Resist, Renew, Explore ... and Align

More Than Words: How to Think About Writing in the Age of AI by John Warner
Basic Books, February 4, 2025

John Warner’s More Than Words is a brilliant overview of the challenges and opportunities presented by generative AI tools. Warner, a familiar, iconoclastic figure in the discourse around writing instruction, offers a readable, witty state of play in AI, but the real gift of the book is its grounding in a deeper set of humanist commitments to teaching students to write and to think. Warner is more sanguine than most about what AI can’t do (example: AI tools are “not threatening anything meaningful because [they are not] capable of producing any output that conveys meaning”), which might strike some readers as misrepresenting how students understand this technology. However, in framing his arguments around a deeply humanist reverence for the practice of writing, Warner challenges educators to create learning experiences that are meaningful, reflective, and scaffolded with such intentional care that students will understand the appropriate uses of AI tools. Moreover, Warner is clear that teachers need to understand what AI is doing – and not doing – in order to approach it responsibly in the classroom. Warner advocates for a reasonable, considered approach, importantly moving past theory and critique to concrete strategies and imagining a future for writing instruction shorn of the tedium and staleness of traditional writing instruction. Part IV, organized around the guideposts of “resist, renew, explore,” offers even more nuance and an effective framework for how to make sense of this technology; it’s where this book moves past offering just a diagnosis and closer to articulating a way forward. Teaching may be harder now, but what we’re up against is clearer, and the need for alignment between our values and our practices has become even more necessary as we figure out how to teach in this challenging technological moment. Rooted in a deeply humanistic vision for teaching and learning, Warner’s manifesto is an essential read.