backward engineering An Essay for deeper research and fact-checking

Yesterday the students should have completed up to 7 questions to dive into their research. From there they were supposed to come up with an idea for an essay. So they likely feel they are coming into class today to start an essay. However, instead, they are going to ask ChatGPT to write it for them. You can see the Youtube video here.

So, I am going to start with this question for my essay.

Great- so I had a 5 paragraph essay. But the writing seemed a bit high level for comprehension for my readers. SO I asked for it at a 7th grade level;

For some reason the chat then made it only three paragraphs this time. So I asked for it in 5 paragraph format again.

The in text citations seemed to not be there this time, so I asked again for them.

Now I have a grade 7 level 5-paragraph essay with in-text citations on why Paris was important for the Harlem Renaissance. Now I want the students to visit the websites that are referenced. Can they find the information AND more importantly is this a legitimate site? How do they know? If you want there is an amazing lesson by the New Literacy Project on their checkology website that goes over checking the validity of websites by doing a lateral reading. I HIGHLY suggest this as a detour when exploring and looking at the sources.

This website is free and has SEVERAL amazing lessons. Use the lateral reading tool before doing any source evaluation.

After you have done their lesson, you can have students fill out the worksheet below. This will encourage students to be looking at what site they used and if it seems reliable. If this website references other websites they should include it on their worksheet and visit and evaluate those sites as well.

I started by visiting the first source, National Endowment for the Humanities. (n.d.). Paris, France: Haven for African American Writers. Retrieved from https://edsitement.neh.gov/feature/paris-france-haven-african-american-writers, and from the link I was lead to this:

I searched for Paris and the Harlem Renaissance on this site and was given several articles. I was able to fill out the validity of the source, as it’s a government organization and lateral reading showed it was a legitimate website. I was able to fill out more interesting information on my notes from facts I saw in these articles and also verify that the website listed did indeed have the information listed from chatGPT. There were several additional sites listed that I could explore, as well as Music on the website.

When I went to check source 2, a theme emerged, as I saw this message:

We did not need to laterally search the website as it’s a known entity to me, but could be verified with a quick search. I searched the article name in the search bar:

The article did not appear when I searched. I did see that Paris again becomes important in the late 1960s and 70s for African American art and eventually was able to find something similar. I searched Paris and Harlem Renaissance and 13 articles popped up that had interesting facts for me to list. I could not find the exact source mentioned in the chatGPT history but was able to find a similar source on the website to verify the information.

I then checked the final source, and while it was a legitimate Smithsonian site the information in the link was not relevant:

This final source I did a search for my subject and nothing relevant appeared. I had already found several other possible sources on the other websites, but now know I would remove this one as a source of information.

Students will hand in the filled-out form for each source and will explain their evaluation and what they did to confirm it was legitimate. More importantly, they will come to class the next day with more questions to begin the chatGPT research process the next day.