Alan Cumyn, who studied creative writing at the University of Windsor, remembered MacLeod as a teacher who placed great emphasis on the fundamentals of good writing such as language and metaphor, character and conflict, narrative structure and form. He wrote that MacLeod read student work carefully and always began his critiques by pointing to the best things about a story before turning to its weaknesses. "By the end," Cumyn wrote, "a story might seem in tatters, but in the oddly inspiring way that gifted teachers and editors have, issues and directions were made much clearer, and many of us felt more confident and enthusiastic about our work than we had going in."