Typewriters Are Back in a Cornell University Classroom
- 29 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Once a semester, a Cornell University teacher requires her students to complete an in-class assignment using typewriters.
It's designed as an exercise to help them understand what writing, thinking and classrooms were like before everything turned digital. And, of course, means that access to Google or AI is impossible on such old fashioned contraptions.
Grit Matthias Phelps, a German language instructor at the school, started the “analog” exercise in 2023 after growing frustrated with students using AI and online translation platforms to turn in perfect papers. “What’s the point of me reading it if it’s already correct anyway, and you didn’t write it yourself?” Phelps told the Associated Press. “Could you produce it without your computer?”
To find out, she brought a few dozen thrifted manual typewriters to class, requiring students to complete an assignment on the devices and navigate a world without spell-check, screens, or delete keys. “I was so confused. I had no idea what was happening. I’d seen typewriters in movies, but they don’t tell you how a typewriter works,” said a 19-year-old freshman. “I didn’t know there was a whole science to using a typewriter.”
Another student said using a typewriter completely changed how he interacted with his work and his environment. “While writing the essay, I had to talk a lot more, socialize a lot more,” he explained, adding, “This might sound bad, but I was forced to actually think about the problem on my own instead of delegating to AI or Google search.”
It might be premature to say that typewriters are making a comeback beyond Cornell's campus. But the revival is part of a trend toward old-school testing methods like in-class pen-and-paper exams and oral tests to prevent AI use for assignments on laptops.
