Using ChatGPT for inspiration – again

A while back, I wrote about using AI to generate graphics for your class stories. Today, I’m going to show what can be done going the other direction. Rather than entering class stories into ChatGPT and letting it draw the images, you can also provide the images and have your students write a story to go along.

ChatGPT and the day in the life of an average person

I was inspired by a series of posts on the r/chatGPT forum and realized that there is an unlimited source of input AND output materials available to us, whether made by others or ourselves. A poster shared a series of images produced by ChatGPT showing a day in the life of an “average Frenchman.” Of course it was filled with over-the-top ideas of what made it French – lots of croissant, baguettes and snails involved. The story gets better as the main character eventually ends up stealing the Mona Lisa and going home to enjoy a meal of escargots.

This in turn inspired a whole range of “day in the life” stories. In many of them, the average person realizes that the Mona Lisa has been stolen and goes to recover it using whatever their particular country has to offer. There is now an entire “Mona Lisa universe” to enjoy.

These stories are all completely school-safe and fun for students to enjoy. You could use any of them as a story to tell in class. I would suggest writing out the script ahead of time so you can decide which vocabulary or structures you will focus on, then treat the images as a movie talk type of activity with pauses, details and circling.

Once you’ve done the first story as a class, you could assign subsequent stories to students for them to write and fill in the details. You might even want to do 2-3 different stories as a class before allowing students to work independently so they have an idea of the flow of the story. Since all of them involve the same basic plot, it will be easier for students to retell without getting bored as the details will be different.

ChatGPT makes it MORE

Another post that I saw involves “make it MORE” – you give ChatGPT the basic statement, but then ask for it to be MORE ______. There is one about making it more French – so you will see plenty of stereotypes in that one, but this also leads to good cultural discussion. The title is “French people in french places doing french things and make it even “frenchier” – it starts out pretty calmly, but soon enough you have a country full of mimes wearing berets, riding bicycles, and there are croissants and baguettes everywhere!

The “make it more” technique could be of use when you are doing the comparative or superlative. Why talk about a mouse that is slightly bigger than a dog when you could have a progressive set of images showing the mouse bigger than lots of other things as well? And how will the world deal with a gigantic mouse when he finally reaches his final size? This gives students the chance to be creative as well as practicing an important structure.

If you’re not particularly creative, take a look at the ChatGPT forum linked above – people are always posting new art and many of the posts are complete storylines. Depending on the amount of time you have to spend, you might want to do a single image or an entire series.