Lesson by Kay Emmert

Explanation (for Instructors)

This self-directed asynchronous lesson guides students through the steps of utilizing AI as a learning and writing tool. It asks students to reflect on the affordances and constraints of the technology by asking “Can AI Teach Business Writing”?

Materials

Instructions (for Students)

Scope

This is a self-directed exercise meant to be used as a substitute for an entire in-person class period. That means you should expect to spend a large amount of time, 40-60 minutes at least. It will provide basic steps for you, but what you get out of the activity depends a great deal on your own curiosity and creativity.

You’ll be exploring the question, “Can AI teach business writing?” by using an AI generative model to assist you in learning and practicing a key writing skill important to you, your discipline, or future career.

By the end of this activity, you should be able to:

Understand and apply a specific writing skill within a specific context.
Reflect on the effectiveness of AI as a tool for business writing instruction.

Instructions

Step 1: Pick an AI

First, select the generative AI model you’d like to use.

ChatGPT – One of the most well-known Generative AI Chatbots. Although this chatbot is highly versatile and adaptable, like most chatbots, it is notably flawed at providing accurate sources, and will tend to “hallucinate” them.

Perplexity AI – This Gen AI chatbot is the best tool, currently, for tasks that require access to accurate sources. However, it is overall less versatile and adaptable.

Copilot –  This Gen AI chatbot is integrated into Microsoft products, offering modes like Creative, Balanced, and Precise, and designed to prioritize user privacy.

Step 2: Pick a context

Second, identify what situations you’d like to improve your writing for. Is this for your daily professional communication? For writing you would do in a specific job you have or hope to have? Writing professionals in a specific discipline you’re majoring in might need to do?

Step 3: Pick a lesson topic

Third, pick any lesson topic of interest to you for your own personal development as a writer. But it might be hard to think of the topic you’re most interested in off the top of your head. In this step, ask the AI for suggested topics. You might ask, “What are documents or writing skills that actuarial consultants need?”

If you see a topic you’re interested in, great! Use that topic for the rest of this activity. If none of the topics interest you, perhaps thinking about why they’re not of interest will lead you to the topic you are interested in.

Step 4: Provide context to your AI

Explain what you need from your AI and the context.

State your goal, that you’re wanting the AI to teach you a lesson on business writing.

Relevant background information about you, the context of the writing situation you want help with, and your topic.

Keywords like “summary,” “steps,” “examples,” or “tips” will result in different kinds of output, so specify what format you want from the AI.

Mention any constraints or personal preferences.

Step 5: Ask the AI to teach you

Ask the AI tool to teach you about the chosen topic. For example:

“Can you teach me how to give professional presentations as a data analyst?”
“What are some tips for creating technical reports?”
“How can I make a good impression in emails to supervisors?”
“I need to write a personal statement for a grad school application. What’s the best way to do that?”

Ask it as many follow-up questions as you can think of in order for you to feel inspired to try its advice or, at least, until understand how to apply the skill to your own writing. You can tell it when you’re confused about something.

You can even pitch ideas to the AI and ask it for advice. Keep in mind that generative AI programs are “yes men.” It can be difficult to get them to disagree with you or to even say anything that is less than 100% enthusiastic.

You might even try giving it an idea you know is cliche or terrible and see what it thinks to test out this limitation. Get creative. This is where your curiosity will impact this activity the most. Your ability to think of different questions to ask will impact how good the advice is that you get back. And how well you’re able to identify the affordances and constraints of generative AI models.

Step 6: Generate examples

Ask the AI to generate examples related to the skill. For instance:

“Can you show me an outline for a professional presentation as a data analyst?”
“Can you create a technical report about [   ] topic?”
“What’s an example of what my email to my supervisor might look like?”
“What’s an example of a successful personal statement for applying to the University of Illinois School of Labor and Employment Relations graduate program?”

What do you notice about how the AI applies the skill? How well does it align with what you learned in Step 5? Does the example succeed at what you asked it to do?

Feel free to direct the AI to revise its example. If the tone, for example, seems inappropriate, offer it suggestions for how it should sound instead. (Hint: Some might benefit from reading the email out loud in order to spot inauthentic speech.)

Step 7: Practice writing with AI guidance

Now, it’s your turn to write. Use the AI to guide you as you create your piece. Not sure what to write about? You can ask it for some prompt ideas to get you started. Create a fast-draft, it doesn’t have to be perfect, but try to apply what you learned about the writing skill you’ve been asking the AI tool about.

Then, ask the AI for feedback. Try to avoid asking yes/no questions, because you’ll likely only get affirmations no matter what. But, it can be just as useful to know what our strengths are as writers as well. So, starting with a blanket, “Can you analyze this piece of writing?” can result in an interesting summary of what you’ve done. Here are a couple of examples of questions you can ask for feedback, but I would suggest asking the AI for a list of suggested questions to ask as well and pick the ones you care about.

 “Where can I improve this personal statement with more specificity?”
“Where can my style be more appropriate for the workplace?”

After you’ve had the AI comment on and make suggestions about your draft, then you should see what happens when you ask the AI to revise your piece for you. You can give it a blanket “Revise this PowerPoint outline” without any further instructions. You can give it specific skills you want to see improved, details you want left alone. Try both. You can take it through several iterations. Follow your gut. Do the revisions get closer to what you want it to be? Does the piece of writing ever reach a point at which you no longer recognize it as your writing?

Step 8: Reflect

After completing this activity, take a few minutes to reflect on your experience by performing a free-write on these questions:

How did the AI help you understand and practice the writing skill of your choice?
How did this experience compare to writing lessons you’ve received from humans?
Did you find its guidance effective? Why or why not?
In what ways might you want to use AI as a writing tool in the future? When might you want to avoid AI use for workplace writing?

AI

This exercise is designed to give you the opportunity to experiment with AI as a tool for writing. By engaging with AI to rewrite and refine existing works, you’ll explore both the possibilities and limitations that these tools present. The goal is to familiarize yourself with how AI can be used in the writing process, and to critically assess its impact on your own writing.

As you wrestle with the question of whether or how to incorporate AI into your work, you’ll be prompted to reconsider your views on what writing truly does for us. This reflection may lead you to explore broader questions about authorship, originality, and the role of technology in human interaction. Ultimately, this experience will help you determine to what degree, if at all, you might want to incorporate AI into your own work.