Do you challenge students to think about why they’re taking a course? Most faculty are discouraged by the very common “because it’s required” response. Equally discouraging is what students hope to get out of a course. Sometimes they seem perplexed by the question! The answer is so obvious—they want an A. Bob Trudeau, a faculty member in political science at Providence College in Rhode Island, has developed an intriguing assignment that gets students beyond those easy answers. It’s an assignment that encourages students to think and write about why they are in a course.