Writing Category: Student Essay Awards

Just ChatGPT it!

“Just chatGPT it!” has become a common joke in my friend group as of late. Long essay that you forgot about? Just chatGPT it! Free-response question on your quiz you forgot to study for? Just chatGPT it! Email due to your research coordinator that you may or may not have been putting off for a few weeks? Just chatGPT it!

I’m starting to hate this joke.

ChatGPT, Thinking Chamber or Thought Stopper?

Concerns come when people ask ChatGPT to write an entire essay/script/work, copy/paste that essay into their own document, and edit some parts to their liking. Within minutes they have “their own” essay. This is problematic because it’s plagiarism. And if you want to debate that you can’t plagiarize an AI, then it’s at least not a paper that you have written. It gets an assignment done earlier, but the student hasn’t learned anything, hasn’t really written anything. They lose the essential writing skills that will benefit them in the future.

Queer Life at Berkeley

Catherine Tong’s “Queer Life at Berkeley: Joy, Violence, and Resistance” is a powerful evaluation of UC Berkeley’s student-led queer culture, including ongoing challenges —relevant not just to Berkeley students but to queer studies more broadly — such as students feeling compelled to come out when they don’t want to. This is a selection from the essay, written for Prof. Seth Holmes’s Fall 2022 Art of Writing class, “Inequality and the Body: Health, Medicine, Society and Environment.”

Movement, Motivation & Medicine

Emma Lalor’s ambitious “Movement, Motivation & Medicine: an ethnographic look into pre-med experiences from immigrant students in California,” uses the medium of the graphic novel to create a powerful visual-verbal ethnography of challenges to immigrant students that often go unnoticed or unheard. Below are two chapters from the piece, which was written for Prof. Seth Holmes’s Fall 2022 Art of Writing class, “Inequality and the Body: Health, Medicine, Society and Environment.”

Morning Sun Ekphrasis

Lauren Szeto’s “Morning Sun Ekphrasis,” a poetic translation and accompanying critical reflection, shows how creative and critical writing, when joined together, can offer profound insights into the works we study. The essay was written for Prof. Eve Sweetser’s Fall 2022 Art of Writing class, “Writing as Framing.”

Homelessness and Mental Health Interventions in California

Sakeena Baxamusa’s “Homelessness and Mental Health Interventions in California” shows how combining direct, individual ethnographic study with deep and careful research can produce a powerful intervention. The essay was written for Prof. Seth Holmes’s Fall 2022 Art of Writing class, “Inequality and the Body: Health, Medicine, Society and Environment.”