The Freshmen Experience Evaluation from Fall 2006 reported that PC freshmen greatly enjoyed discussing the books assigned in the freshman seminars. Another student survey found that they also enjoyed and learned from writing responses to their reading. Jill Frey asked students about writing in freshman seminar classes when she spoke to the Introduction to Collegiate Life classes on using sources. The 32 completed surveys included responses from students in 19 of the 25 freshman seminar and i2i classes.

The surveys asked students to identify the types of writing assigned in the course: reading response, information-based, personal reflection, creative, or other. Information-based papers were the most often assigned papers, noted by students in 14 classes. Of the other assignments, 12 were personal reflection, 10 reading response, and 9 creative. Out of 97 individual assignments students mentioned, 34, over one-third, were responses to reading.

Two open-ended questions followed: Which assignment did you enjoy most? From which assignment did you learn the most? In noting from which papers they learned most, students listed both information-based papers and reading responses.  One said of the response assignment, "It helped me learn how to interpret reading." Students also listed reading response as an assignment they enjoyed most. A student in Mike Joy's "Tales out of School" said reading responses "helped me to remember what I read better."
 
They also enjoyed a variety of other types of writing. One of Mike Nelson's students in "The JFK Assassination" liked writing an interview "because I got to hear people's recollections and how the memories differed from the facts that we now know."  A student in Lea Williams' " Islam" mentioned two personal reflection papers: "my opinion of Islam and my experience at the mosque."
 
Writing in freshmen seminars gives students the opportunity to become more confident with college writing, try out various types of assignments, and write to learn about what they are reading.