Active learning in class helps students develop deeper understanding of chemical engineering principles. While the use of multiple-choice ConcepTests is clearly effective, we advocate for including student writing in learning activities as well. In this article, we demonstrate that word clouds can provide a quick analytical technique to assess student writing. We provide two examples: students' in-class explanations of their answer choice to multiple-choice ConcepTests, and student responses to "muddiest point" reflection exercises.