Cinemorphosis

Category: Education in the AI Age

  • The Sandwich Test

    The Sandwich Test

    Late in my sixty-fourth year, I had a dream about getting old.

    Not dying. Not disease. Not falling down the stairs and being discovered three days later by a concerned Amazon driver. The dream was about something that frightens me more: remaining perfectly alive while becoming increasingly incompatible with the world.

    I was still a college writing professor, but the college had metastasized into an enormous city. I had offices scattered across campus, although “office” was a generous term. Some of my offices were hidden inside caves. Others were buried beneath rocks. Apparently, I had been teaching composition continuously through the Cenozoic, Mesozoic, and Paleozoic eras.

    I was no longer Professor McMahon.

    I was Ancient Man.

    Students and faculty tolerated me with the peculiar tenderness people reserve for very old dogs and malfunctioning appliances they don’t quite have the heart to throw away. I was still technically employed. I still had classes to teach. I simply never made it to them.

    I was too busy looking for lunch.

    Eventually I wandered into a campus café and ordered a sandwich. Then came the moment that crystallized the entire dream.

    I didn’t know how to pay.

    Everyone else apparently understood the electronic payment system. There were screens, phones, apps, codes, invisible financial transmissions humming through the atmosphere. I stood before the cashier with the helpless expression of a Cro-Magnon man encountering an Apple Store.

    Finally, I opened my wallet.

    Inside, instead of dollar bills, was a wad of turkey cold cuts.

    This was my money.

    I handed the cashier several slices.

    She stared at them.

    Then she stared at me.

    For a moment, I could see her weighing her options: call security, summon a social worker, or simply accept that the ancient professor had reached the stage of life when deli meat constituted legal tender.

    She chose mercy.

    Suppressing her laughter, she accepted my turkey and made me a sandwich while her coworkers turned away so I wouldn’t see them shaking.

    This was The Sandwich Test: the moment when an ordinary transaction reveals that the world has quietly changed its operating system without consulting you.

    Every generation eventually takes it.

    One day you are a fully competent adult who understands how civilization works. Then you encounter a parking meter, QR code, authentication app, digital wallet, restaurant kiosk, or some other technological improvement designed to make life “easier,” and discover that apparently everyone received instructions except you.

    The young person behind the counter looks at you sympathetically.

    You reach for your wallet.

    Turkey.

    The humiliation goes deeper than technological incompetence. The Sandwich Test tells you that your currency—literal and metaphorical—is losing value.

    I had survived chalkboards, dry-erase boards, overhead projectors, PowerPoint, online teaching, Canvas, Zoom, and artificial intelligence. This longevity gave me a certain prestige. People regarded me as one might regard a giant sequoia: ancient, impressive, and probably best left exactly where he is.

    At one point I encountered Florida A&M’s magnificent Marching 100 moving across campus. I followed them.

    Their music filled me with heavenly bliss. I wasn’t supposed to interfere with their rehearsal, but nobody threw me out. Ancient Man had privileges. If an elderly professor who had apparently been teaching since the Paleozoic wanted to trail behind the marching band, you let him.

    This was the contradiction of old age. I was ridiculous but venerable, obsolete but durable, invisible but somehow legendary. People humored me precisely because I had survived long enough to become an artifact.

    Yet I didn’t feel honored.

    I felt lonely.

    I thought of the larval souls of Hades, those spectral inhabitants of the underworld who retained consciousness without fully participating in life. That was the real terror of the dream: not that my body had failed but that the world had moved several feet away from me. I could still see it, hear it, walk through it.

    I just couldn’t quite enter it.

    Then I woke up.

    My muscles were sore from the previous day’s kettlebell workout. I lay there contemplating Ancient Man, wandering through geological time with his useless wallet stuffed with lunch meat.

    Then I got out of bed and headed for the exercise bike.

    The larval state could wait another day.

  • The Gospel According to the Irvine Spectrum

    The Gospel According to the Irvine Spectrum

    On our way to a vacation in Carlsbad, we made an unplanned pilgrimage to the Irvine Spectrum. A retailer had forgotten to remove one of those magnetic security tags—the kind that doesn’t merely protect merchandise but threatens to baptize it in indelible dye should you attempt to liberate it yourself.

    It was ninety degrees outside, yet the mall overflowed with shoppers who looked as though they had wandered out of a lifestyle advertisement. Most appeared to be under twenty-one, gliding effortlessly through the promenade in athletic shorts, yoga pants, or denim cutoffs so abbreviated they seemed engaged in an argument with modesty. They possessed that enviable firmness exclusive to youth: muscles earned not through discipline but through adolescence itself. Nature had done all the work, leaving many of them with the faintly irritating confidence of people who mistake a genetic inheritance for a personal achievement.

    The boys wore that ubiquitous haircut that resembles broccoli sprouting from their skulls: luxuriant tufts piled high above sides clipped so close they looked apologetic. Somewhere a barber had convinced an entire generation that vegetables belonged on the human head.

    The older men were no less committed to the performance. Many looked to be in their forties, dressed in expensive athletic wear that existed less for exercise than for exhibition. Their fitted shirts advertised sculpted shoulders, bulging biceps, and veins that appeared to have negotiated sponsorship deals with their forearms. Aviator sunglasses completed the ensemble. They looked as though they had stepped directly from an Outdoor Voices or Vuori photo shoot, each one silently auditioning to become the patron saint of functional leisure.

    Then there was me.

    I was too old for the mall, too heavy for the uniform, and wearing exactly the wrong shirt: a T-shirt emblazoned with Snoopy and the words World Champion Dad.

    At that moment, I did not feel like a champion of anything.

    While my wife and daughters disappeared into the stores to rectify the retailer’s oversight, I settled into the shade beside a fountain and watched humanity file past.

    What struck me first was not the clothing itself but its uncanny uniformity. Nearly everyone seemed assembled from the same inventory. Their shirts, shoes, sunglasses, handbags, water bottles, and watches appeared to have been harvested from neighboring storefronts. Like hermit crabs constructing protective shells from whatever debris washes onto the ocean floor, these shoppers had fashioned exoskeletons from the flotsam and jetsam of consumer culture.

    But the clothing was only the outer shell.

    The deeper transformation had taken place beneath the fabric.

    These people had absorbed the mall’s emotional atmosphere as thoroughly as they had absorbed its fashions. They radiated the mall’s synthetic optimism, its perpetual cheerfulness, its frictionless sentimentality, and its promise that fulfillment was perpetually one purchase away. Every storefront preached the same gospel: happiness is available in your size, and it’s twenty percent off this weekend.

    Deism proposes that the Creator reveals Himself through nature.

    Mallism proposes something else entirely.

    It teaches that the faithful gradually become expressions of the mall itself. Its architecture colonizes their imagination. Its values become their values. Its aesthetics become their personality. They cease merely to shop there; they begin to embody the place.

    The mall, in other words, manufactures not only consumers but a recognizable species of human being.

    Watching the procession from my shaded bench, I wondered whether I had stumbled into a habitat rather than a marketplace—a carefully engineered ecosystem in which identity, aspiration, and self-worth circulated through the air-conditioning along with the scent of cinnamon rolls and expensive perfume.

    Perhaps every civilization eventually constructs temples.

    Ours simply installed escalators.

  • When Reading Lost to the Dopamine Feed

    When Reading Lost to the Dopamine Feed

    Rose Horowitch’s essay “The End of Reading Is Here,” published in The Atlantic, chronicles more than the decline of reading. It examines the kind of mind that flourishes after reading has surrendered. Citing data from the National Endowment for the Arts, she notes that fewer than half of American adults read any kind of book in 2022. Only 38 percent read a novel or short story. By 2023, a mere 16 percent reported reading for pleasure.

    What filled the vacuum? Gambling.

    Nearly 60 percent of Americans now gamble. We have traded one form of anticipation for another. Instead of turning pages in search of revelation, we pull slot-machine levers and refresh sports-betting apps in pursuit of dopamine.

    Even the books that survive have changed. Sentences are shorter. Syntax is simpler. Apparently, asking readers to navigate a few dependent clauses before arriving at the independent clause is now considered an unreasonable burden. The modern sentence has become a microwave dinner: engineered for speed, stripped of complexity, and consumed with minimal effort.

    The same contraction has reshaped our news diet. Long-form reporting that patiently excavates facts has given way to sixty-second video clips engineered for maximum stimulation. The reward is immediate. The understanding is shallow. It requires no political science degree to imagine what happens to a democracy when its citizens lose both the patience and the habit of sustained attention.

    Horowitch argues that this decline in reading parallels a decline in critical thinking itself. Increasing numbers of adults struggle to comprehend what they read, distinguish evidence from assertion, or draw reasonable conclusions. If adulthood once implied literacy, then America is drifting toward a peculiar form of cultural infantilization—a nation increasingly vulnerable to demagogues, conspiracy peddlers, and professional grifters eager to convert intellectual laziness into political capital.

    The greatest irony is that Americans have never consumed more words.

    We read texts, emails, Slack messages, Instagram captions, TikTok comments, headlines, notifications, and endless streams of digital debris. Never has so much language been processed to produce so little contemplation. We are drowning in words while starving for thought.

    That is why Horowitch describes America as becoming postliterate—not because language has disappeared, but because sustained reading has. Literacy once demanded immersion. Postliteracy rewards interruption.

    Nor has this transformation stabilized. It is accelerating. Each generation spends less time reading books and more time marinating its attention inside algorithmically curated feeds. Television, for all its faults, never possessed this power. During the television era, people still disappeared into novels on weekends and carried paperbacks to the beach. TV occupied a room. Smartphones occupy consciousness itself. They transformed distraction from an activity into a permanent habitat.

    I have watched this transformation from a privileged vantage point. For nearly forty years, I have taught college writing.

    The curriculum my colleagues and I teach today would have been almost unrecognizable when I began. We rarely assign long books. Many instructors assign none at all. My freshman composition course still requires one short classic, Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. My critical thinking course assigns no books whatsoever. Instead, students read essays from The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and The New York Times. I upload the readings into Canvas, then spend class breaking them into digestible segments through Google Slides. Each slide contains roughly one hundred words followed by a discussion question that forces students to wrestle with the author’s reasoning one piece at a time.

    Some critics insist that professors should simply assign longer books and demand compliance. That fantasy evaporates the moment it encounters reality. Students vote with their enrollment. Assign too much reading, and many will either avoid the course altogether or quietly migrate to instructors who require less. Consumer demand has entered higher education whether professors approve or not. As students’ habits change, curriculum follows. The postliterate marketplace shapes the classroom long before faculty meetings do.

    Yet calling ours a “postliterate society” risks flattening important distinctions.

    My students are mostly between eighteen and twenty years old. Yes, they grew up on TikTok, YouTube, and Instagram. Yes, many arrive having read remarkably few books. But they are also intellectually curious. They enjoy argumentation. They respond viscerally to sharp prose, elegant rhetoric, and clever turns of phrase. They relish exposing logical fallacies and dismantling weak arguments. Once you capture their attention, they often surprise you with the sophistication of their thinking.

    They are not representative of America at large.

    A first-generation college student eager to transform his life occupies a different intellectual universe than an adult who never pursued higher education, works a dead-end job, and spends every evening numbing himself with algorithmic entertainment. Both may read fewer books than previous generations, but their relationship to knowledge is hardly the same. There is no single postliteracy. There are many varieties of it.

    Technology rewires us from the inside out. I can measure the changes in my own brain. At sixty-four, I find myself fighting distractions that barely existed thirty years ago. My attention requires more vigilance than it once did. The temptation to surrender to endless scrolling is no respecter of age, education, or profession. Digital gravity pulls on all of us.

    There is no reversing this transformation. The toothpaste is out of the tube. The smartphone is not going away. Artificial intelligence is not going away. Algorithmic media is not going away. We are not marching back to 1975 carrying hardcovers beneath our arms.

    That reality, however, should make us suspicious of sweeping declarations about postliteracy. Horowitch rightly identifies genuine losses: diminished attention spans, weaker reading comprehension, and shrinking tolerance for intellectual complexity. But we have also developed new literacies. We decode memes, navigate digital ecosystems, detect online irony, understand platform cultures, and learn new technologies with astonishing speed. Our cognitive landscape has not simply shrunk. It has been reorganized.

    Whether that reorganization represents progress remains an open question.

    I doubt we will someday revolt against TikTok and rediscover Tolstoy en masse. The fantasy of 90 percent of Americans reading one hundred books a year belongs somewhere between nostalgia and science fiction.

    Still, I hesitate to declare the reading life permanently dead.

    Human beings possess an appetite that algorithms cannot completely satisfy. Endless novelty eventually becomes monotonous. Constant stimulation eventually feels empty. Even the most dedicated scroller occasionally hungers for something with weight, texture, and permanence—an idea worth wrestling with rather than merely reacting to.

    Curiosity has survived every technological revolution humanity has endured. It survived radio. It survived television. It may yet survive TikTok.

    The reading brain has been wounded.

    I am not convinced it is beyond recovery.

  • Forty Years Later, I Finally Learned How to Teach Writing

    Forty Years Later, I Finally Learned How to Teach Writing

    This morning was bittersweet. Assuming I don’t substantially revise my curriculum for one final spring semester, I may have written my last syllabus after forty years of teaching college composition.

    My freshmen will spend the semester wrestling with subjects that would have been unimaginable when I began teaching in the 1980s. They will analyze the epidemic of sports betting in a culture of loneliness, examine how algorithmic platforms reshape identity and ambition, and challenge the mythology of the self-made man through the life and writings of Frederick Douglass.

    As I finished organizing my notes, an uncomfortable realization settled over me: I am retiring just as I feel I have finally learned how to do this job well.

    I have always been a slow learner. It took me four decades to discover how to design a writing course that feels intellectually coherent rather than merely competent. Only now do I feel that the readings, assignments, and classroom conversations reinforce one another with genuine purpose. Just as the picture has come into focus, I find myself stepping off the stage.

    I also have mixed feelings about OpenAI platforms. On one hand, they have created an endless stream of grading headaches. Every semester brings hundreds of essays that bear the unmistakable fingerprints of AI splatter—competent-looking prose that collapses under scrutiny because no real mind seems to inhabit it. I return many of these papers with one instruction: start over.

    Yet these same tools have also made teaching writing more intellectually exciting than it has been in years. I have used them to sharpen essay prompts, generate competing arguments, refine classroom activities, and demonstrate to students how AI can become an editorial collaborator rather than an intellectual substitute. I realize that sounds almost sacrilegious coming from a writing professor, but adapting to these technologies has rekindled my curiosity about cognition, literacy, learning, and composition. We do not yet know where this technological revolution is taking us, and I doubt anyone can fully control its direction. But the questions it raises are among the most fascinating of my career.

    My greatest concern is not artificial intelligence itself. It is the widening gap between students who possess deep literacy and those who do not. Students who have spent years reading demanding books can interrogate AI, challenge its assumptions, recognize its mistakes, and use it to strengthen their own thinking. Students raised primarily on TikTok and algorithmically curated snippets often lack that foundation. For them, AI becomes less a tool than a surrogate mind—a magical genie that produces respectable-looking mediocrity while quietly encouraging them to outsource their judgment, curiosity, and intellectual will. The danger is not that AI will make students less intelligent. The danger is that it will make them comfortable never developing the habits of mind that intelligence requires.

    Teaching students to acquire the literacy necessary to use these tools wisely may become the defining challenge of higher education over the next generation. That is one reason retirement feels bittersweet. Just as this frontier is opening, I am leaving the profession.

    Looking back over forty years, however, gratitude overwhelms regret. I was fortunate to spend my working life in a profession that demanded perpetual intellectual growth. Every semester required me to become a slightly better reader, writer, and thinker. I never tired of teaching argumentation, counterarguments, rebuttals, rhetorical strategy, or the mysterious alchemy that transforms an elephantine sentence into something lean, graceful, and memorable.

    Writing has always fascinated me because most of it disappears the moment it is read. Nearly everything we encounter is competent enough, clear enough, forgettable enough. Then, every so often, a sentence possesses that rare quality I call salience. It arrests your attention. It feels inevitable, as though no other arrangement of words could possibly exist. Discovering how writers achieve that effect—how they impose order, precision, and beauty upon the chaos of language—has remained one of the enduring pleasures of my life.

    Perhaps my final lecture should not be about grammar, thesis statements, or MLA format. Perhaps I should gather these reflections into a Google Slides presentation and offer my students a panoramic view of why writing classes matter more today than at any other moment in my career. Artificial intelligence has not diminished the value of literacy. It has elevated it. In an age when machines can imitate competent prose, the truly educated writer will not be the one who produces the most words. It will be the one who possesses enough judgment, imagination, and intellectual character to know which words are worth writing in the first place.

  • The Blurred Line Between Mental Illness and Evil (college essay prompt)

    The Blurred Line Between Mental Illness and Evil (college essay prompt)

    When people encounter shocking acts of cruelty, manipulation, or obsessive behavior, they often reach for two explanations. One explanation is psychological: the person must be mentally ill. The other explanation is moral: the person is evil. These explanations offer a kind of comfort because they simplify the problem. If destructive behavior is the result of mental illness, it can be understood through psychology and possibly treated. If the behavior is evil, it can be condemned and punished. However, many real-life cases resist these simple categories. Some individuals appear both irrational and calculating at the same time. Their actions may show signs of psychological instability while also involving deliberate choices that harm others.

    The documentaries The Perfect Neighbor and High School Catfish explore this unsettling territory. In both films, individuals behave in ways that disturb viewers because their actions seem both obsessive and intentional. Conflicts escalate beyond reason. Deception and manipulation play central roles. At the same time, the people involved often feel deeply wronged, isolated, or misunderstood. Their sense of grievance becomes a powerful narrative that justifies their behavior in their own minds. As the stories unfold, viewers are left asking a difficult question: Are these individuals primarily suffering from mental illness, or are they morally responsible for destructive actions that reveal something darker about human nature?

    These documentaries also highlight the role of loneliness, resentment, and social alienation. Individuals who feel rejected or humiliated may develop a deep sense of grievance toward others. Without meaningful relationships or healthy outlets for frustration, those grievances can intensify over time. Emotional pain can slowly transform into anger, suspicion, and obsession. In some cases, people begin to see themselves as victims of a hostile world. When this happens, harmful behavior may feel justified to them—even when it appears shocking or cruel to outsiders.

    At the same time, manipulation and deception complicate the psychological explanation. In High School Catfish, elaborate lies and fabricated identities are used to control and emotionally manipulate others. In The Perfect Neighbor, conflicts escalate through a pattern of hostility and retaliation. These behaviors often appear strategic rather than purely irrational. This raises an important question: when someone carefully constructs deception or escalates conflict, does that suggest deliberate moral wrongdoing rather than mental illness? Or can manipulation itself be a symptom of deeper psychological disturbance, such as narcissism, obsession, or a need for validation?

    Write a 1,200-word argumentative essay that explores the blurred line between mental illness and evil as it appears in The Perfect Neighbor and High School Catfish. Your essay should develop a clear thesis that explains how these documentaries challenge the simple distinction between psychological disturbance and moral responsibility.

    Your introduction must include a thesis with mapping components. This means your thesis should clearly state your main argument and identify the key reasons that will organize your body paragraphs.

    Example thesis with mapping:

    The disturbing behavior portrayed in The Perfect Neighbor and High School Catfish demonstrates that the boundary between mental illness and evil is often blurred because intense loneliness can distort perception, personal grievances can justify cruelty, and deliberate manipulation allows individuals to transform emotional pain into calculated harm.

    In this example, the mapping components are:

    ● loneliness and social isolation

    ● grievance and resentment

    ● manipulation and deception

    Each of these would become a body paragraph in the essay.

    Your essay should include the following elements:

    • A clear thesis with mapping components
    • Analysis of both documentaries
    • Specific examples from the films that support your argument
    • A counterargument that challenges your thesis
    • A rebuttal defending your position
    • A concluding paragraph that reflects on what these cases reveal about human behavior and modern society

    Possible directions for your argument include:

    • destructive behavior may emerge from both psychological disturbance and moral choice
    • loneliness and grievance can transform emotional pain into cruelty
    • manipulation and deception suggest deliberate moral responsibility
    • society sometimes labels disturbing behavior as mental illness in order to avoid confronting the reality of evil
    • disturbing actions may result from a complex mixture of psychological vulnerability, social isolation, and moral failure

    Your goal is not simply to summarize the documentaries but to analyze what they reveal about the complicated relationship between mental illness, moral responsibility, and destructive human behavior. In your conclusion, reflect on what these stories suggest about how society should understand and respond to actions that appear both psychologically disturbed and morally troubling.

    Helpful Definition: “The Hero Delusion.”

    It’s the phenomenon in which people commit harmful acts while believing they are the protagonist in a moral drama. Both documentaries actually illustrate that pattern remarkably well.

    Personal Engagement Building Block 3

    For your first paragraph, write a 200-300-word profile of someone you know—or a friend of a friend—whose behavior could reasonably be described as morally troubling, destructive, or reprehensible. Begin by vividly describing the person’s actions and their impact on others. While it may be tempting to condemn the behavior outright, the purpose of this paragraph is not simply to judge the individual but to explore the difficulty of explaining why they behave as they do.

    As you develop the profile, consider competing interpretations of the person’s conduct. Some observers might view the individual as fundamentally immoral or “evil,” arguing that their actions reflect selfishness, cruelty, or a conscious disregard for others. Others might suggest that the behavior is rooted in psychological disorders, trauma, personality pathology, or mental illness. Use specific details to illustrate why the person’s actions resist simple explanations and raise difficult questions about moral responsibility, free will, and human behavior.

    Your paragraph should ultimately establish the central tension of your essay: whether certain forms of harmful behavior are better understood as evidence of moral corruption, psychological dysfunction, or some combination of both. The goal is not to resolve the debate but to introduce a complex case that invites further analysis.

    Argumentative Engagement Building Block 3

    Write two paragraphs: a thesis paragraph and a counterargument-rebuttal paragraph.

    Your thesis paragraph should present a clear, arguable, and defensible claim that answers the central question of your essay. The paragraph should not merely announce a topic but establish a position that reasonable people could debate. After stating your thesis, include mapping components that identify the major points your body paragraphs will use to support your argument. These mapping components should provide readers with a clear roadmap of your essay’s structure and reasoning. Your thesis paragraph should be approximately 200 words.

    Your counterargument-rebuttal paragraph should address a legitimate objection to your thesis. Begin by clearly and fairly explaining a viewpoint that challenges your argument. Demonstrate why thoughtful readers might disagree with your position and how their concerns complicate your claim. After presenting the counterargument, write a rebuttal that responds to those objections. A strong rebuttal may concede valid points made by the opposing side while demonstrating that, on balance, your argument remains more persuasive. It may also alleviate concerns by clarifying misconceptions, introducing additional evidence, or identifying important information that the opposing side overlooks. The goal is not to dismiss opposing viewpoints but to engage them thoughtfully and strengthen your overall argument. Your counterargument-rebuttal paragraph should be between 200 and 250 words.

  • The Performance Trap: Online Identity, Narcissism, and the Collapse of the Real Self (college essay prompt)

    The Performance Trap: Online Identity, Narcissism, and the Collapse of the Real Self (college essay prompt)

    In the Netflix documentary The Crash and the Black Mirror episode “Joan Is Awful,” audiences witness characters whose lives become consumed by spectacle, performance, surveillance, and the relentless pressure of online visibility. While the two works differ in genre—one a real-life tragedy and the other a satirical dystopian drama—both raise disturbing questions about how modern digital culture reshapes identity, distorts reality, and erodes the boundary between authentic selfhood and online performance.

    In The Crash, the documentary suggests that Mackenzie Shirilla’s compulsive online self-curation reflected a deeper psychological unraveling in which image management, attention-seeking, and social media validation became inseparable from her sense of identity. Meanwhile, in “Joan Is Awful,” Joan discovers that her life has been transformed into a grotesque entertainment product streamed to millions of viewers, forcing her to confront the horrifying possibility that her real self has become secondary to a digitally manufactured persona designed for mass consumption. In both works, online visibility functions less as a tool for communication and more as a vortex that pulls individuals toward narcissism, performative behavior, emotional instability, and estrangement from reality itself.

    Write a 1,200-word argumentative essay in which you compare The Crash and “Joan Is Awful” to examine the claim that maintaining a constant online presence can suck people into a vortex of unhinged narcissism and madness that makes them unrecognizable from their authentic selves.

    Your essay should analyze how both works depict:

    ● the transformation of identity into performance;

    ● the addictive pursuit of attention, relevance, and validation;

    ● the psychological consequences of constant self-curation and surveillance;

    ● the collapse of the boundary between private life and public spectacle;

    ● and the dangers of confusing online visibility with genuine human worth.

    You should also address the broader cultural implications of these works. What do these texts suggest about the modern relationship between technology and identity? Do social media platforms merely reveal narcissism already present in human nature, or do they actively manufacture and intensify it? At what point does self-expression become self-erasure?

    A strong essay will move beyond summary and develop a clear argumentative thesis that makes an original claim about the psychological and cultural dangers presented in both works. Your thesis should be supported by detailed analysis of scenes, dialogue, imagery, characterization, and thematic parallels between the documentary and the episode.

    You must include:

    ● a clear and debatable thesis;

    ● detailed comparison of both works;

    ● at least one counterargument and rebuttal;

    ● analysis of specific scenes and examples;

    ● and thoughtful commentary about the relationship between technology, identity, and modern culture.

    Possible directions for argument include:

    ● Social media transforms ordinary narcissism into pathological self-obsession.

    ● Constant online performance erodes authentic identity and emotional stability.

    ● Digital culture rewards outrage, exhibitionism, and emotional extremity.

    ● Online validation creates a dopamine-driven cycle that destabilizes mental health.

    ● Surveillance culture turns human beings into entertainment products.

    ● The internet encourages people to construct marketable personas rather than genuine selves.

    You may agree, disagree, or complicate the prompt’s central argument, but your essay must directly engage the idea that online self-curation can psychologically deform individuals and distance them from reality.

    Requirements:

    ● Approximately 1,200 words

    ● MLA format

    ● Clear introduction, body paragraphs, counterargument-rebuttal section, and conclusion

    ● Use evidence from both The Crash and “Joan Is Awful”

    ● Include a Works Cited page

    The strongest essays will avoid simplistic “technology bad” arguments and instead explore the more unsettling possibility that modern digital culture rewards the most performative, narcissistic, and emotionally unstable versions of ourselves until the performance eventually consumes the person behind it.

    Personal Building Block 2

    For your first body paragraph, write a vivid profile of someone you know—or a friend of a friend—whose constant online presence has placed significant strain on their mental and emotional well-being. Describe how this person became absorbed in documenting, sharing, and curating nearly every aspect of their life for an online audience. How much time do they spend on social media? What kinds of content do they post, and what motivates them to seek attention, approval, or validation online?

    Analyze how this behavior has affected other areas of their life, including school, work, family relationships, friendships, or romantic relationships. Have they experienced anxiety, insecurity, loneliness, or an unhealthy dependence on likes, comments, and online engagement? Did they eventually recognize the negative effects of their behavior and take steps to change, or do they remain trapped in the cycle of constant self-presentation and digital validation?

    Your profile should include vivid details that capture the person’s personality, habits, and social environment. More importantly, it should illustrate how algorithm-driven platforms can influence behavior by rewarding attention-seeking, emotional intensity, and perpetual self-disclosure. Use the individual’s experience to show how a life increasingly organized around online performance can distort identity, damage relationships, and contribute to feelings of unhappiness, alienation, or loss of self. Your paragraph should be between 200 and 300 words.

    Argumentative Building Block 2

    You will turn in two paragraphs, your thesis and conclusion. 

    Your thesis paragraph should present a clear, arguable, and defensible claim that answers the central question of your essay. The paragraph should not merely announce a topic but establish a position that reasonable people could debate. After stating your thesis, include mapping components that identify the major points your body paragraphs will use to support your argument. These mapping components should provide readers with a clear roadmap of your essay’s structure and reasoning. Your thesis paragraph should be approximately 200 words.

    Your conclusion paragraph should move beyond the specific events of The Crash and “Joan Is Awful” to explore the broader cultural significance of your comparison. What do these texts reveal about the relationship between technology, identity, and human behavior in the digital age? Do social media platforms merely expose narcissistic tendencies that have always existed, or do they actively encourage and amplify them? At what point does self-expression cease to be authentic and become a performance shaped by algorithms, audiences, and the pursuit of attention? Consider whether modern technology has blurred the distinction between reality and representation to such an extent that people increasingly struggle to distinguish genuine experiences from curated personas. A strong conclusion should not simply summarize your argument but explain why it matters. Ultimately, your paragraph should demonstrate how The Crash and “Joan Is Awful” illuminate larger concerns about identity, authenticity, technology, and the future of human relationships in a world increasingly shaped by digital platforms. Your conclusion should be approximately 150 words.

  • The Addictive Power of Sports Betting (college essay prompt)

    The Addictive Power of Sports Betting (college essay prompt)

    Length

    1,200 words minimum

    Sources

    At least 4 credible sources

    Assignment

    Sports betting has become one of the fastest-growing industries in American culture. Once confined largely to casinos and illegal bookmakers, gambling is now integrated into professional sports broadcasts, podcasts, social media feeds, smartphone apps, and influencer culture. Millions of young men can place bets within seconds while receiving a constant stream of betting advice, predictions, and promotional offers.

    Many defenders argue that sports betting is simply another form of entertainment. Most participants gamble casually without developing serious problems. However, critics argue that the current sports-betting ecosystem possesses an unprecedented ability to exploit psychological vulnerabilities, especially among young men struggling with loneliness, identity, status anxiety, and the search for belonging.

    For this essay, analyze the causes of sports betting’s addictive power. Your goal is not merely to describe gambling addiction but to explain why sports betting has become so psychologically compelling in contemporary culture.

    In your analysis, consider some of the following questions:

    • How do sports-betting apps use psychological rewards, dopamine stimulation, and intermittent reinforcement to encourage repeated gambling?
    • Why might young men be particularly susceptible to sports-betting culture?
    • How does sports betting appeal to desires for competition, mastery, expertise, status, and recognition?
    • What role do loneliness and declining social connection play in the appeal of betting communities, podcasts, influencers, and online group chats?
    • How do social media algorithms amplify gambling content and normalize sports betting?
    • In what ways has sports betting become intertwined with broader forms of masculine performance and identity?
    • How do sports leagues, media companies, influencers, and betting companies contribute to the normalization of gambling?
    • To what extent does sports betting function as a substitute for older sources of meaning, community, achievement, and belonging?

    Your paper should move beyond the simplistic claim that gambling is addictive because people want money. Instead, investigate the deeper psychological, social, technological, and cultural forces that make sports betting attractive to millions of people.

    Counterargument Requirement

    Address the argument that sports betting is merely a harmless form of entertainment and that most participants gamble responsibly without developing addictive behaviors.

    After presenting this counterargument, explain why critics remain concerned about the current sports-betting ecosystem. Consider whether the scale, accessibility, sophistication, and constant availability of modern betting platforms create risks that differ from traditional forms of gambling.

    Suggested Organizational Structure

    Introduction

    • Introduce the rise of sports betting.
    • Present your thesis explaining why sports betting has become so addictive.

    Body Section 1: Psychological Factors

    • Dopamine, reward systems, risk-taking, intermittent reinforcement, and behavioral psychology.

    Body Section 2: Social and Cultural Factors

    • Loneliness, declining community, online identity, status-seeking, and belonging.

    Body Section 3: Technology and Media

    • Smartphones, social media algorithms, influencer culture, betting apps, and sports broadcasting.

    Body Section 4: Counterargument and Rebuttal

    • Address the claim that sports betting is harmless entertainment.
    • Explain why critics believe modern sports betting presents unique dangers.

    Conclusion

    • Evaluate whether the addictive power of sports betting is primarily financial, psychological, cultural, technological, or some combination of these factors.

    Sample Thesis Statements

    Thesis 1
    Sports betting has become highly addictive because it combines powerful psychological reward mechanisms with social media algorithms, digital convenience, and young men’s desire for status, belonging, and identity.

    Thesis 2
    While sports betting appears to be a harmless form of entertainment, its addictive power stems from its ability to transform loneliness, masculine insecurity, and risk-taking impulses into a profitable digital marketplace.

    Thesis 3
    The rapid growth of sports betting reflects more than a desire for money; it reveals how technology, social isolation, and modern identity formation have created ideal conditions for gambling addiction among young men.

    ***

    Personal Engagement Building Block 1

    For your first body paragraph, present a personal account that explores the psychological appeal of sports betting, including its attractions, risks, and financial consequences. Interview someone who regularly engages in sports betting and use the interview as the foundation of your paragraph. How did this person first become interested in sports betting? How much time and attention does it consume? How has it affected their finances, productivity, relationships, or emotional well-being? Do they have regrets about their gambling habits, or do they view sports betting as harmless entertainment? Have they ever worried that it was becoming addictive or taking control of their behavior? Do they hope to continue betting indefinitely, cut back, or quit altogether?

    Your paragraph should move beyond simple description and provide insight into the person’s motivations, habits, and mindset. Include vivid details that help readers understand the individual’s personality, social environment, and relationship with sports betting. The goal is to humanize the issue by showing how sports betting functions in the life of a real person. Your paragraph should be between 200 and 300 words.

    Argumentative Engagement Building Block 1

    Write two paragraphs: a thesis paragraph and a counterargument-rebuttal paragraph.

    Your thesis paragraph should present a clear, arguable, and defensible claim that answers the central question of your essay. The paragraph should not merely announce a topic but establish a position that reasonable people could debate. After stating your thesis, include mapping components that identify the major points your body paragraphs will use to support your argument. These mapping components should provide readers with a clear roadmap of your essay’s structure and reasoning. Your thesis paragraph should be approximately 200 words.

    Your counterargument-rebuttal paragraph should address a legitimate objection to your thesis. Begin by clearly and fairly explaining a viewpoint that challenges your argument. Demonstrate why thoughtful readers might disagree with your position and how their concerns complicate your claim. After presenting the counterargument, write a rebuttal that responds to those objections. A strong rebuttal may concede valid points made by the opposing side while demonstrating that, on balance, your argument remains more persuasive. It may also alleviate concerns by clarifying misconceptions, introducing additional evidence, or identifying important information that the opposing side overlooks. The goal is not to dismiss opposing viewpoints but to engage them thoughtfully and strengthen your overall argument. Your counterargument-rebuttal paragraph should be between 200 and 250 words.

  • Why Communities Prefer Scapegoats to Self-Examination (college essay prompt)

    Why Communities Prefer Scapegoats to Self-Examination (college essay prompt)

    Sources

    Use Weapons, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery,” and at least two outside sources.

    Length

    1,200 words minimum

    Assignment

    Both Weapons and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” depict communities confronted by fear, uncertainty, and social dysfunction. In both works, people search for explanations when confronted with suffering. Yet rather than critically examine themselves, their values, or the systems they inhabit, they often seek simpler solutions: preserving familiar assumptions, defending established customs, and identifying convenient targets for blame.

    As a result, innocent individuals become scapegoats while deeper problems remain unresolved.

    At the center of both works are characters who appear to reinforce the beliefs and behaviors of their communities. Old Man Warner in “The Lottery” fiercely defends tradition, while Aunt Gladys in Weapons exercises influence through manipulation, vanity, and control. However, neither character acts alone. Their power depends upon a community willing to accept their assumptions and participate in harmful social rituals.

    In a well-developed essay, analyze how Weapons and “The Lottery” explore the relationship between conformity, scapegoating, and self-deception. Consider whether both works suggest that communities often prefer familiar lies to uncomfortable truths. Ultimately, evaluate what these works reveal about the human tendency to preserve harmful systems rather than confront the deeper causes of social problems.

    Questions for Consideration

    You do not need to answer every question, but they may help guide your analysis:

    • Why do communities often seek scapegoats during periods of fear or uncertainty?
    • What psychological comfort do traditions and social rituals provide?
    • When does tradition become an obstacle to justice or truth?
    • How do ordinary people become complicit in harmful systems?
    • What roles do Old Man Warner and Aunt Gladys play in sustaining the beliefs of their communities?
    • How do fear, tribal loyalty, and groupthink influence decision-making?
    • What do both works suggest about the dangers of refusing self-examination?
    • Why are innocent people often sacrificed to preserve social stability?

    Counterargument Requirement

    Some readers might argue that traditions, social norms, and communal rituals are necessary because they provide stability, identity, and social cohesion. Without shared customs, communities can become fragmented and directionless.

    Address this argument.

    Then evaluate how Weapons and “The Lottery” distinguish between traditions that strengthen communities and traditions that perpetuate injustice, cruelty, or self-deception.

    Sample Thesis Statements

    Thesis 1
    Although Weapons and “The Lottery” take place in very different settings, both argue that communities often protect familiar beliefs and social rituals even when those practices produce injustice and suffering.

    Thesis 2
    Both works suggest that scapegoating is attractive because it allows communities to avoid confronting deeper problems within themselves.

    Thesis 3
    Through their portrayals of conformity, fear, and collective self-deception, Weapons and “The Lottery” reveal that the greatest threat to a community is often its unwillingness to examine its own assumptions.

    Thesis 4
    Old Man Warner and Aunt Gladys are influential not because they possess 

    Why Weapons and “The Lottery” Work So Well

    Both works are fundamentally about:

    • Collective guilt
    • Scapegoating
    • Social conformity
    • Moral cowardice
    • Communities protecting themselves from self-examination
    • The weaponization of consensus

    In both stories, the community desperately wants an explanation for its suffering.

    The explanation must:

    • Be simple.
    • Be emotionally satisfying.
    • Preserve the group’s self-image.

    The real enemy is not a monster.

    The real enemy is a community’s refusal to confront itself.

    That is exactly why Old Man Warner and Aunt Gladys feel comparable. Both are defenders of a diseased social order. They differ in personality, but they perform similar functions.

    What Makes the Comparison Rich

    One of the most interesting comparisons is that both works ask:

    What happens when a community becomes more invested in maintaining a narrative than discovering the truth?

    That question can sustain an entire essay.

    In fact, I think the strongest thesis isn’t about tradition.

    It’s about narrative preservation.

    Both communities preserve comforting narratives even when those narratives require innocent people to suffer.

  • From Family Table to Food Lab: Competing Visions of Eating: Example of an AI-Resistant Writing Prompt

    From Family Table to Food Lab: Competing Visions of Eating: Example of an AI-Resistant Writing Prompt

    As more students turn to AI to generate research papers, I have begun requiring what I call a Personal Engagement Building Block at the beginning of every major assignment. This opening section consists of one or two paragraphs in which students draw upon a personal experience—or the experience of someone they know—to frame the issue they will later investigate. The purpose is not merely autobiographical. It is to create a sample of the student’s authentic voice and thinking before they begin working with outside sources.

    These assignments are designed to be resistant to AI-generated responses because they require specific observations, concrete details, and personal knowledge that cannot easily be outsourced. At the same time, they must remain intellectually rigorous and directly connected to the larger argument of the essay. The challenge is to create prompts that move beyond simple storytelling and instead use personal experience as a lens through which students can examine complex social, cultural, or ethical questions.

    For example, in a research paper exploring how ultra-processed foods, food technology, and GLP-1 drugs may transform our relationship with eating, students begin by writing two contrasting personal-experience paragraphs. These paragraphs are intended to illuminate competing ways of thinking about food, pleasure, convenience, family, technology, and consumption before students engage with the broader research and debate surrounding the topic. The assignment begins with the following AI-resistant prompt:

    For the opening of your essay, write two contrasting personal-experience paragraphs that explore different relationships to food.

    In the first paragraph, describe yourself—or someone you know—sharing a memorable meal in a family setting. Focus on food as an expression of love, tradition, connection, and celebration. Use vivid details to capture the atmosphere, the people gathered around the table, the preparation of the food, and the emotions associated with the experience. Show how the meal becomes more than nourishment; it serves as a vehicle for family identity, cultural heritage, memory, and human connection. The food should be savored not only for its taste but also for what it represents.

    In the second paragraph, create a sharp contrast by describing an experience centered on hyperpalatable processed foods. You may focus on the compulsive nature of eating foods engineered to maximize cravings, appetite, and consumption. Describe the anxiety of never quite feeling satisfied, the urge to keep eating despite fullness, and the sense of helplessness that can accompany such behavior. Alternatively, if that experience does not apply to you, describe eating as an act of convenience and optimization rather than pleasure. Perhaps meals consist of protein bars, shakes, or packaged snacks consumed not because they are enjoyable but because they help you “hit your macros” or meet a nutritional goal.

    The purpose of these two paragraphs is to explore how modern technology is transforming both food and our relationship to food. Together, they should frame your essay’s argument about the cultural, psychological, and social consequences of ultra-processed foods.

  • Misogyny or Masculine Displacement? The Fight to Explain Gender Conflict (a college essay prompt)

    Misogyny or Masculine Displacement? The Fight to Explain Gender Conflict (a college essay prompt)

    Using Helen Lewis’ essay “The Men Who Don’t Want Women to Be Quiet” and Helen Andrews’ essay “The Great Feminization” as your central texts, write a 1,200-word argumentative essay analyzing the conflicting narratives each author presents about gender, power, communication, and modern society. Your essay should examine how Lewis and Andrews offer sharply different interpretations of the changing relationship between men and women in contemporary culture and argue which writer presents the more persuasive argument.

    In “The Men Who Don’t Want Women to Be Quiet,” Helen Lewis argues that many online male personalities and communities resent women who possess public voices, authority, independence, or intellectual influence. Lewis examines how social media, influencer culture, and reactionary online movements weaponize misogyny, harassment, and humiliation against outspoken women. She suggests that many men experience female autonomy and public visibility as threats to traditional gender hierarchies and male identity.

    In “The Great Feminization,” Helen Andrews argues that modern institutions increasingly reward traits culturally associated with women—emotional sensitivity, verbal fluency, caution, bureaucratic cooperation, therapeutic language, and social conformity—while marginalizing traits traditionally associated with men such as aggression, risk-taking, stoicism, competitiveness, and physicality. Andrews contends that many men feel alienated in institutions shaped by what she sees as a feminized social order.

    As you develop your essay, analyze the competing narratives presented by Lewis and Andrews. To what extent do these writers fundamentally disagree about the causes of gender tension in modern society? Does Lewis present a convincing argument that misogyny and resentment toward female independence drive much of today’s online hostility toward women? Or does Andrews more persuasively argue that modern institutions have become hostile toward traditionally masculine traits, creating frustration and displacement among men?

    You should also consider the possibility that both writers identify legitimate social problems while emphasizing different causes, victims, and solutions. Are these essays truly contradictory, or do they describe different aspects of the same cultural crisis? Does modern society simultaneously produce hostility toward women and alienation among men? If so, how?

    As part of your argument, analyze the rhetorical strategies used by both writers. Consider how tone, examples, emotional appeals, cultural assumptions, historical references, and definitions of masculinity and femininity shape the persuasiveness of each essay. Which author provides stronger evidence, more nuanced reasoning, or a more convincing understanding of contemporary gender dynamics?

    You must include at least one counterargument and rebuttal. For example, you may consider whether Lewis overstates the influence of online misogyny or whether Andrews romanticizes traditional masculinity while overlooking its destructive aspects. You may also address whether both essays risk reducing men and women to broad psychological or cultural categories.

    As you conclude your essay, consider the larger implications of these conflicting narratives. What do these essays reveal about modern anxieties surrounding gender, identity, status, work, communication, and belonging? Why has the battle over masculinity and femininity become such a central cultural conflict in the digital age?

    Requirements:

    • 1,200 words minimum
    • MLA format
    • Use evidence from both essays
    • Include a clear thesis with mapping components
    • Include at least one counterargument and rebuttal
    • Analyze specific passages and examples rather than merely summarizing
    • Develop a focused argument about the competing narratives surrounding gender and modern culture