An Eagle’s farewell: Nothing artificial about it

An Eagle’s farewell: Nothing artificial about it

Posted on March 29th, 2024 by Scott Warnock

Jason Kelce’s retirement speech from the Eagles and NFL is already famous. It was as remarkable a speech as it was a piece of writing and rhetoric.

The delivery was not just quintessential Kelce, but it was very much of his generation: He sat in a sleeveless workout shirt and sandals and read the speech from his phone; perhaps he even composed it using the phone.

Watching, I had thoughts and feelings from many perspectives: as a (former!) athlete, spouse, Eagles fan. I also viewed it as a teacher, and from that vantage, I had a distinct thought: “No way AI wrote that speech.” Why? Because I was struck by how authentic Kelce’s speech was. It was all him in content, style, and voice.

I thought how proud and excited I am when I receive authentic writing work–sometimes with accompanying speeches– from my students. And it made me think again of the big challenge for teachers to create meaningful writing assignments, and how that challenge has been renewed because of generative artificial intelligence. We are being pushed to develop assignments that are not so much plagiarism proof as plagiarism discouraging because they bring out authentic, meaningful student writing.

I know it’s challenging for teachers to create such assignments. After all, we can’t just drop students into a context like Kelce’s, where they bid goodbye to an activity of passion after nearly a decade and a half, especially an activity meshing the violent and the cerebral like football (especially when you play center).

But I believe GAI will productively pressure teachers to create more meaningful writing environments for our students. Assignments with authentic roots will have a greater likelihood of inspiring such responses.

My nephew/housemate recently submitted his college application essay. Despite living with a college writing professor (!), he went it solo. I respect him for doing this task on his own–he’s an independent guy–and he had no compunction sharing the essay with me afterward. After reading it, I said, “No one will think AI wrote this.” The essay had its quirks and inconsistencies, but my comment was not a knock on it. I was saying it had a genuine voice that I felt reflected him well.

There’s a lot of rightful concern in education circles about GAI, especially for writing instruction. Will these GAI engines grow in sophistication to the point that we won’t need people for that very human task, writing? Maybe, but as I watched Kelce, I thought, “I don’t think so”–or at least, “We’ve got a ways to go before that happens.”

I won’t get prideful. If I start boasting that I can create assignments that will prevent students from using GAI, I’m inviting disaster: they’ll prove me wrong. But listening to Jason Kelce’s farewell from football, I realized that if I keep striving to create assignments that mean something to them, they will return something meaningful for me and, more importantly, for themselves.

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Scott Warnock

Scott Warnock is a writer and teacher who lives in South Jersey. He is a professor of English at Drexel University, where he is also the Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education in the College of Arts and Sciences. Father of three and husband of one, Scott is president of a local high school education foundation and spent many years coaching youth sports.