The analog sandwich

Recommended for: A whole course, planned before the semester starts; most at home where writing or designing is the point rather than the vehicle

Background for the instructor

This is a course design, not a lesson. The name is the shape: two digital slices with an analog filling. The middle unit is the meat.

The order is deliberate and counter-intuitive. It would seem more logical to build up from no AI to lots of it, but students arrive with wildly unequal exposure to these tools. Putting the AI unit first gives everyone the same footing before you take the tools away from all of them.

Nothing here requires pen and paper specifically. The variable is not the medium but whether the machine is within reach: a focus mode, the wifi off, or a laptop with nothing installed does much of the same work.

Procedure

1. Unit 1, AI-heavy. Students use AI on a real assignment within clear limits — support for the process, no generated papers. This is where AI literacy activities belong: how these systems work, what they cost, where they fail. Introduce a paper notebook here for in-class writing and drafts, so it is established before it becomes the only option.
2. Unit 2, unplugged. Around five weeks with no digital technology in the classroom at all. Reading on paper, annotating by hand, discussion face to face, and an assignment that is researched, drafted and revised entirely in the notebook. The goal is to return students to writing unassisted, and to the part of the process where the thinking happens.
3. Unit 3, student choice. Students decide for themselves how much AI to use in the final assignment, within the same limits as Unit 1, and account for what they chose — in writing and in person.
4. Ask for reflection at each transition, not only at the end. The comparison is the learning outcome.

Discussion questions

• Where in your process did the actual thinking happen, in each of the three units?
• What did AI take over when it was allowed, and what did you notice about your own involvement?
• What was hard about the unplugged unit that you did not expect, and what was easier?

Assessment opportunity

The notebook becomes a portfolio in the strict sense: writing collected over time that shows development, and that is demonstrably the student's own. Assess the development rather than any single entry.

Extension options

Plan for the students this disadvantages before you start. Typing accommodations must be honoured, and students who write in English as a second language may rely on machine translation, spelling or grammar support. Neither is a reason to abandon the unit, but both are a reason to adjust how the unplugged assignment is marked.

Reference

• Mark C. Marino, Professor (Teaching) of Writing and director of the Humanities and Critical Code Studies Lab, University of Southern California. "The Analog Sandwich: teaching writing with & without AI", first published on Medium and reprinted in The Important Work, October 2025. theimportantwork.substack.com
• Marino credits Jeremy Douglass for the argument that the AI unit should come first, and Dennis Jerz for the composition notebooks. A follow-up account of how the semester actually went appeared in March 2026.
• Discussed in The Norton Guide to AI-Aware Teaching (Vee, Watkins & Bruff, W. W. Norton, 2026).