Analyzing Headers with ChatGPT

This assignment invites students to examine how section headers function as rhetorical and organizational tools in research writing by analyzing headers generated by ChatGPT. Using a shared sample text, students prompt generative AI to produce multiple sets of headers that foreground different analytical emphases (e.g., race or language). Students then compare these AI-generated headers to identify how shifts in emphasis reshape the implied structure, focus, and interpretation of a text. Through analysis and reflection, students use these insights to inform their own planning for inquiry-based research writing, while critically evaluating the affordances and limitations of generative AI at an early stage of the writing process.