The undergraduates gave highly favorable comments. Fix to six said that this was the best course that they had ever taken. They liked the feedback on the papers, the close relationships, and the intense learning environment. However, it is hard to separate out the content versus the experience from this unique approach.
In the current semester, I have a 2:1 ratio of graduate students to undergraduates. (I had only two graduate students in the first course.) I hope that graduate students will have an easier time pulling the two issues apart. If so, they may be able to give more precise feedback. I think that the maturity and articulation skills of the graduate students will also mean better feedback.
Even though I wish that I had a black and white method of evaluating the learning that occurs from the intensive writing that students do, I do believe that writing helps them in several ways:
Writing forces the students to read the material. In order to adequately answer the writing prompts, they would have to be informed about the text ideas.
Writing provides a means for the students to process the material that is light on facts but heavy on concepts.
Writing concise, limited papers on a daily basis improves the students' writing skills. It works to eliminate the fluff and filler that shows up in a page–dictated term paper.
Writing every class period demonstrates its importance plus it make the students think and focus for a set, concentrated amount of time.
