I took a two-year course, where our homework was primarily focused on developing an essay at the end of each class (about 14 of them all told). All the classes had similar formats and requirements, and so all the essays also had maximum word counts. I really, really appreciated that, because it surely forced me to distill all my thoughts into the most essential passages and cut out the fat.

Occasionally, I would be plagued by a bit of writer's block, and I couldn't think up enough to write, but eventually I could gin up enough logorrhea that I would have a nice tapestry to begin snipping out the wordy and irrelevant bits.

And that was my favorite part about the classes, being able to write a really tight research/opinion paper every few weeks.