Not often does a New York Times’ OpEd rouse me to respond – but this one certainly did:
I’m a College Professor. Writing Isn’t as Important as We Think.
The author, Joe Cruz, is the chair of the philosophy department and the program on cognitive science at Williams College. He holds a Ph.D. in philosophy and teaches courses like “The Ethics of AI” and “The Philosophy of Animals.” I’m not taking the piss here, I think these are important subjects! But Cruz frames his argument within the debate about the impact of AI on writing, and it’s there I think his position starts to fall apart. Here’s his setup:
“Most college professors I know believe that students learn to think — critically, creatively, reflectively, tenaciously — only by writing…It’s no surprise, then, that universities see artificial intelligence as an existential threat, and have launched an arms race of countermeasures: more proctored essay exams; test-taking rooms shielded from the internet; requirements that essays be composed on platforms that track all edits.”
Who on earth are “most college professors”?! I teach a course on the impact of AI on journalism, so I have something of a dog in this fight. Cruz argues that universities should allow students to use AI tools in their writing, and with some caveats, I agree (his guidelines can be found here). But where we differ is his prescription for how to ensure students “learn to think.” In essence, Cruz argues for leaning less on writing as a means of judging students’ comprehension, and more on academic debate and dialog. He writes:
“We need to embrace a different image of a university education — one in which ideas are expressed in real time and analytical thought unfolds as a debate or an oral defense or a group discussion…Consider what we might gain if we practiced speaking more and carrying around the resources of mind through our own attention, memory and engagement with one another. We may end up spending less time isolated, gain more practice resolving disagreement and find ourselves a clearer sense of what we believe.”
I’m a huge believer in group conversation and debate. Nearly every class I’ve taught includes an oral presentation as a final project, and participation through Socratic dialog is always a big part of the grading process. But I also require multiple essays, reading notes, and long form papers. Writing is simply the most elegant, compact, and useful technology we’ve ever created for nurturing the ability to think. Yes, it’s hard for many students. But doing hard things is part of the deal when you go to college or graduate school.
For me (and I’m guessing Cruz, given he chose to write an OpEd, instead of delivering his opinions from Speakers Corner), writing is thinking out loud. As Joan Didion put it, “I write entirely to find out what I’m thinking.” I sit down to a blank page with a strong sense that there’s something to be said about a topic, and I write my way toward a cogent expression of it. For short posts like this one, it might take an hour or two. But a long form article, or a book chapter, is the sum of many parts, many of them verbal in nature, including conversations, interviews, and fact checking calls. Writing and conversation aren’t distinct entities to be measured one against the other. They are entirely intertwined.
And nowhere does Cruz acknowledge writing’s mirror image: reading. When asked for tips on writing, my go to advice is this: Read more. Just in the writing of this piece, I’ve read Cruz’s essay three times, read all the comments associated with it, and read up on the academic debate on how writing impacts critical thinking (short version: the jury is out, mainly because no one has really done the work to prove it one way or another). Hopefully, this post is the better for all that reading.
But I have more advice for anyone stuck with a piece of writing: Get out into the world and talk to people. Bouncing your ideas and your frustrations off other human beings is the best way to reset your writing engine and reclaim your own voice. Maybe that’s why my favorite way to push through a blockage is with a white board session – it combines the best of both worlds: the boundless energy of robust discussion with the concision of the written word. You can’t really do one well without the other.
—