“Could you have written this without having taken the class? If so, it needs to be reconceived: write something that you could not possibly have written without having been a fully-engaged participant in our course.”

Sometimes, I’ll be more specific, saying, “You must refer to the detailed content of at least one lecture and at least one reading,” or similar.

Hm, I guess I *should* figure out what I want from them. Mostly, I’m just honestly curious about what will come back. This spring, at least, my students won’t be taking any examinations; so, that grinding pressure to keep on that task is relieved. That frees me up to try out assignments that are more like “fact-finding missions” for me. As you know, I tend toward being over-directive in my assignments rather than under-directive. An assignment like this lets me experiment with the under-directive and sort of just see what the cat drags in.

Along those lines, I assign The Red Tent in my Pentateuch class. It provides all kinds of texture to the Ancestral stories, and a whole re-envisioning of the Dinah story.