I am curious how other people teach writing in the age of LLMs. I am teaching in a political science department and have to teach students some philosophical writing in order for them to be able to write term papers and theses in political theory/philosophy.
Previously, my strategy would have been to give students a couple of small writing tasks during the semester and provide some feedback on those tasks. However, with what LLMs are currently capable of and with the degree of LLM-use I have seen, I am pessimistic about the prospects of that strategy. My expectation is that anything like “Summarize the argument on p. 2” or “Write a brief response to argument X” will yield a large number of machine-generated responses.
So I would be curious to hear how others are teaching writing now. In particular, I am curious how you can integrate it into a regular seminar for students that might only take a small number of philosophy courses. Do you do writing exercises in class? Do you just stop teaching writing?
I am curious to hear about this too. How (if at all) do you teach writing now?
Now that it’s been over a month since our last “how can we help you?” thread, it’s time for a new one.
For those of you unfamiliar with this series, this is a chance for you to post openly or anonymously in the comments section below on anything you could use help with related to the profession. After you post your query in the comments section, I will then post new threads for readers to discuss your query.
As usual, feel free to ask questions on anything (within the Cocoon’s mission) that you could use help with, including but not limited to:
The job-market (applying for jobs, etc.)
Issues in the profession (including issues of social justice)
Graduate school
Publishing
Teaching
Work-life balance
Mental health & well-being
Professional or personal struggles
Etc.
Ask away – we’re here to help!
Finally, a quick reminder of the following RULE: Please do not submit replies to other comments in this thread. It makes these threads unwieldy and difficult for me to keep track of which queries I’ve posted new threads on. If you’d like to respond to a comment in this thread, please wait until I dedicate a new post to the person’s query myself and comment in that thread instead! I have not been enforcing this rule consistently recently, but need to recommit to it as it has been hard to manage these threads. Thanks!
In our January “how can we help you?” thread, a reader asks, “Is it appropriate to ask for feedback after a flyout where you did not ultimately get the job?”
Another reader submitted the following reply, which seems right to me:
Not sure about appropriateness (I know HR at many places would not allow this especially by email), but about usefulness. Although it feels to candidates like these decisions are appraisals of how well we did, for committees it is often a close call between candidates who did equally well on the scorecard, such that the decision comes down to teaching or research “fit”, or things that could not be offered as reasons to the candidate’s face, such as personality, predictions about whether you’d stay, internal politics, whether someone in the room thought you were a total embarrassment, who the big cheese got behind. It seems probable you would get an incomplete explanation if you ask. Even if you do get constructive criticism of your performance, that should be discounted by the fact what place A dislikes might be exactly what place B is looking for, and we tend to overemphasize negative feedback internally. That is, because we are rejection sensitive, you may make changes to yourself or your candidacy to try to appeal more to that kind of place in future, when in fact that kind of place was not your best bet anyway. So it might be like asking someone why you didn’t get a second date — not that useful as information and likely to hurt your feelings!
What do other readers think? It could be especially helpful to hear from candidates who have asked for feedback, as well as from search committees/search chairs.
Abstracts are sought for a collection of essays on any philosophical topic related to Elvis Aaron Presley to be published with Wallace & Jacobs Press. We hope to receive a number of submissions concerning his music and movies as well as his persona, life, relationships, cultural impact, legacy, mythos, etc. Abstracts and eventual essays should be written for an educated but non-specialized audience (with an approximate length of 3,000 – 3,500 words). Potential topics include (but are not limited to!)…
Conspiracy Theories: Why do we believe in conspiracy theories? Can we explain why so many folks have claimed to see Elvis after he died?
Cultural Appropriation: What is cultural appropriation, is it always a bad thing, and was Elvis guilty of it?
Celebrity: What is celebrity worship, and why do we worship celebrities? Is it irrational to have admiration for Elvis and Elvis types? Does philosophy have anything interesting to say about fame?
Ethics: Is it at all ethically dubious to ignore Elvis’s more problematic relationships (e.g., with Priscilla)? Is there ever a line where consuming the art of a person of poor character is morally unacceptable?
Mythology: Who was Elvis, really? Can we distinguish between Elvis the man and Elvis the Legend?
Legacy: What is Elvis’s Legacy? How was it affected by his untimely death?
Philosophy of Love: What makes for a good love song? Why are so many songs centered around (romantic or other types of) love?
Psychology: Why do we listen to such sad Elvis songs (e.g., “Heartbreak Hotel,” “Blue Christmas”)?
Social Justice: What sort of legacy does Elvis and/or his songs have in regard to social justice?
Aesthetics: What makes Elvis’s brand of rock and roll so aesthetically appealing? Does his crossing of genres make him a more significant artistic figure?
Authorship: When judging Elvis as an artist, does it matter that he didn’t write hardly any of his own songs?
Spirituality / Religion: What are we to make of Elvis as a messenger for the Gospel? Who was Elvis the seeker?
Civil Rights: Did Elvis do enough to promote civil rights (given his connection to African American music)?
History of Philosophy: What would philosophers from history think of Elvis, his movies, and the music he created? Would any of them have been a fan?
My friend told me that they received an invitation for a Zoom interview for this position.