43 ✨AI-Enhanced Activity: Paragraph Dissection
Instructions:
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Prepare Your Essay Draft:
- Ensure you have a completed draft of your essay.
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Create Your Reverse Outline:
- Read through your essay, paragraph by paragraph.
- For each paragraph, identify the main point or subtopic being discussed.
- Use a comment to label the paragraph with the topic.
- Identify the topic sentence of each paragraph. Make the topic sentence bold.
- Identify the supporting evidence and analysis presented in each paragraph. Highlight supporting evidence in one color and analysis in a second color. (If preferred, instead of color you may use a designated font for each.)
- Use a comment to sum up each instance of supporting evidence and analysis.
- This will form your reverse outline, which reflects the actual structure of your essay.
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AI Paragraph Breakdown Analysis:
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Use an AI writing tool (e.g., ChatGPT, Bard, etc.).
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Begin by sharing with the AI one broken-down paragraph of your essay, labeled with its parts.
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Ask the AI if each part is labeled correctly and whether the evidence and analysis sufficiently support the topic sentence.
Example Prompt:
“Here is a broken-down paragraph from my essay with labeled parts: Topic Sentence: [enter topic sentence], Supporting Evidence: [enter evidence], Analysis: [enter analysis]. Please evaluate whether each part fits the label I have given it and whether the evidence and analysis sufficiently support the topic sentence. Please explain your evaluation, but do not rewrite any part.”
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Analyze the AI’s feedback.
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If the AI suggests improvements, revise your work accordingly.
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Repeat this process for each paragraph in your essay.
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Reflect and Revise:
- Based on the AI’s feedback, revise your essay.
- Pay particular attention to transitions between paragraphs and ensure that your supporting evidence and analysis are logically organized.
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Reflection: Building Stronger Arguments Through AI Insight
- Write a reflection that explores how this activity has shaped your understanding of effective academic writing.
- Specifically address the following:
- Clarity and Connection: Describe how the AI’s feedback helped you refine the connection between your topic sentences, evidence, and analysis within each paragraph. Did any feedback surprise you, and if so, how?
- Structural Awareness: Explain how dissecting your paragraphs in this way has impacted your understanding of essay structure and flow. What did you learn about how your paragraphs contribute to your overall argument?
- Argumentative Strength: Discuss how analyzing your paragraphs with AI has helped you understand how to build stronger arguments. Did this process reveal any areas where your evidence or analysis was lacking, and how did you address them?
- AI as a Learning Tool: Reflect on the role of AI in this revision process. Did you find it helpful to have an “outside perspective” on your writing? How might you use AI in future writing projects to enhance your revision process?