ABAC professor uses sitcom writing to teach importance of written communication

In a world where generative AI is transforming the landscape of education and creativity, one Writing and Communication professor is pushing students to go off script.

As part of a first semester English 1101 course, freshman students at Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College swapped essays for episodes, stepping into the role of sitcom writers to craft their own original Seinfeld-inspired scripts.

“This isn’t just about having fun with TV scripts,” says Dr. Rachael Price, the professor who came up with the exercise. “It’s about empowering students to see writing as more than just essays and MLA formats. Writing is storytelling. Whether you're drafting a blog, pitching a business idea, or advocating for change, it's stories that really convince people.”

The assignment stemmed from a larger unit that examined Seinfeld's signature structure — multiple intersecting plotlines, ironic callbacks, and satisfying resolutions — and applied those narrative techniques to all forms of writing, including academic essays.

Price said she’s been doing this exercise for a while, and the lessons learned by students are more important than ever.

“In a time when AI can do a lot of the cut-and-paste tasks, what matters most is the human side of communication,” she said. “Because of things like generative AI, I've been doing a lot of experimenting with how we can bring creativity back to the classroom. I'm not saying we can't use AI, because it's here for better or worse. But there are some things AI can’t do.”

One of the things AI can’t do, according to Price, is humor.

Price used generative AI to write a sitcom episode and, while the structure was correct, it wasn’t funny. The program could not understand and reproduce fun and relatable aspects of sitcoms. But students could, even those who say that they struggle with writing. One standout script captured the spirit of Seinfeld so perfectly that it had Price laughing out loud.

“Understanding situational irony, and how things come back and intersect, it leads to humor,” Price said. “These are students who, at the beginning of the semester, said they hated writing so it’s really cool to show them that they could actually do this stuff. It’s really challenging us to focus more on the humanistic side and the creative side of writing and teaching and I think when students see they can do that, it's really empowering. I tell them, ‘you can’t tell me you can’t write anymore. You just wrote a 3,000-word TV script.’”

Price said the class gave students confidence in their writing and they began to see its value beyond the classroom – telling stories from different points of view which is applicable in all parts of life.

“Storytelling is really important in any kind of field,” she said. “So we did a lot of different types of writing. We wrote essays. We wrote a personal narrative. We wrote a script. We wrote blog posts. We were showing all the different ways you can tell a story. People don’t fall in love with pie charts. When people are trying to make decisions, stories are what really connect us. We as humans use stories to convince people, to connect with people, to understand people, to understand ourselves.”