ISI Faculty Resource Center

I have read reviews about the book, although I haven't gotten to read the book itself yet. Having said that, I would raise two issues:

1. what type of student are we talking about here? If we are speaking of the student who doesn't have to work while going to school, then 20 pages of writing for a semester/40 pages of reading a week seems too little. I'm not sure whether we could say the same for a first-generation college student at a community college who works 40 hours a week to provide for his/her family.

2. The relationship between assignment and assessment. You could assign more than 40 pages a week, but will the student actually read it? The burden then falls upon the professor to assess the student is keeping up with the reading. Do you want to create yourself more work?

If students are taking five or six courses, as is not uncommon, then those 40 pages per week per course become 200-240 per week, in addition to which they are writing at least one paper per week, often two or three.

Many students suffer from a sort of "mental whiplash" or "Ricochet Rabbit" (think: "Ping-ping-ping!"); their "intellectual life" changes direction from hour to hour. A great discussion at 8:00 a.m. is often forgotten by lunchtime, since they had another three classes--on subjects that they consider unrelated--in between. By nightfall, that 8:00 discussion is as though it never had been, and a paper related to it is like an archaeological expedition. This is even more true from one day to the next.

I'll look for the book--thanks.

I teach political science (theory and American) at a small, Christian, liberal arts college. My students would normally have 4-5 courses at a time. I consider 25 pages of writing in a semester--either in the form of a single, end-of-semester research paper, or some combination of shorter assignments--about right. But 40 pages of reading per week seems to me absurdly low. I consider 25-40 pages per class a normal assignment, so I'm usually around 100-120 pages per week, maybe less for a course that meets only twice a week. I can't really imagine what a course with only 40 pages of reading per week would even look like. We'd have nothing to talk about in class!

The point about students' "mental whiplash" is important. Most students cannot actually do appropriate work if they are taking more than 4 courses at a time (with perhaps a P.E. class or music lesson on the side).

Obviously, I have the private liberal arts context in mind. I can certainly imagine that the first-generation community college student with a job would be a different kettle of fish.

This depends upon the number of classes and the general circumstance of the student. Also, it depends upon the type of reading and how much thinking you expect from the student. 50 pages of a novel which you just have to read is not that much, however 10 pages of a law school case book which you have to read three times, take notes on and consult with a supplement to understand is quite a lot. Having gone back to get a JD after my PHd in political science, and much undergraduate teaching, I can sympathize with how students can get worn out by over zealous profs assigning too much work. As the old age goes sometimes less is more...