Your Writing Projects

Three connected projects carry us from a shared public question, to a decision that matters in your own life, to an inquiry you design yourself. They are not three disconnected essays. Each project gives you another way to practice judgment through writing.

Writing Project 1 — We

Guiding question: When should societies regulate, restrict, or embrace powerful technologies?

We begin with a shared public problem—such as how schools and communities should respond to phones, social media, or another technology that creates both benefits and harms. You will define the actual problem, study evidence and stakeholders, compare more than one plausible response, and make a recommendation to someone with the power to act.

The point is not to win a pro/con argument. It is to ask: Who is affected? What are the options? What are the tradeoffs? What would count as success?

Writing Project 2 — I

Guiding question: How should a thoughtful person choose to learn and work with AI?

This project moves closer to home. You will investigate a real learning, career, or workplace context and develop a personal AI-use practice you can explain and defend. That might mean deciding where AI is useful, what human work you want to protect, what needs checking, what you will disclose, and what uses you will decline.

This is not an “AI is good” or “AI is bad” assignment. It is a chance to make a contextual, researched decision about your own future.

Writing Project 3 — My Inquiry

Guiding question: Given a problem where reasonable people disagree, what course of action is most defensible after careful inquiry?

For the final project, you choose a problem worth investigating. It might be local, educational, technological, environmental, professional, civic, or something else that genuinely matters to you. You will research it, identify who has a stake, compare possible courses of action, name the uncertainty that remains, and communicate a responsible recommendation to a real audience.

The work between projects matters

Reading notes, annotations, conversations, early drafts, research trails, feedback, and reflections are not extra work around the essay. They are where the judgment develops. By the end of the semester, you will have evidence not only of what you wrote, but also of how your thinking changed.