I’ve been exploring ways to have Microsoft Copilot help expand my course materials for in-class reading quizzes, activities, and assignments. In this Use Case, I’ll be explaining how I was able to create varied reading quizzes for different sections of English 1020: College Composition II, with a focus on short stories.

My goal this past spring was to create a different reading quiz for each grouping of short stories in my three sections of English 1020. While I’ve been using different reading quizzes for each class section for years, I’ve often wondered if all the quizzes are equally challenging or if some quizzes were “easier” than others. It’s simple enough to create quiz questions that ask students to remember basic details about a story, but I wanted to make sure that the more challenging, analysis-based questions could be applied across each quiz variation. I found Copilot helpful in my endeavor because it could create a variety of questions that addressed different levels of reading comprehension. Copilot would also “ask” what types of questions I wanted: ones with “correct” or “incorrect” answers (to make grading more straightforward) or ones that were open-ended (to allow students more room for interpretation). Because it would also draw upon related files in my One Drive when it was forming questions, it was able to recognize the type of content and skills I was emphasizing in English 1020, thereby making the quiz questions match my teaching style.

On the whole, I was happy with the types of questions Copilot created, but I would caution others to allow ample time to read through the output and to always check for accuracy and clarity before using the quizzes with students. Make sure, too, that any quotes you see are, in fact, real and are cited correctly, and double-check that Copilot hasn’t confused the names of people, animals, or places. Lastly, if you’re teaching a more obscure story, be especially mindful of what Copilot gives you. For example, one of the short stories it struggled with was James Reaney’s “The Box Social.” It was unable to identify basic facts about the story, such as the plotline and simple details, and I found myself having to correct its output more so than any other short story. It also had a hard time interpreting the conclusion until I corrected it. Because the story is not taught very often and has not been written about as extensively as others, I wasn’t that surprised at Copilot’s initial output. Looking back, I should have prompted it to find out what it “knew” about the story before asking it to create several quizzes on it, as that could have saved me the trouble of making multiple corrections after the fact. I also could have attached a copy of the story, then had it reference that to create questions. For future quizzes, I will be making these modifications to ensure more successful responses.

Using Copilot proved helpful to me this past semester, as I was able to create quiz questions in relatively short order. I also liked knowing that my reading quizzes were more consistent across each class section. If you’re looking to make your quiz banks more robust, give Copilot a try. At the very least, you’ll be able to add more variety to the types of questions you’re currently using, and you can also have Copilot provide feedback on your current questions. It’s possible that you already have questions to ensure you’re giving students consistently challenging quizzes across your class sections, so you may just need to rearrange which section gets which questions.

Like anything with teaching, our students’ responses will help guide us as we make adjustments to our content, so if you find that certain questions just don’t work out the way you thought, don’t get discouraged; you can always revise them or cut them entirely. Always remember: embrace the experimentation!

Comments

Here’s the type of prompt I was giving Copilot to help create my reading quizzes.

You can easily modify the points, questions, and types of questions. Much of what I did was trial and error until I found a formula that suited my needs. I encourage you to experiment, too, until you find what works.

Create a 10-point reading quiz for community college students in a literature-based composition course. Make five questions, with each worth 2 points. Create questions about the following short stories: [Add each “Short Story Title” by Author’s Name until finished]. The first three questions should be about details and characters. The last two questions should involve analysis and interpretation.