Requiring students to write sentences to explain the meaning of other sentences.

[Boojatta]

I see a number of potential problems with such a requirement.

1. The task is potentially endless. If there can be a demand for a sentence that explains the meaning of sentence A, then the result is a sentence B and there can be a demand for a sentence C that explains the meaning of sentence B.

2. It's one thing to demonstrate both that A implies B and that B implies A. It's another thing to claim that A is in some respect difficult or unclear. A claim needs to be supported unless one wishes to simply construct dogma.

3. If no effort is made to find people who actually don't understand sentence A, then there is no way to check that sentence B is actually understood by some people who don't understand sentence A. In that case, the concept "good explanation" is not connected to any verifiable facts. There is an unlimited opportunity for an instructor to make subjective judgments and express arbitrary, personal preferences.

4. If the purpose of sentence B is to persuade the instructor that the student understands sentence A, then there is again an unlimited opportunity for an instructor to make subjective judgments and express arbitrary, personal preferences. If understanding doesn't help students achieve any goal, then there's no reason to demand understanding. If understanding does help students achieve goals, then it should be possible to assign a goal and judge understanding based on whether or not the student achieved the goal.

[pop goes the weasel]

1. Just do your homework

Stop overthinking the exercise. It's a basic one designed to inspire clarity in reading and writing.

[Boojatta]

2. What basic exercise are you talking about?

Any written work -- such as a short story or poem -- can be a topic for an essay that a student is required to write. A student essay about a particular written work might include excerpts from the work. However, what if an instructor says that some or all excerpts are to be followed by explanations of what the excerpts mean?

[LWolf]

3. Give a concrete example,

and we can chat.

I can think of plenty of ways students could write about writing; I'd have to see a specific assignment to have any comment.

[Boojatta]

4. "I can think of plenty of ways students could write about writing"

A sentence is given. "Requirement: write your own sentence that tells the instructor what the given sentence means."

Both sentences are written in ordinary English, so we're not talking about translation.

There seems to be an assumption that a student can write a sentence that will directly express a specific meaning, but that the given sentence is somehow deficient and fails to directly express a specific meaning. However, instead of justifying that assumption, the instructor simply repeats the question "what does it mean?" as though that question could be answered without creating a situation where the same question could again be asked about any sentence written by the student.

[LWolf]

5. That example is certainly

circular. I wonder what the objective is? Personally, that's the question I would ask the teacher giving that assignment.