Writing as a thinking and learning process in the age of AI

Do you ever use AI to write something, just like your students do? It can be convenient, but it means skipping the thinking and learning process that makes writing so valuable. That process is called concentric thinking. According to Hudd et al. (2025), writing leads students through three cognitive steps that are central to learning: prioritizing, rephrasing and connecting.

By giving students short, low-threshold writing tasks in which they select information, rephrase it and link it to examples, you deepen their understanding of your subject. According to the Writing Cake of the Academic Language Programme, writing is seen as a valuable process in which the various thinking and communication skills that precede the final product take center stage.

Writing does not always come easily and can produce a sense of unease, something that Nesbitt (2025) calls productive friction. It is understandable that students want to avoid this feeling and sometimes turn to generative AI to accelerate the writing process. But by deliberately designing tasks in which the writing process itself is the goal, you can use writing as a flexible tool to deepen learning. Use the tips below, and consider occasionally skipping the use of AI yourself.

Writing as a thinking and learning process

Tip 1: ask students to distinguish main points from supporting details

Ask students to select the most important argument, concept or example from the reading material, and briefly explain their choice. You can use this at the start of a class or ask students to do it online in preparation for a session. Having to decide what really matters activates prior knowledge and encourages students to analyze the core of the material. During the session, pick a few students to explain their choice without notes. This helps you see where their attention goes, identify any misconceptions and steer the discussion accordingly. There is no need to grade this; a brief formative response is sufficient.

Tip 2: ask students to explain it in their own words

Invite students to rephrase a complex concept from your subject in accessible language during the session without using generative AI. For example, by explaining a phenomenon to a fictional secondary school student, summarizing it in three sentences, or describing a concept through a metaphor. In writing without recourse to technical jargon or AI output, students quickly notice where their understanding is still shaky. For you as a lecturer, this provides direct feedback on where further explanation is needed

Tip 3: ask students to make connections with their world

Ask students to connect course material to a practical example, a real-world situation, or a case from their own lives during the session (without using generative AI). This helps them build bridges between concepts and situations outside the university. Think of comparing economic inequality to a sports league, linking a biological process to a daily routine or illustrating a statistical idea through a simple observation. Connections to students' own world make the material more meaningful and easier to retain.

Tip 4: use writing before, during and after class

Writing works best when used across multiple moments. Before class, give students a short prioritizing question so they arrive prepared. During class, use brief rephrasing tasks in pairs or small groups, helping students clarify complex ideas together. After class, ask them to formulate a concrete example or application in a few sentences. This creates a continuous line of thinking steps without requiring a large time investment.

Tip 5: keep it small, but preserve productive friction

Informal writing tasks require little time and do not need to be graded. You can use them via a quiz, collect responses in Canvas, have students share them on a discussion forum or simply do them on paper during class. By keeping it small, the focus stays on the thinking process rather than the end product. Students have more room to experiment, make mistakes and deepen their understanding.

The goal here is not to give students extra work, but to preserve what's called productive friction: the thinking, rephrasing and connecting of ideas that learning requires. Students sometimes use AI to speed up these steps, but it is precisely this cognitive effort and friction that helps them understand the material more deeply. Make this explicit, so that students understand why writing is an important step in their learning process. The Writing Cake can also serve as a conversation starter about the writing process. See Tip 7 of this article for more information on this.

Tip 6: integrate informal texts into larger assignments

Ask students to use their earlier short writing tasks as building blocks for a larger paper, presentation or portfolio assignment. This turns individual thinking steps into part of a bigger whole. This way, students experience how prioritizing, rephrasing and connecting come together in academic work. It also means you can spend less time on extensive instructions, as the groundwork has already been laid through the informal writing tasks.

Tip 7: use the Writing Cake to design writing tasks

Writing involves a range of skills, such as organising content, articulating ideas clearly and working with sources. The Writing Cake (Dutch) of the Academic Language Programme makes these skills visible: from those that are difficult for AI to replicate to those that are straightforward. By linking writing tasks to specific elements of the Writing Cake, you can more precisely determine what students are practicing: for instance, structuring content, explaining a concept, or building a coherent text.

Sources:

• Dreschler, G., Gambrel, A., & Branum, J. (2025). A Case Study in Mindfully Integrating AI Tools into Writing Classes. Journal of Academic Writing. 
• Hudd et al. (2025). Reading, Writing, and Thinking in the Age of AI. 
• Nesbitt, J. (2025). Productive friction and the future of learning: An AI-driven approach. Genio Blog. 
• Rubens, W. (2025). Over het belang van schrijven als cognitief proces. 

The tips for active blended learning are provided by the VU Centre for Teaching & Learning.

Last updated on 26 August 2026. View the original on vu.nl