A.I. reflection journal. 
   (From the syllabus: "The AI Reflection Journal is an informal account of your thoughts, reflections, and experiments with AI. How you do this is open.
   You may prefer to focus on personal, professional, or creative interests. You could write about experiences inside and outside class, ways you have used
   AI in your writing, resources you found, experiments, etc. Roughly every week make an entries in your journal and post it to your Google drive folder.)
   
   You could experiment by asking for feedback on papers you've written in the past, or try generating material for assignment prompts you've received. You
   could use Mollick's advice, or look up "prompt engineering tips" and see if you can generate useful results. Or you could move in a more creative direction.
   
   Don't worry if you haven't written anything in your journal up to this point. Start now, and keep adding to it as the semester progresses.
   But make sure you do work on this over the semester as if is worth 10% of your grade.
    
   
2. Review the course schedule and do some initial brainstorming of topics you might be interested in writing about. You can of course
   explore topics related to A.I. and writing/education, but you  don't have to. 
   
   
3. Share whether you'd like to add more texts and work on A.I. in the coming months. If there is a lot of interest I could revise the 
   schedule to make this possible.
   
   
4. Post to the Discussion board and make a copy in your Google Drive.

Week 5: Monday 09/18 

1. Read Thompson's Public Thinking. As you read, use the Hypothes.is annotation tool to select the text and add comments, questions,
   connections, disagreements, etc. You can reply to the annotations others make. Don't spend much time on this - just "think out loud"
   as you read. Please select the smallest amount of text possible - just a word or phrase, so others can more easily add their comments. 
2. On the discussion board, post about the parts of the text that seemed most interesting to you. What connected most to your own
   experiences? Discuss anything you had questions about, liked, disagreed with, or would like to investigate further.
3. Thompson thinks digital media is powerful because it offers many new opportunities for us to write for audiences, and he believes this "audience effect" can make
   us better thinkers and writers. Have you ever experienced the "audience effect"? Are there forms of public thinking you might be interested in exploring, or
   audiences you might want to write for, no matter how small?  
4. How might the emerging age of AI connect to or complicate Thompson's argument? Will A.I. expand, reconfigure, or  undermine 
   the kind of writing and thinking Thompson argues is so valuable?  
5. Reply to two of your peers' posts. Post homework to the discussion board and to your Google Drive.

Week 5: Wednesday 09/20

See https://sdsu.instructure.com/courses/136542/discussion_topics/801721

Week 6: Monday 09/25

1. Read Werry "Imagined Electronic Community" and Doctorow, “Facebook’s Secret War on Switching Costs”. This Werry fellow will
   join us for class. Write a response to his article (be as critical as you like). List questions for him to answer.  
2. What connections do you see between Werry and Doctorow? Discuss what you found most interesting, provocative or useful
   about each text. If one of the texts raised an issue you might like to explore further, share this.
3. Reply to two of your peers' posts. Post homework to the discussion board and to your Google Drive.

Week 7: Monday 10/02

1. Read the following excerpts from Doctorow's The Internet Con: How to Seize the Means of Computation.
   The introduction (introduced by Jaren), chapter 1, web or pdf version,  (introduced by Cole), as well as
   Doctorow's New York Times op-ed, "Amazon, the Apex Predator of the Platform Era.   (Introduced by Christian and Marie.)  
2. Doctorow is challenging dominant ways of thinking about digital technology and wants to reframe the way it is talked about. 
   What are his main claims? What did you think of them? How does he present new frames for understanding the issues? 
3. Doctorow is unusual in that he has worked in tech and knows it from the inside, works on policy, and is also a successful science fiction novelist. 
   What is distinctive about the way he writes?
4. Discuss some of the main persuasive strategies he uses.  Where do you see him using language tactically to reach a broad 
   audience, persuade, make people feel change is possible, and move us to support change? Where do you see examples of "populist" rhetoric?
5. Reply to two of your peers' posts. Post homework to the discussion board and to your Google Drive.

Week 8: Monday 10/09

1. Read Ong's text. Ong claims that in "oral cultures," or cultures without writing, communication and thought
   are shaped in particular ways. How are they shaped, and why? What did you think of this argument?
2. Ong argues that "orally composed texts" (texts composed without writing) have distinctive characteristics.  For example,
   they are often repetitious, and contain "formulas." Use Ong to examine a sample oral composition, “Sundiata.”  he text contains
   two versions of the story. The first has been transformed  into a traditional "literate" prose text. The second is a transcription of
   an oral performance. Skim version 1 for background, but analyze version 2 (the "song"). Discuss two or three features of the text that
   seem to fit Ong's list. The text has been translated, so any analysis will involve some guess work. Give it your best shot, and don't be afraid to
   speculate. (1-2 pages.) What are some elements of the “Sundiata” text that seem to fit Ong's list of characteristics?
3. Sacasas claims that our age of social media remixes some elements of the older oral world Ong describes. What
   are his main claims, and what did you find most interesting about the text? How does Sacasas extend Ong's work? 
   
   

Week 08: Wednesday 10/11

1. Tufecki's "It's the (Democracy-Poisoning) Golden Age of Free Speech" Hassan's, “Subscribe to PewDiePie” and, "YouTube the Great Radicalizer" 
   suggest social media has reconfigured free speech, and changed the way extremism propagates, and this is a problem. What are
   their main claims, and what did you think of them? Discuss the way one of these texts works to persuade readers.  
2. Reply to two of your peers' posts. Post homework to the discussion board and to your Google Drive. 

Week 11: Monday 10/30

1. Read the one page handout on key elements of demagoguery, the two page handout on possible causes of a "culture of demagoguery," 
   and Roberts-Miller, "Rhetorical Characteristics of Demagoguery." Read Wallace, Inaugural Speech,. The texts claim demagoguery has distinct
   rhetorical characteristics - what are they, and how do they work? Try to think of examples you have encountered of texts or speakers
   that exhibit some of these rhetorical characteristics.
2. What did you think of possible causes of a "culture of demagoguery? Did it seem useful or accurate, and are there any parts you
   think could be challenged or factors that should be added?
3. Use the Roberts Miller handouts as a lens to analyze this text by Wallace. Discuss two rhetorical characteristics of demagoguery
   you identified in the text, and their (potential) persuasive effects.
4. Reply to two of your peers' posts. Post homework to the discussion board and to your Google Drive. 

Week 12: Monday 11/06 and 11/08

1. Read the short handout for analyzing authoritarian populist rhetoric. (if you have comments please add them to the Google doc - this is a draft
   I am working on) and use the handout to examine excerpts.  I am working on) and use the handout to examine excerpts from President
   Trump’s January 6, 2021 speech, and the sample statements preceding the attack.. Where do you see examples of the concepts listed in the
   handout? Discuss the language of the excerpts and their potential impact on an audience. Does the handout/list of authoritarian rhetoric
   help illuminate the target texts, or identify patterns?
2. Stanley's Movie at the Ellipse: A Study in Fascist Propaganda provides an analysis of the movie played to the crowd just before the Capitol
   riots. Watch the 2 minute video, and Stanley's analysis. Do you agree with his analysis? What does it suggest? Which parts seemed most/least
   persuasive?
3. Watch the short video of statements by people who stormed the Capitol. Do you see examples of authoritarian rhetoric? Do you see
   connections between Trump's statements, or the statements preceding the attack?