I don't recall my Ph.D. comprehensive exams with much pleasure--two weekends of nonstop writing-for-my-life, the second one under the influence of antihistamines, followed by an oral grilling--except for one part: writing the questions.
I didn't write all the questions, but several weeks before the exam date my committee asked me to submit a few questions for each category. Overly simple questions would have elicited inadequate responses, so I put a great deal of thought into writing my share of the questions, which helped transport me into the mind of the examiners--an excellent place to be when tackling a difficult test.
That's why I like to enlist students in writing essay questions, especially in upper-level literature classes. Today my African-American Lit students had a pizza lunch to celebrate completing their papers--a working lunch where I handed out a study guide for the final essay exam. I gave them a list of literary works and four general themes for essay questions, and then I broke them into groups and asked each group to come up with a list of relevant works from several genres for each theme. Then we shared our results and discussed how we might use those works in an essay.
I've used this technique in many classes and often I'm surprised at the students' rationales for selecting certain works. Later, I construct the essay question based on their suggestions, sometimes with a little tweaking. Enlisting students in crafting questions may make exam-writing a little easier on me, but more importantly, it invites students inside the mind of the examiner--which, during finals week, is an excellent place to be.
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