Interview a Fictional Character
Completing this assignment will fulfil the requirements for the Dallas College Critical Thinking Core Competency Assignment. The Critical Thinking Core Objective allows students to develop a wide variety of skills:
· Analyze issues
· Complex/creative problem solving: anticipate problems, solutions and consequences
· Knowledge application: apply knowledge to make decisions
· Pattern detection: detect patterns/themes/underlying principles
· Research: gather proper resources and information to conduct research
· Analysis and interpretation: analyzing and interpreting data to synthesize information
Upon successful demonstration of a skill, you may be eligible to apply for a Digital Badge.
Interview a Fictional Character
Choose any one character from the readings you have completed in this class. This character could be someone you found interesting or intriguing. You will first read the literary text and gain some understanding of the character and the character’s motivations.
Have a conversation with an AI-crafted fictional character to explore the underlying intricacies of a literary text.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
·
Engage in critical dialogue with a fictional persona to develop conversational skills
Practice active listening in order to probe lines of inquisition previously unexplored for a certain fictional character
·
Critically reflect on the accuracy of AI to capture the nuances of characters from well-interpreted literary texts
INSTRUCTIONS
Generate Interview Questions
1. Students generate interview questions for a fictional or historical character that are broad, open-ended, and show an understanding of historical or literary context. Students may use an AI tool of their choosing, such as
Character.AI, (in the past, some students have said that this tool is hard to navigate) ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc. Students may work with a tool that has enhanced voice mode features, such as GPT-4o (I found this tool to be the best) or Google Assistant, to create a sense of flowing conversation. You can send me your questions to review before you conduct the interview.
· This step is guided by a rubric, peer feedback, and teacher feedback to ensure questions will generate meaningful conversation.
· Students should “put themselves in their character’s shoes” and imagine what types of questions will “get them talking.”
· Students should consider noting down particular themes that they may want to focus on (e.g., political views, personal values, relationships, etc.).
2. Sample open-ended questions:
· Can you describe a significant friendship or rivalry and its effect on your life?
· What has been the most challenging obstacle you’ve faced, and how did you overcome it?
· If you could change one thing about your past, what would it be and why?
· Were you involved in any significant political events and, if so, how did it shape or alter your beliefs?
· What are your thoughts on the societal norms and expectations of your era?
· How do you perceive your own role in the narrative? Do you agree with how the author has portrayed you?
Conducting the Interview
1. Students practice interviewing a character of their choosing and share the experience in class.
· If possible, students are encouraged to use the voice chat feature that some AI models offer to support a conversational experience.
· Students interview the historical or fictional character in question using a rubric for active listening as a guide. Active listening entails maintaining attentiveness, understanding and empathizing with responses, reflecting on answers, demonstrating non-judgmental engagement, and responding appropriately with opinions.
Evaluation
1. Students will then copy and paste and share the chat transcripts with the teacher for evaluation and assessment of critical thinking, active listening, problem-solving, and any other objectives the teacher chooses.
· This can further the goal of developing empathy in students, conversational skills, or problem-solving, analysis, and critical thinking.
Analysis
1. Students then analyze the chatbot. Did it further their understanding of the character in question? Did it mimic the character from the book or from history, or did it fail to capture characteristic nuances?
2. Students will write a paper using quoted evidence from the chat transcript itself– in comparison with the book or textbook– to show that the bot either mimicked/missed mimicking the character in question or furthered/did not further their understanding of the character in question.
