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Anatomy of an Exhibition

Author(s): Jody Brown Podl Ordering Information

Margaret Metzger has taught English at Brookline High School in Massachusetts for twenty-two years. In this article, we describe Margaret's initial attempt to use exhibitions as a means of assessment in her classroom.1 As our title implies, an exhibition, like a living creature, is a complex organism, composed of many vital and inter-connected elements. We have dissected this exhibition in an attempt not only to understand the intricacies of the organs, bones, muscles, and nerves but also to see how these components ultimately fit together to form the whole.

This example demonstrates how exhibitions serve three integral functions. First, they make schools externally accountable by providing members of the community an opportunity to view the goings-on in their schools. Second, they make schools internally accountable by generating valuable information about what and how students are learning. This healthy scrutiny prompts schools to make changes, if necessary, so that they can graduate thoughtful and capable students. Third, and perhaps most importantly, exhibitions encourage students to move toward deeper and more substantive understandings and, in so doing, ask teachers to shift their emphasis from transferring information to providing a usable base of skills and knowledge (McDonald, 1992).

Vision

Margaret has taught Dante's Inferno to her senior European Literature classes for the past ten years. Until this year, she had always been the primary actor in teaching the book's thirty- four cantos, starting each day with a short reading quiz, then moving on to lead a discussion about some of the daily canto's major themes and patterns. Students did a project at the end of the unit, usually some creative presentation on Dante.

The final test on the book was a ten-page multiple-choice, short-answer, and essay exam which depended on students' recall of textual minutiae. Year after year, students did poorly on the exam; in a typical class, two thirds of them would receive a grade of C or lower. Class discussions and written work convinced Margaret that students knew the material much better than they could demonstrate on the final exam, which only raised both Margaret's and her students' level of frustration.

Obviously, something needed to change; but lacking an alternative, Margaret continued to work with the archaic test. At first, she tried giving more review sheets and study sessions. She tinkered with the questions and at one point expanded the exam to a three-day marathon. "I knew something was drastically wrong," she recalls. "Even though my frustrations lay with the exam and not my students, it never occurred to me to change the whole concept. Then I read Ted Sizer's work on exhibitions, 2 and it struck a chord of common sense. Like much of what he writes, his words made me ask myself, çWhy didn't I think of this before?'"

Margaret realized that a discrepancy existed between what she was teaching and what she was testing. The test focused on nitpicky details, whereas her teaching focused on thinking and reading skills, on encouraging her students to be independent learners within a community that has rigorous academic standards. In addition, she saw that two other philosophical ideas she had held for a long time propelled her to change her ideas about assessment: first, that students want to do rigorous, honest academic work; second, that students must own their own work and their own learning. "In other words," Margaret realized, "my job is to set up situations so that they work hard. I do not want students to admire how smart I am; I want students to know how smart they are."

This vision of thoughtful, independent students took priority over passing on information about the content of any particular piece of literature. In all her literature classes, Margaret teaches her students how to read with sophistication so that they will know how to read beyond content and plot. Throughout the year, students learn ways to approach reading: to create mental pictures of scenes and characters, to investigate how form fits content, to abstract from specific details to ascertain general themes, to make sense of the author's choices about style and structure. As her students read, she asks them to articulate what skills they use to arrive at their understanding of a text. Students are expected to transfer these comprehension skills from one piece of literature to the next. Since Dante is particularly difficult, students need a lot of instruction on how to read him, and they are dazzled at their progress when they do get it.

Clearly, if she was aiming to develop independent and thoughtful readers, Margaret needed to fit the test to the teaching -and that meant throwing out the test and starting over.

The Plan

Margaret introduced exhibitions to her two European Literature classes after she had taught the first half of The Inferno, about a month into the book. She began by handing out a nine-page memo which included a rationale for the idea, quotations from Ted Sizer (1984) and Grant Wiggins (1989), and samples of materials. She purposely gave her students as much information about the procedure as possible, so everyone would know the expectations. The memo began:

Instead of a final exam and project on Dante, you will demonstrate that you can read and under-stand a Canto from The Inferno which has not been discussed in class.

The overall structure of the assignment: The whole class will read and discuss the first half of The Inferno. For the second half of the book, I will assign pairs of you to one Canto, which you will prepare and present to the class. The presentation will be called An Exhibition, meaning that you must exhibit your knowledge. You will have about seven class periods to prepare, as well as additional time outside of class.

For your Exhibition, you will present your Canto to a panel of three outside judges: one peer who is not taking the course, one adult outside of the school, and one adult from within the school. You will select the first two, and I will arrange for the third.

Your exhibition must include a brief check that your classmates have read the Canto you are presenting. (The most traditional way of checking is simply to give a quiz.) Next, each of you will read aloud to the class a paper that you have written about the Canto on a subject of your choice. Finally, you will teach the class a major concept in the Canto. You are free to choose any appropriate pedagogy for the teaching section of the exhibition: class discussion, dramatic presentation, art work, Socratic Seminar, small-group work, role playing, or whatever.

With these ground rules, Margaret opened up the class for discussion and questions. She straight-forwardly admitted that she had never attempted this kind of assessment before. She was somewhat apprehensive about how her students would react to such a foreign idea. Several students candidly expressed concerns about managing this task in the midst of preparing their college applications, about the role of the judges, and about the prospect of "performing" before their peers. Others, the natural risk- takers, requested more flexibility in designing their exhibitions.

Despite the uncertainty that pervaded the room, none of the students resisted the idea; in fact, many said they were excited to try something new. Kneeling on the floor, Margaret wrote the names of the partners and cantos on a huge newsprint calendar as her students hovered around her, wondering aloud about what exactly they were being asked to do.

Teacher Preparation

Even though the workload later tapered off considerably as students immersed themselves in their cantos and did their exhibitions, preparing the exhibition consumed a great deal of Margaret's time early on. She spent two full evenings making the plan for the exhibition, including writing the response forms which would be needed later, drafting the "Judge's Criteria Sheet," and making lists of "Topics which might be covered in an exhibition," potential problems, and fourteen procedural steps for the exhibition process.

The most difficult part of the preplanning was pairing students, which took three or four hours. In the end, she assigned partners for many different reasons; learning styles, personalities, and friend-ship patterns all affected her choices. The enormous amount of time devoted to the careful partnering paid off, however, since the students needed to be able to collaborate in order to make sense of their cantos, using each other as sounding boards for questions, ideas, and revelations.

Keeping more than twenty pairs of students on task, all working at different paces, required additional materials: large newsprint calendars on the wall that listed homework assignments, exhibition presenters, and judges; fifteen manila folders that included memos to judges, instruction sheets, response forms, drafts of papers, exhibition plans, and other handouts.

Margaret's next step, arranging for judges, was made particularly difficult by the fact that her school was embroiled in a work-to-the-rule contract dispute. She could not ask other teachers to come into her class because all teachers had to complete their work between eight and two. She did, however, ask high school and central office administrators, school committee members, and pupil-support staff. She sent brief form letters that explained the project and asked for their assistance, if their schedules allowed for it. All responses were positive; those who were unable to judge could not do so because of conflicting schedules.

Initially, Margaret worried that it took too much time to set up such an elaborate structure, and she knew that she could not sustain that much time on two classes without completely neglecting her other classes. Although the first few days demanded constant attention to detail, daily planning was not required once the structure was in place. Furthermore, although she spent several evenings working on the exhibition plan, this was still much less time than she would normally spend planning a month's worth of lessons.

This is not to say that Margaret's work was done once she had passed out the instructions, paired the students, and scheduled the judges. During the week of in-class time which students used to prepare their exhibitions, formal instruction gave way to coaching. Margaret conferenced with partners, read drafts of students' papers, and used a checklist of the various steps in the process to keep track of the progress everyone was making. For instance, early on in the process, partners had to fill out a two-page comprehension sheet that asked them about their understanding of their canto. Margaret wrote extensive comments, pushing students to go further and sometimes even to start over completely. This kind of individualized coaching, built into the structure of the exhibition, allowed Margaret to maintain a strong sense of the direction in which each student was moving.

For the five weeks of the exhibitions presentations, Margaret's workload lightened consider-ably. The students ran the two classes entirely, and Margaret did not stand up in front of the groups except to give minor announcements and to introduce the judges. Each day she read four papers, one from each student who had made a presentation that day. Thus, two major sets of papers were staggered over the five-week period. Because she was filling out the criteria sheets during the exhibitions, the bulk of her evaluation was complete when the bell rang. Later, she read the other judge's evaluations and assigned a final grade.

Student Preparation

Students spent a week of class time working in pairs to study their cantos and to plan their exhibitions. Virtually every minute of every day, the classroom seemed animated and focused. At one point, Margaret commented, in partial surprise, "There is no divergent conversation here. They are on task the whole time." Because the students were clear about the task and encouraged to act independently, they demonstrated a range of unusually mature work habits.

Students used well the techniques, information, and concepts that they had learned in studying the first half of the book as the basis of their study of the second half. As Jen and Illana struggled with a difficult passage, Jen made a connection: "Remember when we learned about style, that a smaller thing represents the whole? This must be what he's doing here." The two then proceeded to reread the passage together. Wendy and Seizi, knowing that most cantos were based around central images, worked to identify the central image in theirs. Toward the end of the period, Wendy noticed the preponderance of circles; Seizi immediately began putting the canto in much clearer perspective.

It was also gratifying to see how well they collaborated. On their first day working together, Melita admitted to David that she did not understand the setting. David, who had figured it out himself, took out a sheet of paper and drew it for Melita. Looking at his sketch, Melita wondered why Dante would position a character in such a peculiar way. Sprawled on the floor with drawing and book in front of them, the two set about investigating Melita's query. On the other side of the room, Peter had come up with a list of storm images, and Masha had compiled one of animal images. As they compared notes, each added his or her own observations to the other's list.

While all the students were deeply involved in their work, the flexible structure of the exhibition put everyone at a different step in the process. For instance, Nora and Liz bounced ideas back and forth about the denotations of the word "discord," which was in the title of their canto, while Becky and Cairn had an animated discussion about the "grossness" of Dante's description in theirs. Meanwhile, two other pairs read silently, not yet ready to talk with each other.

The students, in essence, had taken over. They appropriated the room: upon entering the class, the students immediately rearranged the furniture so that each pair could have its own space in which to work. They appropriated the text: Canto XXVI became my canto or our canto. And they appropriated the responsibility for learning: no longer waiting for the teacher's directions, each pair, at the end of class, assessed what they had accomplished and where they wanted to go and then assigned themselves homework.

Even amid this diversity, the bulk of everyone's first few days focused on comprehension. Students struggled to understand the general ideas in their canto (simply the plot) and individual lines (including subtle metaphors). Margaret was surprised at how confused many of the students were. While they were studying the first half of the book, students could hide their confusion as long as they could pass the daily quiz. Now, she saw that they had basically grasped what she said about each canto, but had not understood much beyond her words. In fact, at first, many of them could not figure out the basic action in the canto. When they had to struggle with one canto, rather than rushing through a new canto each day, both their confusion and their level of comprehension became more obvious to Margaret as well as to themselves.

It was scary for the students to admit to each other that they didn't understand the book, and that it was their responsibility to uncover the meaning. Margaret was tempted to "give answers," or at least hints, but she resisted. Instead, she focused her efforts on asking more questions and encouraging students to keep delving, even when they felt stuck, complacent, or prematurely successful. Because Margaret was so good at pressing her students to search for the answers themselves rather than providing the information that they sought, the students learned to rely on themselves and each other rather than on her. Her goal of making the students independent learners with high academic standards was no longer theoretical. Sometimes she stood in the corner not knowing quite what to do!

Another major requirement of the exhibition called for students to prepare, write, and read an analytical essay about their canto. As always, the most difficult part of the writing was selecting a topic and developing a thesis. Students had to do original thinking; they could not base the paper on outside critical essays. In her role as coach, Margaret challenged and questioned their topics and theses. Partners also read and commented on each other's drafts. During the week, students wrote several drafts; writing and rewriting the papers helped the students clarify their thinking about the canto and about their exhibition.

With this focus in mind, the students had to determine how to get what they had learned across to their peers. Of course, they relied heavily on modeling their teaching on their own classroom experiences. Sadly, the students realized that they could not think of varied classroom activities and claimed that all of their classes were alike. Margaret reviewed the techniques that she had used in September and October, but students still felt stymied.

One particularly useful parameter was that Margaret insisted that the exhibitions not be "cute." Although Margaret worried that students would not understand her when she banned "cute," the students laughed and said they understood exactly what she meant. At first, one pair wanted to do a puppet show of a particularly grotesque scene, which might have trivialized the pain and suffering of the characters. Another group considered writing and performing a rap version of their canto, which might have violated the integrity of the language.3 Students began to monitor the appropriateness of their presentations and realized that both plans were unacceptable because they reduced the complexity and seriousness of Dante. In some ways, this prohibition against "cute" made designing their teaching activities even more difficult, but it validated serious, intellectual work.

Looking back, two factors conspired against the students' work during the preparation period. First, because the students took so long to comprehend the material, they did not have enough time to plan their teaching activity. Second, for many students this was the first time they had ever considered the issue of pedagogy; therefore, they needed a significant amount of time to think it through. Despite these problems -and because they were so eager to help each other out of this predicament -the partners managed to create focused, lively, and high-powered lessons.

Although the students definitely needed help figuring out how to teach their cantos, it was impossible to squeeze additional time into the curriculum for teaching them pedagogy. In the future, Margaret will make explicit -on a daily basis -the pedagogical approaches that she uses so that her students are conscious of teaching options for the next exhibition. She will also ask the students to add to this list any classroom experiences from other courses that seem useful to this brain-storming process. Most importantly, she will ask them to consider what they enjoy as students and what teaching styles most enable them to learn.

The Exhibitions

The exhibitions were intense. No time was wasted, because students were anxious to cover huge amounts of material in fifty minutes. In the back of the room sat anywhere from three to seven adults watching the proceedings. Despite the large audience, the students concentrated on each other and the material. Because each day had a different teacher, canto, and teaching technique, every class seemed riveting.

Students usually began with a short quiz and a brief summary of the plot. Next, the pair presented a preplanned activity using some creative teaching technique that matched the material they were trying to convey. This section was the most interesting, and usually the most anxiety provoking for the exhibitors. Many students opted to hold discussions. Andrew and Allison led a Socratic Seminar. Brian and Dennis divided the class in half for a debate about whether the narrator was lying. In order to demonstrate a very confusing canto, Becky and Cairn wrote a script based on their canto and asked the entire class to act it out. Finally, at some appropriate point during each class, both partners read their papers and then answered questions about them. Many classes went overtime, and each class ended with applause.

The students' depth of understanding was often impressive. Even after teaching The Inferno for a decade, Margaret was thrilled that many pairs had insights into the text which she had never seen. On the other hand, she cringed when students offered inaccurate interpretations. In these situations, students often corrected each other, either that day or a few days later. Even if the interpretation remained problematic, Margaret refused to intervene as the academic expert. She wanted the students to retain ownership of their learning. Authentic learning entails making some mistakes.

The following is a transcription of part of the discussion pertaining to Canto XXVII. For their teaching activity, the presenters split up the class for small group discussions. Sara, the leader, has just asked her group to identify images of speech at the start of the canto. The group has found one in almost every line.

Sara: So you can say basically that on that page there's a metaphor for speech in every tercet. Also, there's an image of flame. Like I see that, in the first tercet, "when he finished speaking the great flame . . ."

They check the other tercets for references to flames and, again, find several.

Sara: Can you see any connection between speech and the flame and how the sinners were encased in the flame in hell itself? Why might Dante parallel flame and speech in every tercet?

Suzan: Their method of sinning is through speech and they give bad advice. And now it's kind of muffled.

David: And also their words -the way they give counsel -would be like fire unto the person. They're giving evil counsel, and like directing those words, trying to wrap someone up in those words, is sort of like the fire grabbing the sinners.

Brian: I agree with what they say. Sara: So you can see how it's kind of like a reflection of hell. Like the fire -I think what David and Suzan said is right because they use their words as a vehicle for their sins. Their words hid their own intentions, so now they're concealed in it. And that concealment, that image of being hidden in the fire, is portrayed throughout the canto. Can you see it? I mean, just thinking about it generally, there are lots of images of hidden, um, like lowly kinds of images; like in the second tercet: "the muffled roar" and then "sealed," "concealed," "hidden."

David: You mean that by giving evil counsel, they didn't actually commit the sin but they were hiding behind the words, hiding away from the sin but still . . .

Sara: Their sin, their deceit and their words -despite their true intentions -are hidden by false counsel. . . . Throughout the book there's a constant parallel between true intentions of the person before they give evil counsel and then there's their false counsel. It's like a distortion. . . . How do you think they are continuing their sins?

Brian: They conceal it behind the flames in hell like they concealed it behind their words.

David: Doesn't Guido, well, when he's talking to Dante, he sort of puts the blame on the Pope and it's sort of the same way in that -well, I guess that's not continuing.

Sara: It's still the image of concealed or . . .

David: When he says the Pope's the one who did it.

Sara: There's just a really great image portrayed of hidden denial, muffled, all that kind of stuff.

There are a few more questions and comments. At this point, Sara reads her paper, which compares the images of flame, speech, and concealment. In many ways, it sounds like a summation of group's conversation.

In their discussions, the students took charge, asserted themselves, and made substantive, original comments. Although the leaders were invested in a particular interpretation of the text, they valued what their peers contributed. The students created, expected, and enforced standards of intellectual rigor.

With few exceptions, the adults did not speak at all during the exhibitions and the students sustained animated discussions for fifteen- to twenty-five-minute stretches. This experience had a lasting impact. After the exhibitions, when the students moved on to the next book, class discussions were noticeably more animated and more reflective than before.

The Papers

Each student wrote an essay based on an original thesis statement and read it aloud to the class. In many ways, these papers were a culmination of the authors' thinking about their cantos. Choosing their own topics and using no outside resources, the students had the opportunity é and the challenge -to reveal the knowledge that they had acquired as a result of their sustained focus on one canto. The students each wrote at least three drafts, working to clarify and refine their ideas.

For example, one pair of students explicated Ulysses' sin in one of the cantos about Evil Counselors. First, Joanna presented her paper about what Ulysses perceived his sin to be: v

Ulysses ultimately makes a grand analogy in order to demonstrate his sin of Hubris. Being of Greek heritage, he relied on Greek mythology to explain his nature and even compared himself to Icarus. Briefly, the story of Icarus tells of a boy whose father gave him a pair of wings but warned him not to go too close to the sun because the wings would melt. He did not heed his father's warning due to his great excitement and sense of power. He momentarily rose toward the sun but then fell and was plunged into the sea.

Ulysses' first reference to this myth is in his speech to his crew. "Our senses stand experience of the world beyond the sun." Ulysses preached that the purpose of their journey was to discover the limits of the universe; but man was not intended to challenge these limits of God. Despite this, Ulysses says, "we made wings of our oars for our fool's flight." Because Ulysses' fate parallels that of Icarus, it is only fitting that the conclusion to Ulysses' journey is that "the sea closed over us and the light was gone." As a result of thinking his powers could overcome the laws of God, Ulysses' arrogance led him to his fate in hell.

Her partner Suzan's paper moved the argument one step further to show that it is not hubris that is Ulysses' core sin but evil counseling: Ulysses' true talent of coercion reveals itself in his cocky depiction of his success in convincing his fellow sailors not to abandon the expedition despite their fear and initial disinterest. Using the old trick of reverse psychology, Ulysses manages to change their minds by attacking their vulnerable egos. "Greeks! You were not born to live like brutes, but to press on toward manhood and recognition!" Seeing how convincing he was, Ulysses is sure to acknowledge and gloat about his mastery of the art of manipulation. "With this brief exhortation I made my crew so eager for the voyage I could hardly have held them back from it when I was through."

While Ulysses is obviously proud and boastful, his true sin remains evil counseling. In fact, Dante is his current victim of bad advice, and therefore, he is continuing to actively practice his true sin. By telling Dante of his own failure to voyage beyond the limits of mortal man, he is really advising him to turn back and to abandon his plans of traveling through hell. In concluding his tale, Ulysses refers to his journey as a "fool's flight," implying that Dante's voyage is one of similar nature. This is the most harmful counsel that Ulysses could possibly offer Dante because Dante's journey is willed by God.

Joanna's and Suzan's papers reveal a very complex analysis that takes into account matters of language, perception, and culture. In the class discussion that followed, they asked their peers whether it was fair for Dante to punish Ulysses, a Greek, for a sin that he does not recognize, since he is unaware and ignorant of Christian ideology.

Overall, these examples show that the students chose sophisticated, non-plot topics, took intellectual risks, and backed up their positions. They wrote clearly and, most importantly, passionately about their ideas. They felt as if they were the experts on their cantos, and they were excited to share their ideas with the class. The papers were a joy to read.

The Judges

When Margaret introduced the exhibitions, the students immediately expressed anxiety about having strangers in the class. "What are they going to do here?" "Who will come in here? Our parents all work." "Why do we have to have them?" "How will they judge if they haven't read the book or if they haven't heard the other exhibitions?" Interestingly, Margaret had never considered that this element would elicit such a strong reaction; when placed beside the enormity of the work that she was asking them to do, the idea of judges seemed minor. In her thinking, she was more concerned with keeping Ted Sizer's notion of drawing in the community for a public celebration of learning than with the practical ramifications of having outsiders assess her students' work.

Furthermore, these were competent seniors who would soon be judged by colleges, and she knew that they would not be humiliated by presenting material in front of "outsiders." In short, she had more confidence in their ability than they did. But she also wanted to up the ante, and having judges was a way to ensure that the students knew that these exhibitions were not just another oral presentation.

While their questions did point up some legitimate issues, it became clear to Margaret that the idea of judges was the most threatening part of the whole scheme, because even though the students didn't at first understand the magnitude of the task or the logistics, they could immediately get scared by the idea of having strangers judge them in a classroom. The students wanted the security that Margaret, who knew them well and liked them, would be the final judge for grades. Students assumed that judges would be harsher than the known teacher. The least academically secure students were the most anxious about judges.

After the first day's outburst of anxiety, the students never mentioned the judges again. As they became more involved with the substance of their exhibitions, the students attached less and less importance to the judges until they became almost invisible. The anxiety dissolved into a matter of logistics: most students easily found peers to serve as judges, but struggled to find neighbors, parents, or college friends.

In addition to the stakes-raising advantages that the judges provided, having these strangers in class made for some funny moments. While the students' attention was completely focused on their classmates, Margaret was amused by some of the judges' behavior. One woman, a professor from Harvard, interrupted the exhibition and lectured the class. Two judges talked to each other through one whole exhibition. And one judge, a student's neighbor, commented that the work was worthy of a seminar on Dante that he had taken in graduate school. He left the classroom, then returned to pat Margaret on the arm, grin, and remark, "Another satisfied tax payer!"

Grading

Students received two grades, one for the paper and one for the exhibition. In addition, Margaret gave some homework grades for completing the various check-points. She graded the papers in her usual way, looking carefully at the quality and clarity of the argument. To her delight, over 80 percent earned either an A or a B.

Before the exhibitions began, the class agreed on the criteria that the judges and Margaret would use to determine good work, and a simple form was given to each judge. This form included such items as: "Left time for questions and fielded questions well"; "Read a clear, brief summary of the canto which could be understood by someone who had not read the Canto"; "Did the total exhibition keep the listener's attention?" A point system was assigned.

After struggling to use the judges' responses as a basis for grading the students' exhibitions, Margaret realized that the criteria sheets were inadequate. They clarified what needed to be part of each exhibition but were not specific enough about the quality that was expected. The criteria sheets did not ask judges to evaluate the depth and quality of the thinking on each section. Margaret plans to overhaul this part of the process.

Grading the exhibitions as a whole felt trickier. After all the effort of getting the judges' input, Margaret didn't know what to do with it once she had it. Along these lines, there was some legitimate concern about the role of the judges. Indeed, how could outsiders make judgments without knowing the book or the context? How should their assessments be figured into the overall grade? Generally, consensus was clear on the spectacular or the disastrous; however, the middle ground was muddier. Judges had no basis for comparison, and sometimes they had not read the cantos. In turn, many judges, particularly the peers, were hesitant to be critical. Margaret expected this problem but has not resolved it.

In the end, Margaret took into consideration what the judges wrote but made the final decisions about grades herself. If her opinion differed from the judges, she wrote a note of explanation to the students. No student contested a grade.

Student Reflections

After the exhibitions, Margaret spent a class period debriefing. She also asked her students to write down their reactions to doing the exhibitions. While she had very positive feelings about the work that her students had done, she wanted to know how they felt and what they had learned.

The results: her students were overwhelmingly supportive of the experience. Many even claimed that the exhibitions were a watershed for them, an unforgettable academic experience.

Well aware of what they had accomplished, these students had a solid grasp of the difference between understanding material in depth and memorizing facts for a test. Every single student agreed that knowing one canto well was not only worth the effort but also made it easier to understand and appreciate other facets of the book. They had learned how to do something, and those techniques were applicable to other reading. Dennis compared working on these exhibitions with typical assignments: "Usually, when I read a book for school, I have to read it like a textbook, but when I was working on my exhibition, I could read Dante like a real book."

These successes did not come without stress, however. On the one hand, the students felt abandoned, left to their own devices. Yet, this abandonment is what ultimately enabled them to enjoy taking intellectual risks, to realize that they knew how to read difficult material, and to own their own learning. Kate described the process of becoming self-reliant:

I found that it was really difficult to find [major ideas like symbols, language, and sin] on my own. When they had been pointed out to me before, I kind of thought, "Oh, yeah, that's obvious," but the whole feeling is different when you are sitting there at the library without a teacher who is going to tell you the answer eventually. You sit there and sit there and struggle with the words. "What the hell is the central image? What the hell is the central image?" screams in your head. And it doesn't hit you suddenly the way it does in class when someone tells you the answer. You go through hours of trial and error. Finally the idea begins to form and slowly you begin to find the proof of your idea in the canto, and you feel very smart.

It was scary to assume this kind of responsibility. "During the exhibition," David recalled, "there was nothing to hide behind. When you write a paper or take a test, you disappear. In front of the class, you had to be responsible for what you said."

The students were also aware that they went much deeper into the material. No matter how well Margaret taught a canto in one fifty-minute period, the student pair could understand it on a much deeper level after working for seven class periods and many evenings. Besides, if they did not "get it" right away, they knew they had the time to work through their confusion word by word, line by line, page by page, until they realized success. Jen reflected that "I didn't feel I needed to find a right answer. I wasn't afraid of wrong answers. It became easier to trust my own perceptions." Thus, getting the gist of a canto no longer sufficed; the students knew that they were not finished until they could explain every line, every word.

This appreciation for depth affected the class discussions. Joanna explained: Before, you could make one good point during a class and that was enough, but you didn't have to follow it through to get the whole idea. [With the exhibition] enough time elapsed for ideas to settle subconsciously, so I kept getting deeper and more clarified under-standings of this one canto. I found this a much more valuable experience than the first method where new ideas were raised each day. Though themes were constant, I was never allowed to dwell on them in relation to just one canto.

Many of the students wrote about this experience in their college application essays, claiming that it was the most significant learning experience in their high school years. Lisa wrote:

I will admit that I have probably never been so terrified in my life, but I came out of it with a greater understanding of The Inferno, and much more self-confidence. I think this should definitely replace an exam. I know (from experience) that studying for an exam is memorizing facts but not necessarily knowing. The exhibition is much more difficult but I think it's definitely worth the effort.

Doing this exhibition made the students much more aware of what it takes to teach and learn. They could identify their own strengths and weaknesses in these roles, and they developed self- assurance and pride in their capacities to meet these challenges.

Unexpected Problems

Given the intricacies -and the relative novelty -of exhibitions, there is potential for a lot to go wrong. While what occurred in Margaret's class-room was positive and exciting, the response of the larger school community revealed some unexpected conflicts. In many ways, using exhibitions was a political choice for Margaret. Her department has done innovative work on curriculum but almost no work on assessment, and she wanted other teachers and administrators to have the opportunity to see this method. If only subconsciously, Margaret hoped that what she was doing might in some way influence her colleagues.

Unfortunately, her actions made some of her colleagues, particularly those who are not committed to the need for change, uncomfortable and even angry. From their perspective, Margaret's use of exhibitions was more a criticism of their work than the beginning of a provocative conversation. Even though her intentions were to push other faculty members, whom she admires and respects, to think about alternative assessment strategies, Margaret felt that teachers saw her as a show-off, grandstanding her teaching to the administrators.

To Margaret's surprise, much trouble resulted from her decision to ask administrators into her classroom as judges. Because of the contentious nature of the ongoing contract dispute, some teachers felt that it was inappropriate to ask for administrators' time or to invite them into her classroom. Margaret felt that this reaction was based on a larger philosophical disagreement about the relationship between administrators and teachers: while Margaret feels that the knowledge administrators gain from observing real classes should drive the school, her critics believe that individual classrooms represent academic freedom and independence and that administrative positions should be managerial only. Such a conflict could be avoided if an entire school agreed on exhibitions, but Margaret was alone in her efforts to implement this assessment technique. Never expecting this hostile reaction, Margaret was quite shaken by it.

The political and personal ramifications of these exhibitions underscore how difficult innovation can be. One teacher's attempts to try something different engendered a strong -and negative é reaction from the larger school. Instead of spawning fruitful discussion, Margaret's work created an atmosphere of frustration and mistrust. Yet, the fact that the exhibitions did elicit a very powerful reaction is significant in itself. In schools that are willing to look carefully at themselves, Margaret's efforts might drive substantive reflection about teaching and learning that could lead to school-wide change.

Some Keys to Success

Exhibitions are risky. Tests are easier, more controllable (and far duller). In exhibitions, the teacher sets the final destination, shows the students the map, and invites them to have a splendid journey. Safe passage, however, depends on setting certain ground rules.

Students must buy into the idea of an exhibition. If students think the whole process is just a useless exercise for the teacher, they can sabotage the project by trivializing the material or doing shoddy work. Students may think that any "creative" activity is academically legitimate.

Students must assume responsibility for their own learning. A well-structured exhibition often depends on a student-directed classroom. The students must be willing to find the answers themselves (even if the teacher already knows them). Discovering meaning takes persistence and patience. So much of high school feels like an intellectual charade to the students. When they are given the chance to do difficult work, students are surprised at the pleasure that comes from real intellectual achievement.

Students must share the workload, out of respect for their partners as well as themselves. In this particular project, only one person felt that he had done too much of the work. All the others wrote glowingly of their shared partnership. Given the importance of collaboration, it seems worth it to switch partners who do not get along early in the process. With two pairs who squabbled incessantly, Margaret decided it was better to admit an error in placement and make a switch than to force the students to spend the bulk of their time working out their differences instead of working on their exhibitions.

The teacher must prepare students adequately. Exhibitions ask students to use previously learned skills and content in new situations. Therefore, teachers must first teach a knowledge base, and they must then also teach the skills needed to apply this knowledge. Because the focus for the student changes from acquiring information to applying knowledge, the focus for the teacher must also change accordingly. However, the teacher is still required to set and explain the standards of academic excellence.

The teacher must make sure that the steps are clear. If students are going to work independently, they must be taught how to proceed. At the same time, there should be enough leeway for students to explore other territory by themselves. Getting this combination right is tricky and relies heavily on a teacher's knowledge of her students as well as her managerial skills.

The teacher must maintain the role of coach. Although a coach can explain the rules, teach the skills, and lead the practices, the students must play the game themselves. To this end, the teacher must not interrupt a poor or inaccurate presentation. Doing so would either provide a safety net or take ultimate responsibility away from the student. Providing a safety net might rescue a student on the verge of tears, but it also infantilizes the student and signals to the other students that ultimately the teacher is in charge.

Most importantly, exhibitions must be rigorous. Otherwise, they will seem shallow, irrelevant, or cute. Standards for exhibitions must be much higher than those for written tests; so much more is at stake here. A good exhibition requires collaboration, risk-taking, thoughtfulness, in-depth work, commitment, sustained effort, and original work. In a strong exhibition, the students will learn to respect academic excellence.

References

The Exhibitions Project. (1992). The Exhibitions Collection. (A set of course- and exit-level exhibitions and samples of student work with accompanying commentary on vision, setting, standards, and reflections; available on computer disk for the Macintosh and the IBM PC.) Coalition of Essential Schools, Brown University, Providence, RI.

McDonald, J. (1991). "Three Pictures of an Exhibition: Warm, Cool, and Hard." Studies on Exhibitions, No. 1. Coalition of Essential Schools, Brown University, Providence, RI.

McDonald, J. (1992). "Exhibitions: Facing Outward, Pointing Inward." Studies on Exhibitions, No. 4. Coalition of Essential Schools, Brown University, Providence, RI.

Sizer, T. (1984). Horace's Compromise: The Dilemma of the American High School. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Sizer, T. (1992). Horace's School: Redesigning the American High School. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Wiggins, G. (1989). "Teaching to the (Authentic) Test." Educational Leadership 46(7), 41-47.

Notes

1. The exhibition described in this paper is a "course-level" or "mini"-exhibition, meaning that it refers to the work done in one particular subject or class. "Exit-level" exhibitions are work done by students that demonstrates that they have acquired the skills and knowledge deemed essential by their schools to earn their diplomas. For more information about both kinds of exhibitions, see The Exhibitions Project (1992).
2. See Sizer (1984, 1992).
3. The objection to these ideas had nothing to do with the mediums of rap music or puppetry, but with the ways in which these choices over-simplified the text.
4. McDonald (1991) refers to this desire to have familiar and therefore sensitive judges as a "warm" perspective.

The Coalition of Essential Schools gratefully acknowledges the IBM Corporation and the UPS Foundation for their support of its research on Exhibitions.

Special Thanks: The authors gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Margaret Metzger's two 1991-92 Senior European Literature classes. It is these students' hard work that has guided our thoughts about Exhibitions and our writing of this paper.

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