Discovery Project: Framing AI Images

In this assignment, students reflected on an AI image they created by prompting a free image generation platform of their choice.

Author: Ben Spanbock, Lecturer in College Writing Programs
Course Number & Title: COLWRIT R4A: Reading and Composition
Grant Type: Berkeley Discover Departmental Innovation Award Program (Discovery Trailblazers)

This work is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

 Framing AI Images
Assignment Title
 Framing AI Images
Delivery Format In-person

High Impact Practices (HIPs) Categories

(Review definitions for each category)
  • Collaborative Assignments and Projects
  • ePortfolios & Multimedia Storytelling
  • Writing-Intensive Courses
Learning Objectives
  • Develop a viewpoint on the mediating role AI plays in generating content
  • Work with scholarly texts to formalize opinions in written expository form
  • Practice with foundational primary source analysis skills
  • Understand AI “prompt-crafting” as an emergent rhetorical skill
Brief Summary of Assignment Using a primary source analysis tool developed by the Library of Congress, students reflect on an AI image they create by prompting a free image generation platform of their choice. After collectively sharing their work online, students form in class groups to develop positions about their relationship to their image based on theories of authenticity drawn from scholarly texts. Students then developed academic arguments to defend their positions, using their own work as primary supporting evidence for their claims. Later in the semester, some students chose to satisfy their course capstone requirement with creative projects inspired by our earlier work.
Innovative Teaching Reflection

This assignment gives students experiential practice working with generative AI in a low-stakes environment. It puts student creativity and voice at the center of writing instruction, and in doing so highlights the potential of an applied learning strategy for developing pedagogy that is less susceptible to artificial responses and forgery.
Assignment Length The assignment can be completed incrementally over the course of 1-2 weeks utilizing both in-class and out-of-class time.
Assignment Details See handout.

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