Brave New Bookshelf Episode 71: Cultivating Critical Thinking and Education Through AI with Susan Gable

How can AI support education without replacing critical thinking? And can the same technology help experienced authors rediscover their creativity after years of writer’s block?

In this episode of Brave New Bookshelf, we speak with author and educator Susan Gable about using AI in the classroom, encouraging students to challenge AI-generated answers, and incorporating tools like ChatGPT and Claude into the creative writing process.

Susan also shares how AI helped her return to fiction after more than a decade away from publishing.

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Meet Susan Gable: Author, Educator, and AI Explorer

Susan Gable has been writing professionally for more than two decades, beginning her career as a romance author with Harlequin.

Alongside her fiction writing, Susan works in education and develops curriculum for Stossel in the Classroom, a nonprofit organization that encourages students to explore economic and civic topics while developing independent thinking skills.

Susan describes herself as a cautious early adopter of new technology. She initially began using AI to support her educational work, but soon started experimenting with tools such as ChatGPT and Claude in her fiction-writing process.

For Susan, AI has become less about generating content automatically and more about helping her explore ideas, test assumptions, and overcome creative roadblocks.

Why Banning AI in Education May Not Work

One of the major topics in the episode is Susan's experience judging student essay contests.

The competition initially introduced a rule prohibiting the use of AI. However, after reading hundreds of submissions, Susan noticed that many essays showed similar patterns in language, research, and structure.

Some students submitted essays containing unusually large numbers of sources, while others appeared to rely heavily on AI-generated prose.

The experience highlighted a wider challenge for educators: simply banning AI does not necessarily prevent students from using it.

AI detection tools can also produce unreliable results, making enforcement difficult.

Instead of focusing exclusively on whether students had used AI, Susan and the team began exploring a different approach: teaching students how to use AI responsibly while demonstrating their own reasoning.

Turning AI Into a Critical Thinking Exercise

The essay competition eventually evolved into an AI Challenge, where students were required to use AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, or Poe.

Instead of asking students to simply generate an essay, the challenge focused on how they interacted with the AI.

Students were asked to:

• Submit their complete AI conversation logs
• Challenge the AI's assumptions and conclusions
• Ask follow-up questions and play devil's advocate
• Research the topic before beginning the conversation
• Write a personal reflection on the experience without using AI

Topics included complex political and civic questions such as congressional term limits and birthright citizenship.

The goal was not to measure how polished the AI-generated output looked. Instead, the challenge evaluated how students questioned, investigated, and responded to the information they received.

Susan found that the strongest participants often entered the conversation having already researched the topic. Rather than simply accepting the first answer produced by the AI, they challenged it and used the conversation to explore competing arguments.

In this context, AI became a tool for developing critical thinking rather than a shortcut around it.

Using AI to Overcome Writer's Block

Susan also discusses how AI helped her return to fiction after a long period of writer's block.

After more than ten years without releasing a new book, she published again with AI playing a supporting role in her creative process.

That did not mean pressing a button and allowing AI to write the book.

Susan explains that substantial knowledge of storytelling and writing craft is still required to guide AI effectively.

For example, authors need to understand concepts such as:

• Three-act or four-act story structure
• Character motivations and internal conflicts
• Emotional turning points
• Story pacing
• The "black moment" or emotional low point within a romance

Susan uses character mottos as one method for keeping characters consistent throughout a story. She also spends significant time refining story architecture before moving into drafting.

AI can suggest ideas and generate possibilities, but the author remains responsible for deciding whether those ideas actually serve the story.

In that sense, Susan sees the writer less as someone who simply produces every word manually and more as the architect or engineer responsible for shaping the story.

AI Still Needs Human Creative Direction

A recurring theme throughout the conversation is the importance of the human in the loop.

AI can generate text quickly, but it does not automatically understand emotional nuance, character motivation, or narrative tension.

For example, Susan has found that AI may sometimes avoid making situations emotionally difficult enough, particularly when developing major conflict within romance stories.

The writer therefore needs to recognize when the story lacks tension and deliberately push the narrative further.

The same principle applies to education.

Students who simply accept an AI-generated response may learn very little. Students who question the response, verify its claims, identify weaknesses, and challenge its reasoning can turn the same technology into a learning tool.

The value comes from how the human uses the AI.

Exploring AI for Music and Visual Creativity

Susan also experiments with generative AI beyond writing.

Using Suno, she has created educational songs she calls "Lessons in Lyrics." These songs use genres such as rap, rock, and country to explain concepts including the Rule of Law.

She has also explored image-generation platforms such as Midjourney, Leonardo, and Ideogram for book-cover concepts and visual inspiration.

For Susan, these technologies expand the range of ways she can explore ideas.

They can also reduce some of the repetitive work involved in creative production, allowing her to spend more time on story development, decision-making, and experimentation.

Resources Mentioned in This Episode

• Susan Gable's Official Website
• Stossel in the Classroom
• Suno
• Poe
• Ideogram
• Leonardo
• Midjourney

Key Takeaways from This Episode

AI is changing both education and creative writing, but Susan's experience suggests that the most productive approach is not simply to ban it or automate everything.

The real opportunity is learning how to use AI while preserving human judgment.

Some of the key lessons from the conversation include:

• Focus on thinking rather than detection. AI detectors have significant limitations, so educators may benefit from evaluating the student's process and reasoning instead.
• Keep humans in control. AI works best when someone with subject knowledge provides direction, context, and quality control.
• Challenge AI-generated answers. AI can become a useful Socratic partner when users question its assumptions rather than accepting its first response.
• Creative knowledge still matters. Understanding storytelling, character development, and structure makes it easier for authors to guide AI effectively.
• AI can reduce repetitive work. Writers may use AI to support brainstorming, drafting, organization, or physically demanding typing tasks while retaining creative control.
• Experimentation matters. Learning how to work with AI is often an iterative process of testing prompts, reviewing results, and refining ideas.