In their efforts to assess the results of the project, Meyer’s graduate students observed the classes, interviewed teachers and students, and asked students to fill out questionnaires. One of the things they learned is that adding nonfiction texts helped teachers give more intellectual responsibility to their students in that the students learn things the teachers do not know and thus develop their own areas of expertise. Additionally they learned that many students who had been struggling with fiction texts were better able to succeed in the assignments drawn out of nonfiction texts, possibly because they are more concrete.

The teachers who participated in this project and Meyer’s graduate students will be sharing the results of their research at three conferences during the spring 2005 semester; they are also providing in-service professional development events on this topic for other local teachers. "In this course we were able to do research on a shared topic but in a variety of classrooms," said Meyer. "It was a practical introduction to qualitative research for graduate students, it was useful for the school teachers and their students, and the benefits of this research continue to influence classroom teachers through our conference presentations and papers."