Reclaiming the Pen: Why Classical Education Must Preserve Writing in the Age of AI

In recent years, the act of writing—once the clearest window into a student’s mind—has become increasingly obscured. In the Australian context, this is no longer speculative but well documented. While a 2026 university report noted that nearly 80% of Australian students are now using generative AI tools in their studies, a far more concerning picture is emerging. More striking still, a recent investigative piece in The Australian describes a growing academic crisis in which some students and lecturers estimate that AI-assisted work may account for the vast majority of submissions in certain units—figures discussed as high as 90–95%.

AI use, in and of itself, is not the problem. It can serve as a helpful aid in research—assisting with locating primary sources or organising material—and, in this sense, it can be a legitimate and even beneficial tool. However, when it is used not only to research but also to write and produce entire tasks, it clearly moves beyond assistance and into substitution. In such cases, the tool is no longer supporting the student’s thinking, but replacing it. This concern is heightened by the fact that students, particularly those still forming their knowledge base, are often unable to discern the accuracy of the information they receive. Generative AI systems are known to reflect underlying biases and, at times, to produce misleading or incorrect material. Without a solid foundation of knowledge, students are not yet equipped to critique, question, or verify what is presented to them, and so may unknowingly accept and reproduce error as truth.

This reality raises a deeper question for educators committed to classical education: Why persist in teaching students to write well when machines can produce competent prose on demand? The answer lies not in resisting technology, but in reclaiming writing as a cornerstone of human formation—cultivating clear thinking, intellectual discipline, and the ability to articulate truth with precision and eloquence.

To recover writing, then, we must first recover its purpose: writing is not merely the expression of thought, but its formation. In the classical tradition, students are not asked simply to produce answers, but to attend carefully to worthy material—to consider, to ponder, to discuss, and to reflect. This formation is neither rushed nor haphazard; it is gradual, systematic, and deeply human.

What does this mean in practice? The classical movement can often remain squarely rooted in theory—however, I prefer to focus on what this means in practice. I am definitely someone who prefers to work amongst the sheep rather than the shepherds!

In our own classes, this is perhaps most clearly seen in our oldest writing cohort, who are currently undertaking a Progymnasmata comparison (syncrisis). Here, students are currently

required to weigh two subjects—Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great—across carefully defined heads: origin, nature, influence, and virtues, arriving finally at a clear and just judgement on common grounds. Their conclusions vary—some judge according to legacy, others by military excellence—but what is most striking is not merely the depth of their writing, but the maturity of their thinking. Having spent years within this disciplined tradition, many now initiate inquiry of their own accord. It was a genuine delight to witness students, unprompted, wrestling with the nature of wisdom itself: What does it mean to be wise? How might wisdom be recognised in action? Could either man truly be called wise? In such moments, we see that writing, rightly taught, becomes not an exercise in performance, but an apprenticeship in truth.

Students, moreover, are being taught how to think about their sources. This formation does not belong to the writing lesson alone, but is woven through every part of a classical education. In our Foundations of History course, students are trained to approach texts as historians: to distinguish between primary and secondary sources, to consider authorship and purpose, to weigh reliability, and to attend to bias, context, and audience. They learn that evidence must be examined, not merely accepted. Thus, when approaching their comparison—not only of origin, but of upbringing and formation—they understood instinctively that a just judgement requires more than surface knowledge. They must appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos; they must gather sufficient and fitting material; they must ensure that like is compared with like. One student, recognising a gap in their understanding during background research, sought further evidence and was directed to Parallel Lives—specifically The Life of Julius Caesar. What followed was not reluctant compliance, but genuine intellectual delight: another student (who concurred with the requesting student) later remarked that they were “enjoying it immensely,” even reading beyond what was required. Such moments reveal something essential—classically trained students do not look to machines to think for them; they are formed to seek out truth themselves and, in doing so, discover the quiet joy of disciplined inquiry.

Once students have secured the necessary knowledge—having read widely, questioned carefully, and wrestled with the matter at hand—they are finally ready to write. Here, the beauty of a targeted and deliberate formation becomes evident. Because their thinking has been shaped with care, their writing is not strained or artificial, but fluent and purposeful. Students are able, with increasing ease, to employ the rich treasury of rhetorical devices they have been trained in: anaphora to build emphasis, chiasmus to sharpen contrast and balance, alliteration to give rhythm and force, even dendrographia to render vivid and precise description. Such techniques are not ornaments hastily applied, but natural expressions of well-formed thought. The result is writing that does not merely communicate, but persuades, delights, and endures—writing that reflects both intellectual discipline and a genuine apprehension of truth.

Students thus develop the confidence to write well across disciplines. In our rhetoric-level literature class, students have just completed a study of The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare, where one of the assessment options was to compose either an encomium (praise) or a vituperation (blame) of a chosen character. What was most striking, however, was not simply their success within this literary context, but their readiness to transfer these skills beyond it. Having already mastered these forms in other settings, students did not hesitate, nor did they falter with uncertainty; they immediately selected a subject and began shaping their argument. There were, of course, other options—such as thematic analysis—but many gravitated naturally toward these classical forms. Such confidence reveals something significant: these students are not merely recalling a task, but exercising a habit of mind. They have internalised these modes of writing and are now prepared to deploy them with clarity, purpose, and conviction.

As society wrestles with the deeply troubling reality that many students now outsource their thinking to AI—raising serious questions about the very purpose of tertiary education—we are confronted with a stark choice. If both lecturers and students are aware that much of the work submitted is not the product of the student’s own mind, then we must ask: what, in truth, is being formed? What is the end of such an education? To have a machine complete one’s work is not merely a shortcut; it is the abdication of the intellectual life itself.

In contrast, classical education offers a clear and compelling alternative. With pen and paper in hand, and with careful training in ethos, logos, and pathos, students are formed to think, to judge, and to articulate what is true. This is not an antiquated model, but a necessary one. It calls us, as a society, to reconsider the purpose of education—not as credentialing or efficiency, but as formation. At Via Classica, this purpose is unambiguous: to teach children to know, love, and serve God, by forming them to produce what is good, true, and beautiful.