Podcast: Designed for Learning |
Ep. 21 – John Warner on Why Writing is (Still) Thinking
To find the show in your preferred podcast app, click on the sharing arrow in the player.
The Notre Dame Teaching Well with AI Academy (NDTWAA) is designed to meet Notre Dame instructors where they are, whether they’re eager to incorporate AI into their courses or wary of the possibility that it will induce students to take shortcuts in the thinking process.
Through his own participation in NDTWAA, Designed for Learning host Jim Lang, who counts himself among those who are more skeptical, has seen how Notre Dame faculty are having their students engage with AI in thoughtful ways. He says that’s allowed him to become more open to how it can be used as a teaching and learning tool, even as his core concerns about its effects on cognition remain.
John Warner can relate. The author of More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI, he has been one of the most outspoken critics of AI’s impact on the writing process. He joins Jim to talk about their shared concerns around AI, especially when it comes to writing; what they’ve learned since AI started dominating headlines a few years ago; and how to stay open to learning about AI’s impact on higher education.
Key Topics Discussed
- Why John believes it still matters that humans write for ourselves and take the time the process affords to sit with and develop our ideas
- How one such opportunity to reflect allowed John to conceive of his own framework for evaluating the appropriateness of AI use
- The way tackling a topic through writing teaches students to persevere through other obstacles
- John’s process for busting the student-held myth that good writers produce final, polished prose on their first attempt
- Using time in class to help students get over the hump of initiating a writing project
- Pushing students to overcome the perception that they can’t write by being thoughtful about what we choose to value in their writing
- The importance John assigns to engaging with another person’s unique human intelligence when it comes to developing one’s writing, including his own
- Teaching students to distinguish between when using AI to do work that is “good enough” serves them well, and when they benefit from doing the work themselves
Guest Bio
John Warner is a frequent speaker and workshop leader on college campuses and in schools. Published by Basic Books, More Than Words is now out in a revised paperback edition. His previous books include Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities and The Writer’s Practice: Building Confidence in Your Nonfiction Writing. He is a weekly columnist for the Chicago Tribune, writing about books and reading, and you can always find him at his newsletter, The Biblioracle Recommends.
Resources Mentioned
- John’s Book: More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI (Basic Books)
- John’s Newsletter: The Biblioracle Recommends
- Notre Dame Teaching Well with AI Academy
- Episode Transcript
Podcast Info
Designed for Learning is hosted by Jim Lang, a professor of the practice in Notre Dame Learning’s Kaneb Center for Teaching Excellence and the author of several influential books on teaching. The podcast is produced by Notre Dame Learning’s Office of Digital Learning.
Privacy Statement: We use the podcast hosting service Buzzsprout to publish Designed for Learning. The Buzzsprout privacy policy includes information on how it approaches podcast listener privacy. The platform/app through which you choose to listen to this or any other podcast may also make certain listener data available to podcast publishers. For more information, consult the terms of service of the app you use.