Quiz Confusion

Class date: Tuesday, Jan. 12th

What was going on? Were they not paying attention? Wasn’t I being clear?

“What do we need to know for tomorrow’s quiz?!” students kept asking… after I’d already told them a couple of times--all they needed to know for the “Character Web” quiz was what was on their “Character Web” sheet. What could be more clear?

(See the previous entry for a glimpse of the “Character Web”.)

And then it dawned on me!

It wasn’t, at all, that they weren’t paying attention. Rather, their lack of understanding was actually a sign of the rigorous thinking they were accustomed to! I was asking of them something they were simply not used to doing: memorizing facts and being tested on merely repeating them.

From paragraph assignments to tests, and even routine quizzes over reading assignments, the students expect to think and write, and write some more (e.g., from the quiz over Bk 1, Ch. 3-4: “Who is the most interested in Pierre Gringoire’s play? And explain how you know.”). Factual details are absorbed into a broader answer. The only time we focus on isolated facts (like, “Who is Jehan’s brother?”) is not for a quiz, but during our favorite class review game, “Last Student Standing”.

So, why then am I having the students basically memorize and regurgitate?

Allow me to fondly recall my college days...

All the tests I took in my favorite professor's class were essay-based... except for one. And seeing on the syllabus a test on only Ancient Greek architectural terms, I was a little surprised. The result, however, was that, because I was fully confident in my understanding of triglyphs, entasis, metope's, etc..., I was able to analyze, discuss, understand, and enjoy the subtleties and deeper ideas in monuments like the Parthenon.

Hopefully this detour into memorization will have the same foundation-solidifying effect for us with Hugo's monumental work.