GoKawiilRatchaphon Lertdamrongwong, a sophomore at Cornell University, laughs with classmates while using a typewriter for a German writing assignment on Friday, March 20, 2026, in Ithaca, N.Y. The professor, Grit Matthias Phelps, brings out the typewriters once a semester for her students to use. (AP Photo/Lauren Petracca)
Students use typewriters to complete a writing assignment in German at Cornell University, Friday, March 20, 2026, in Ithaca, N.Y. Their professor, Grit Matthias Phelps, brings out the typewriters once each semester for students to disconnect from technology and connect with the assignment in a different way. (AP Photo/Lauren Petracca)
Marcello Popelka makes edits using a pencil after writing an assignment in German on a typewriter at Cornell University, Friday, March 20, 2026, in Ithaca, N.Y. The professor, Grit Matthias Phelps, brings out the typewriters once each semester for students to disconnect from technology and connect with the assignment in a different way. (AP Photo/Lauren Petracca)
The scene is right out of the 1950s with students pecking away at manual typewriters, the machines dinging at the end of each line.
Once each semester, Grit Matthias Phelps, a German language instructor at Cornell University, introduces her students to the raw feeling of typing without online assistance. No screens, online dictionaries, spellcheckers or delete keys.
The exercise started in spring 2023 as Phelps grew frustrated with the reality that students were using generative AI and online translation platforms to churn out grammatically perfect assignments.
“What’s the point of me reading it if it’s already correct anyway, and you didn’t write it yourself? Could you produce it without your computer?” said Phelps.
She wanted students to understand what writing, thinking and classrooms were like before everything turned digital. So, she found a few dozen old manual typewriters in thrift shops and online marketplaces, and created what her syllabus calls an “analog” assignment.
It might be premature to say that typewriters are making a comeback beyond Cornell’s campus. But the revival is part of a national trend toward old-school testing methods like in-class pen-and-paper exams and oral tests to prevent AI use for assignments on laptops.
Typewriters bring ‘old days’ taste of doing one thing at a time
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