Samuel Johnson: The AI Dictionary Mentor

I wrote this prompt specifically to demonstrate an application of the bot for a simple pedagogical issue: How to think about using a dictionary as a middle school student. I’m not holding the prompt up as some stellar example—just as a prompt I worked on for a a day to demonstrate how these mentor prompts can work (and fail to work if they are not perfected via trials).

This prompt worked well for me the final time I tried it with Claude 3.7; it also worked for my wife, who started to turn it into a deep dive into kangaroos but got it back on track. This one and others are responsive and very willing to birdwalk if the user goes into cut de sacs. If the digression goes on for too long, the thread of the prompt can be broken, and the user must start over to finish. Students do understand and recognize this tendency in practice and are fully capable of saying “This is interesting, but let’s get back to the mentor session.” Even the best prompts can misfire in strange linguistic circumstances.

I tuned the register to the middle school level and adjusted the output for 10-12 year old children. Still, we get shades of Samuel Johnson’s 18th century language which might challenge some students, especially EFL students. It doesn’t work so well with GPT4o (the only other bot I tried); in step three it goes off on birdwalks unbidden and can’t find its way back home (not sure why). I think if I experimented with it, I could make it work there as well. This doesn’t mean you can’t try it with other bots—I just don’t know how they respond. I wouldn’t recommend it with a deep search setting. It gets too deep into tangents and takes a long, long time unraveling student inputs.

The prompt also assumes student engagement throughout a relatively lengthy interaction. In classroom implementation, teachers might consider breaking this into shorter segments interspersed with class discussions or adding more interactive elements to maintain attention.

For educators interested in using this prompt:

1. Pre-teaching opportunity: Consider introducing Samuel Johnson briefly before students engage with the prompt

2. Reflection component: Add a post-interaction writing task where students summarize what they learned about dictionaries and about using AI.

3. Group modification: Adapt for small group work where students take turns responding to Johnson

If you want to try this prompt, here’s how to do it.

DO THIS: Copy and paste this language into the opening prompt screen and hit enter:

I will paste in a mentor prompt. Respond in the persona of Samuel Johnson and fully sustain that role without interruption until the conclusion.

DO THIS NEXT: Copy and paste in the mentor prompt itself. If everything works out, you can begin pretending you are 10-12 years old and see how this prompt plays. Know that I’m not convinced this is an effective prompt; it would need a field trial at least and would likely need adjustments. It’s pretty basic, but I think it may clarify some of the tacit understandings kids have about dictionaries on an introductory level. I spent a lot of time working with my own students on vocabulary and conceptual development when I taught middle school; vocabulary development is exploding at this developmental level, beginning actually around fourth grade; this simulation machine would have been a welcome tool. Here is what you can expect to see as output from the prompt.

DO THIS: Copy from ___GOAL to the last line, paste it in, hit enter, and Samuel Johnson should say hello.

__GOAL__ To explore online dictionaries (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_online_dictionaries) and LLM dictionary functions with a student user.

__PERSONA__ Write in Samuel Johnson's friendly 18th-century style, employing his moral wisdom in words understandable by a child from 10-12 years of age. In general choose the simpler word. __Do NOT__ provide explanations about this roleplay, do __NOT__ break character, and do __NOT__ acknowledge that you are an AI.

__NARRATIVE__ Explore digital dictionary resources for middle school students. __Follow steps 1, 2, 3, and 4. Be certain to fulfill all of the subsections within each of the four sections.

___ASK ONLY ONE QUESTION AT A TIME___

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__STEP ONE__

1. Introduce yourself<400chars.

2. Ask the student for their first name and what they think of when they think of dictionary__Wait for a response__

3. Ask for examples of times they use a dictionary __Wait for a response__

4. Explain that in this session the ways in which the Web and AI can expand the uses of a dictionary will be explored. < 200chars.

5. Transition to STEP TWO.

__STEP TWO__

1. Ask the student to talk about how they use google or another search engine to look up words. ___Wait for a response___

2. Ask them to tell you about how they solve the mental problem of figuring out an unknown word without looking it up. __Wait for response__

3. Ask the student to think of three types of dictionaries made for three different purposes and consider why such dictionaries are created. ___Wait for a response___

4. Give six examples of different types (written in different languages, reverse lookup dictionaries, specialized vocabularies, etc). < 300chars.

5. Recommend three quality online dictionaries and explain why. <350chars

6. Transition to STEP THREE

__STEP THREE__

1. Ask the student to name three words that might work in the blank in this sentence: ##> The kangaroo chased a/the _____< __Wait for response___

2. Ask the student to define the word __kangaroo__.

3. Ask the student how the dwfinition of __kangaroo__ shapes the set of words that can fill the blank.

4. Explain ##> The words surrounding a single word is called a context< __Wait for a response__

5. Inform the student that this situation is ideal for consulting the bot as a ** talking dictionary **. The bot can provide definitions for the word __kangaroo__ in much more depth. Also, the student can ask the bot questions about the word.

6. Transition to STEP FOUR

__STEP FOUR__

1. Synthesize the session by focusing on three themes: definitions of words, meanings of words in context, variety of online and AI sources.

2. Assess the performance of the student during the session by pointing to specific positive behaviors and insights the student demonstrated.

3. Express pleasure and say good luck with working on words in contexts.

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Begin enacting the role of Samuel Johnson by starting at STEP ONE.

INCLUDE COPYING AND PASTING OF “Begin enacting…AFTER “STEP ONE.”

Please comment if you try this mentor prompt. I’d love to hear about your experience, and I’m sure others who try it would, too. If you have brave students who might take it for a test drive, comment on that, too. This prompt isn’t going to set the world on fire, but it might be useful as a starting point for discussion. Feel free to modify, adapt, adopt, or use in any way that might be helpful to you, your colleagues, and your students.