ABSTRACT
One of the questions raised by the shift from answers to arguments is the question of assessment. Rather than focusing on what students have come to know, we want to engage what they have come to understand. This distinction is broadly reflected in the differences between the two questions: “What?” and “So what?” So whether we are talking about atoms, forces, evolution, or what - ever, it is always on our minds that there were particular items in the nature of things that we needed to appreciate and there are also theoretical frameworks that gave these items place or are challenged by them. The distinctive variety of finch on the Galapagos Islands is a nice case in point. Suppose we asked, “What?” Students could describe what Darwin saw and how this variety was so surprising. If we asked further, “So what?”, they could discuss the analogy between domestic breeding and natural selection and the importance for Darwin’s argument of establishing variation in the wild. These are two very different matters, and I have found that while most students routinely rise to the challenge of the “what” question, that is not so with the “so what” question. This is my concern.
