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

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, ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc. You might also encourage students to work with a tool that has enhanced voice mode features, such as GPT-4o or Google Assistant, to create a sense of flowing conversation.
   • This step is guided by a rubric, peer feedback, and teacher feedback to ensure student questions will generate meaningful conversation. 
   • Use journalistic thinking principles and teach students to “put themselves in their character’s shoes” and imagine what types of questions will “get them talking.”
   • If students are struggling to generate questions, it may be helpful to first suggest 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. 
   • This develops AI literacy on the back-end of what was already a rich, engaging approach to literary or historical understanding of a character.

RESOURCES

“Using Character Chatbots in English Class,” Mike Kentz, Edutopia
“How a Holden Caulfield Chatbot Helped My Students Develop AI Literacy,” Mike Kentz, EdSurge