Why I love writing (and why loving writing matters)
a personal reflection along with a review of John Warner's new book
In case anyone was wondering, I really like to write about teaching and education.
This is the 62nd post I’ve written for The Broken Copier over the last few years—yes, I went back and counted—and before that I wrote at roughly the same pace for a now-abandoned Wordpress blog, and before that for a now-archived Tumblr blog.
(And before that? Back in college a few times for HuffPost on topics like Pell Grants—and those articles somehow still are online nearly a decade-and-a-half later!)
For me, maintaining the habit of writing about my experiences and perspectives on education has been an essential part of my own journey. It has helped me refine and sharpen my own ideas; it has deepened my understanding of my own development as a teacher; and it has offered a space to process and reflect upon my identity as a teacher over the years.
In other words, even if no one else read I word that I typed over my thirteen years of teaching, I wouldn’t regret that writing for a second.
I know how meaningful the writing itself has been to me.
Not just writing about education, either. Taking a page from ’s excellent Conceptually Speaking conversation about the value of reflecting on the formation of our own identity as educators, I can recall the idea of myself as a “writer” going all the way back to 2nd grade when I would fill up yellow booklet after yellow booklet with my own stories in Mrs. Rivers’s classroom—each page with a sentence or two on the lined bottom half and an accompanying drawing on the top half. (Longer stories meant stapling several booklets together at a time.) I then remember when Mrs. Hutchinson read a story I wrote about werewolves to the entire class in 4th grade, and then after that when Mrs. Walker told me at the end of 5th grade that she could see me going on to become either a writer or English teacher when I grew up.
While Mrs. Walker’s teaching prediction ended up being the path-defining half, I never lost that desire for crafting fiction, either, as I went on to write a couple novels in my free-time that, while just read by a handful of supportive folks in my life, nevertheless were valuable journeys that brought me considerable joy as well as appreciation for the writing process.
My point in writing all of this today: I really love writing and recognize how much it has shaped who I am as a person.
Which is why I want to talk about ’s new book, More Than Words: How To Think About Writing in the Age of AI, and share how much it resonated with me.
AI as an obstacle as well as an opportunity
Anyone following conversations in education since the public launch of ChatGPT is well aware of the obstacles that large language models (LLMs) pose to writing—and in More Than Words Warner is clear-eyed in acknowledging the ways that AI could very well lead society down a dangerous path that veers away from the value of writing.
However, perhaps surprisingly, Warner also sees ChatGPT as an opportunity, too.
“I see ChatGPT as an ally,” Warner writes in the introduction. “If ChatGPT can do something, then that thing probably doesn’t need to be done by a human being.”
In this way, Warner renders the downsides of LLMs like ChatGPT as being more akin to symptoms of a deeper problem in education and our “journey toward a single destination called proficiency,” a point that he expanded upon in my conversation with him this past week:
Warner’s broader point: the “threat” of ChatGPT also offers us a mirror as educators, particularly as teachers of writing, to consider the ways in which we are already falling short of creating authentic, meaningful writing opportunities in our classrooms.
The threat itself is an indictment of where we are, after all, and in that way is an opportunity to aspire towards the better we should have already been aiming for.
Writing as a way to think—and also to feel
One of the most important moments for me in reading this book was when I arrived at a chapter in which Warner makes an argument that immediately resonated: that the work of writing must walk hand-in-hand with not only thinking but perhaps even more importantly feeling.
“We must be mindful that writing is feeling,” Warner writes, “and if nothing is felt when we are writing, we are missing an opportunity to connect to our own humanity.”
Think about this, really, especially if you’re in a classroom. How often are the writing opportunities you provide for students genuine access points for their emotions and perspectives—for their humanity?
10% of the time? If that?
Yes, we operate in myriad confinements that squeeze the “human” out of writing, but too often, I worry, we are obedient to those confinements as teachers even when they aren’t there—to the point that, for too many students, writing in school becomes divorced from the thinking and feeling that should be at the very heart of it.
Who would blame them for turning to ChatGPT in that reality?
This is where our convictions must insist upon a better reality, says Warner:
“The arrival of ChatGPT changes nothing about the fact that writing is thinking, writing is feeling, and together, this thinking and feeling allows us to project ourselves into the world by communicating. This is not the work of bots.”
One of the many gifts of Warner’s book, too, is how he embeds his own journey as a writer within the pages. This is perhaps most notable when he poignantly shares the story of his father’s passing and his own emotional journey afterwards: “If enough time passes, [grief] may take the form of an echo, an almost welcome reminder of the person who mattered so much to you.”
Writing is not the work of bots, indeed.
Ultimately, it comes down to how we value writing
In one of the best conclusions I’ve come across in years for a non-fiction book, Warner offers a three-fold framework for us going forward:
When do we need to resist?
What do we need to renew?
How do we need to explore?
As I finished this book, I found myself agreeing with Warner that there is certainly a place for resistance as well as a place for exploration in education, particularly if we abide by Warner’s “first do no harm” commitment.
However, on a personal level, I felt as if this book was a call to action towards renewal as a teacher—to reexamine my own practices with students in the classroom and the writing opportunities I provide.
In what ways has our “culture of proficiency” limited the writing experiences I’m making available to students? Am I doing what I can to help students understand and experience the value of writing? Going forward, how can I create and facilitate more authentic writing experiences in our classroom community?
These questions are without question worth spending time with, which is why this book is without question worth spending time with for any educator—particularly those who have a hand in designing and facilitating writing experiences for students.
Warner ends More Than Words on a poignant note, noting that “we have been largely alienated from these experiences, but that doesn’t mean they are irretrievably lost.”
As a teacher, closing this book immediately led to me reflecting on my own classroom.
The work starts there.
Additional Notes on the Topic of AI
If you’re like me, this topic of AI and its impact on education shows up pretty much every direction I turn these days—and for good reason, I think, as it very much represents a disruption of much of what takes place in our classrooms and schools.
We will continue to cover it with The Broken Copier, too, as I have another, very different conversation coming out this week that explores the potential partnership one school district is making with Magic School AI and the benefits they’ve already started to realize.
That said, I wanted to close by sharing three links to helpful things I’ve read of late on the topic of AI, in case you want to take your own exploration further:
“The Costs of AI in Education” by — As always, Watkins continues to be a voice that cuts through the intersection of AI and education, and this piece is no exception to that: “If universities don’t start asking harder questions about AI’s real value, they’ll keep spending money they don’t have on tools their students don’t need—while real educational challenges go unresolved.”
“I Quit Teaching Because of ChatGPT” by Victoria Livingstone — Linked in the piece above by Watkins, this is a very transparent reflection of the challenges one professor experienced at the college level with student use of ChatGPT and why they identify these challenges as a reason they left the classroom: “I found myself spending more time giving feedback to AI than to my students. So I quit.”
“Difficult Conversations” by — We quite simply need way more pieces like this: teachers sharing their own experiences with student writing, particularly at the intersection of AI right now, and Kratz does this in a generously-transparent way: “I decided to integrate AI into my teaching partly because I felt like I had no choice.”
Along with exploring through what we read, I want to end by making a separate recommendation if you’re an educator: one of the best ways to value writing is to write, and to do so in a way that brings your authentic self into the writing—which I’ve tried to do with today’s post.
At the end of the day, our values are expressed by how we choose to spend our time.
So maybe we can spend our time writing a bit more?
This was a fantastic reflection and left my brain swirling about the types of writing experiences my students engage in throughout the year. Writing is a daily, reflective, and intimate experience that I need, whether it includes an audience or not. In the classroom, there are times in which the students' humanity and sense of self are centered in the writing experience. There are other times, more than I care to admit, when the focus on standards squashes their thinking, their interpretations, their reactions, and, yes, their feelings. I, too, can see where a student would want AI to do this type of work for them. This is why I want the dishwasher to wash my dishes, and if there were a 'clothes folder,' I would invest in it. Yes, I need to do household jobs, but I don't want to live there. Students need to learn about structures, skills, and analysis but don't want to live there. At least let the analysis be their thinking. Writing is a skill but also an art. I see when my students are engaged. It is when they write for their own purposes. It is when they are "thinking" and "feeling." The question is how to infuse humanness into all of the writing experiences. Thank you for the reminder to center this purpose.
So glad that Stephanie Kratz's "Difficult Conversations" resonated with you, and thanks for mentioning it! Just popping in here to encourage your readers (and you!) to consider writing for The Important Work. We need to hear more voices from classrooms, which is why I started The Important Work. Info on submitting here: https://theimportantwork.substack.com/p/call-for-proposals