Instead of reading books and writing essays, students are relying on generative AI. What one teacher is doing about it.
Many years ago, I made the extremely wise decision to enrol in the Foundation Year Program at the University of King’s College in Halifax—an intense first-year survey of canonical texts by writers like Plato, Homer, Dante and Shakespeare. I cranked out regular essays, attended lectures, prepped for oral exams and, overall, learned to think. Now, of course, students don’t have to learn to think. They can just use AI. Books can easily be summarized, essays can be auto-generated, portals can answer questions about a classic text. |
Shawna Dolansky worries about this. She’s an associate professor in the College of the Humanities at Carleton in Ottawa, where she teaches first-year students in the bachelor of humanities, a program focused on the world’s most influential books. Last spring, she saw an uptick in students submitting essays generated by AI. Dolansky, like many university educators, is spending this summer figuring out how to AI-proof her classroom in the fall. She has written a provocative opinion piece for Maclean’s about what she will demand of her students and why. “If there has ever been a time to double down on the value of a humanities education, it’s now,” she says. Visit macleans.ca for more coverage of everything that matters in Canada, and subscribe to the magazine here. —Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief, Maclean’s |
In Canada we have some of the best actors in the world. So why aren’t they household names? Tonya Williams, executive director of the Reelworld Film Festival and a 50-year veteran of Canada’s film industry, examines that question in this essay for Maclean’s. “Lately, people have been asking me where they can find more Canadian content to watch and who the Canadian actors are.” Williams writes. “Let’s leverage this time of renewed nationalism and create a much-needed star system in our screen industry.” |
Inspired by serialized novels of the Victorian era, Heather O’Neill took on a vintage literary challenge at the Montreal Gazette in 2023: a chapter a week, no work-aheads or retrospective edits, that must both stand alone for one-off readers and compile seamlessly to make a book. The result is Valentine in Montreal, 30 chapters about a lonely orphan named Valentine, who follows her mysterious doppelgänger around the city and discovers she’s not as alone as she thought. Valentine’s sagas come to life with whimsical drawings—the work of Arizona O’Neill, Heather’s daughter. |
By day, Nick Chindamo is a full-time forager at the celeb chef Michael Smith’s Inn at Bay Fortune. His idea of heaven is an undiscovered forest patch of mushrooms and sorrel. Back in 2021, he had an idea: wouldn’t it be cool, he thought, to gather like-minded chefs for an irregularly scheduled pop-up dinner during the off-season, when the tourists vanish and the nights are long and lonely? He and his partner, sommelier Marie-Pier Fecteau, call their event An Island Collective. The 32 tickets to the first iteration, held in a Charlottetown market hall, sold out in six minutes. At every event, 10 chef participants must each prepare one course using only what’s grown or caught on P.E.I. Everything must be in season or preserved. And, trickiest of all, the chefs must produce zero waste, using every ounce of every ingredient. For more homegrown restaurants, chefs and dishes to experience this summer, check out our bucket list. |
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