The Challenges AI Poses for Learning How to Write

In this episode of Class Disrupted, Jane Rosenzweig, director of the Harvard College Writing Center, joined me and Diane Tavenner to talk about the impact of AI on writing education. Jane underscored the importance of writing as a process of thinking—and warned against the “deskilling” of students because of an overreliance on AI. Our conversation explored how AI could aid resource shortages in education but also pondered if AI’s efficiency would overshadow the importance of deep learning and authentic writing skills. As someone who often figures out what I actually think through my writing, this conversation struck a chord.

Diane Tavenner

Hi there. I'm Diane, and what you're about to hear is a conversation Michael and I recorded with our guest Jane Rosenzweig as part of our series exploring the potential impact of AI in education. This is where we're interviewing optimists and skeptics, and I loved spending time with Jane, who's a true expert in teaching writing. I keep thinking about a few of the key ideas from our conversation. One of them is, why do students even need to write anymore? Arguably, ChatGPT, Genesis, Claude, and the others are literally designed to write and likely a lot better than most people. So what's the purpose of writing? Specifically teaching students to write. No wonder I'm still thinking about it, because as a former English teacher, this feels like a big existential question. The other one that's sticking with me is we talked about this idea of AI optimism, arguing that, you know, this is a chicken in every pot. And honestly, who knew we'd be calling back to Herbert Hoover's campaign slogans? But here we are at this very strange and interesting moment in time. And honestly, I can't wait to unpack all this that we're learning and talking about with Michael. But until then, I think you'll really enjoy this conversation that we had with Jane.