The other day, a student sent me an e-mail that included the plea, "I am scared to death of your class... Give me something known. I don't know how to read something and figure out the unknown conflicts. I believe what someone tells me. I don't take hints. If someone wants me to know something they need to tell me. I am not good at reading between the lines." After I recieved permission to quote from that e-mail, I wrote a lengthy blog entry on my site, where SHU math professor Josh Sasmor suggested that I read The Irascible Professor-commentary of the day 01-20-04. No surprises?, an excerpt from which runs as follows:
I think college tests should include surprise questions... I think many, maybe even the majority, of classroom test questions should be of the "no surprises" variety. The professor must tell the students very clearly what definitions, theories, and ideas are important. And the students must memorize that material and demonstrate that they have done so by answering simple, straightforward questions.My students have probably heard me remind them that, in the real world, they will encounter complex, messy problems that don't come with study guides, and their reactions to those problems won't be compared to an answer printed in the back of a book. Even the students who complained about the pressure I put on them towards the end of "Practice of Journalism" did recognize that I was trying to simulate the way journalism is practiced in the real world. For the most part, I've been very happy with the way Seton Hill students approach their education.But the best performing students, the students who have understood the material deeply, the students who merit A's and '’s, should also be able to use the course material to answer some "new" questions. That's what the world outside the classroom will demand of them. The college instructor should, of course, give students ample practice at applying the material. What I am arguing is that the professor should not provide examples of every possible type of question; he or she should not give tests that ask students only to memorize each of the possible types of question along with the answer for each type.
If the instructor tells students that they will have to answer some surprise questions on tests and if the instructor explains why, the students might well accept that the instructor has their long-term best interests in mind.
I've been contemplating this post a lot, wanting to respond, but not really knowing how to without sounding preachy. But what the heck. The fact is that the text a teacher assigns IS the "known" (as are the historical/biographical materials that surround it)...what the student does WITH the text (interpretative processing) is the unknown and unpredictable variable. What I'm saying is that -- as much as that Irascible Prof essay is persuasive -- it's the STUDENTS who should be generating the "surprises," and not the teacher. At the same time, the student lament you cite ("tell me what to do so I can follow directions and get an A") is off the mark -- but I'm not sure this is an issue of "memorization" or information processing either. Her claim (is this a she?) that she's no good at "reading between the lines" is precisely what she needs to learn in the class. In fact, I'd argue it's more important than ANY facts she learns about the authors or time periods under discussion. Mastering interpretive strategies should be a clear course objective; I bet it's in the syllabus, too. As a lit teacher myself, I try to model interpretation -- walking through a poem or a story to show how I draw the conclusions I do. And I posit questions that I think students should be positing themselves when they read to a text: so I model inquiry, too. If that student is out there reading this right now, I would urge her to embrace the questions that she has about a text as the "ammunition" she needs to succeed and to pay attention to how Dr. Jerz raises questions about a story or play, too. That's really what Dr. Jerz is probably expecting you to do: to raise questions (especially "how" and "why" questions) and to posit and support possible answers. One shouldn't just look for the hidden "truth" that the teacher alone knows, as if it were some guessing game with only one right answer. Literature has no one "known" meaning. Even the author himself would agree!
What you want students to be able to do is to transfer learning from one situation to another. In one form or another, all of education demands this. Or, it should demand it. Unfortunately, too often we give essay questions that really ask for a higher form of memorization. If the student listened carefully and really understood your point about Jane Austen or Greek democracy, the s/he can reproduce a version of that on the exam. And how can you argue with what you know is true?