Addressing the impact of generative AI, teachers bringing typewriters back to campus, helping students get back the feeling of writing

Cornell University German instructor Philipp Matthies (Grit Matthias Phillipps) has begun requiring students to use an old-fashioned typewriter to complete their writing assignments in response to the widespread use of AI for homework among students after the popularization of artificial intelligence, so that they can rediscover the real feel of thinking and writing.

The teacher sends students back to the typewriter era, so they can experience what it felt like before computer screens.

Since 2023, Phillipps has observed that the assignments students submit have become “perfect”—whether in grammatical structure or in the translated content, they match the output generated by online AI. This phenomenon has raised teachers’ concerns about how to assess students’ true originality; when assignments are not conceived and written by the students themselves, the educational value is lost. To address this, Phillipps has collected dozens of old manual typewriters from the secondhand market, incorporated them into the course syllabus, and aims to help students get away from screens, online dictionaries, and spell-checkers. This experimental approach reflects how academia in the U.S. is responding to the AI transition—so as to prevent students from relying too heavily on a laptop computer to complete their coursework.

For college students who are used to using smartphones and computer keyboards, operating a manual typewriter is quite clunky—in the course, students must learn how to manually feed the paper, control the force of their keystrokes to avoid blurry letter impressions, and understand how the typebars move back to their original position. This manual process not only slows down writing speed, but also forces the user to focus on only one task at a time.

Phillipps says that typewriters create an environment free from digital distractions, allowing writing to return to a straightforward process of producing text. Although using typewriters has not sparked a full-scale Renaissance-style movement in arts and letters, the sensory experience and tangible feedback they provide do offer students another perspective for understanding the world.

When the world is reduced to just yourself and the typewriter, students begin to think seriously.

Ratchaphon Lertdamrongwong, a student enrolled in the course, says that using a typewriter changed how he interacts with the world around him while writing. With limitations that prevent him from using instant search engines and automatic correction features, he has to turn to classmates for help or have more in-depth discussions by speaking. Because a manual typewriter lacks a Delete Key, he also has to think more deeply before putting pen to paper, rather than mindlessly relying on AI-generated drafts and then editing afterward. This kind of “hard-to-correct” constraint, in turn, spurs students to better掌握 their writing content, forcing them to think independently without external support.

When you mistype on a manual typewriter, indelible misspelling marks remain on the page; however, these impressions—once regarded as flaws—are transformed into essential experiences during the learning process. When Katherine Mong was writing German poetry and phrases, she initially felt anxious about the messy page layout and typos, but eventually learned to accept irregular spacing and the traces of manual correction. She even came to view these mistakes as part of the creative process. She says she has started to become fascinated with the typewriter and even shares with her friends and family around her the pride she feels in completing her German assignments with a typewriter.

This article, “Responding to the Impact of Generative AI: A Teacher Brings Typewriters Back to Campus, Helping Students Get Their Sense of Writing Back,” originally appeared on Lianxing News ABMedia.