Capstone: Draft, Critique, Revise, Reflect
Last lesson you drew the line between helpful assistance and outsourcing the thinking. This lesson is where that line stops being a concept and becomes a submission. You will produce one short argument, and you will produce the paper trail around it: the draft you wrote before asking anything, the critique you collected, the notes on what you verified, and a reflection on what stayed yours.
The argument is not the whole artifact. The trail is.
What You Are Building
Pick a question you can actually argue about from your own experience or reading, something local and concrete: should your school library open an hour later, is a four-day work week realistic for a small business, does a daily walk improve focus more than a third coffee. Skip anything you would need a research team to settle.
Then build this pipeline:
flowchart TD
FW["✍️<br/>Freewrite"] --> OL["🧠<br/>Memory outline"]
OL --> TH["🎯<br/>Thesis"]
TH --> D1["📄<br/>Draft 1"]
D1 --> CR["🤖<br/>AI critique"]
CR --> VF["🔍<br/>Verification ledger"]
VF --> D2["📝<br/>Revised draft"]
D2 --> RF["🪞<br/>Reflection"]
Notice that the AI critique sits in the middle, not at the start. Nothing enters the pipeline before your own draft does.
The Deliverables and Their Specs
| Deliverable | Spec | What it proves |
|---|---|---|
| Draft trail | 5-minute freewrite, a memory outline with two marked gaps, one thesis line | You thought before you asked |
| Draft 1 | 350 to 450 words: claim, 2 to 3 reasons, at least 2 pieces of evidence with source type noted | You can build an argument unaided |
| Critique packet | Your prompt in 2 to 4 sentences, the AI response as received, and a verification ledger of 3 to 5 rows | You can direct and test critique |
| Revised draft | 350 to 500 words plus a 3 to 5 line change log | You can revise without losing authorship |
| Reflection | 150 to 250 words | You can name your own decisions |
In this lesson
- The Order of Work for the Next Hour
- How You Know You Are Done
- Twelve Cards to Carry Into the Checkpoint
- What You Walk Away With
About this course
Part of Think Before You Prompt: Develop Independent Writing and Original Thought — Strengthen your ability to think clearly and express original ideas before asking AI to write for you. Complete a writing project using independent drafting, selective AI feedback, evidence checking, and personal revision.
- Level
- Beginner
- Goal
- Build a project
- Language
- English
- Focus
- Generating original ideas before consulting AI Structuring arguments and supporting claims Writing first drafts without AI assistance Using AI as a critic rather than a substitute author Preserving personal voice and intellectual ownership
- Prior knowledge
- Basic reading and writing proficiency, Experience writing short messages or paragraphs
- Practice
- Exercises + capstone project
- Time
- ~4.8h
- Voice
- An experienced writing instructor who asks learners to think on paper before revealing examples, then demonstrates how revision strengthens ideas without erasing the writer's voice.
- Not covered
- Advanced creative writing, Academic citation formatting, Professional copywriting and SEO, AI model training and fine-tuning
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