Experience With A Literate Approach to Computer Science

We have observed anecdotally that many beginning graduate students, while technically skilled, are deficient in the ability to communicate technical ideas orally and in writing. To address this, we have developed a literate approach to graduate education. This approach has two components: reflection on a series of technical readings appropriate to a course, and a highly literate course project where students develop and polish a paper through several milestones and evaluations. We have gained experience with this approach in four classes over two years. We observe that students do respond to the literate format, and are able to draw connections between the class readings and their own writing