“Understanding by Design” reiterated some of the theories and concepts that we have covered throughout the semester. I appreciated the examination of understanding and found my self in agreement with many of the concepts, but felt overwhelmed thinking of how to design curriculum that would meet all of the goals set forth in the text. I think that in order for students to truly understand something they have to go beyond just repeating facts and show how they can effectively apply the knowledge that they have acquired. Instructors then must design assignments that force them to think deeper about what they read and study in class. Wiggins and McTighe state “curriculum designed for understanding must…help students realize that their job is not merely to take in what is “covered” but to actively “uncover” what lies below the surface of the facts and to ponder their meaning” (103). This most assuredly should be the goal of any assignment that we include in course syllabi, but I think that this can be hard to tackle. We have discussed before how what we already know has a critical impact on what we can accurately learn in the future. As a teacher I feel that you have to continually reassess your own understanding of a subject manner, while also accurately assessing the knowledge level of the students you’re are teaching. If you are not aware of your own limitations and blind spots, then designing curriculum that can reach students and fully engage them can be a struggle.

I also appreciated that the authors’ discussed the importance of empathy. As I was reading chapter four of the text I found myself thinking back to some of the things that Wilner confronted in her classroom when she had her students read and respond to “Territory”. I think this is a good example of how a lack of empathy and a refusal to walk in someone else’s shoes can inhibit the learning process. Wilner describes her students as being hostile and prejudice toward the main character of the text, and gives examples of how her assignments eventually caused students to take a more thoughtful look at the text. I think that empathy is crucial to learning, and as we saw in Wilner’s example, indifference toward other people’s beliefs can completely prevent students from grasping the bigger themes in a text.  She was able to confront this issue head on by offering her students an option that she would not have normally made available. By allowing students to respond to the writing in the form of a letter rather than a formal essay her students got more out of the assignment. As teachers when we see that students are having difficulty embracing an assignment or reading, we sometimes must learn to reevaluate our traditional ways of evaluating them, and then design assignments that will force them to move beyond their limitations. I also thought it was relevant to discuss the difference between empathy and perspective as the authors do when they explain “ Empathy is warm; perspective is cool, analytic detachment” (98). As good critical readers we have to negotiate between both aspects of understanding. It is important that we not stand so far away from a text that understanding the positions of the different characters becomes impossible, yet we must also be willing to stand back far enough when necessary to critically asses the possible assumptions the author may be making, and what we can surmise from that.