It is important to think about the assignment in the context of the course. Your instructor often has particular goals and/or purposes in mind when constructing the tasks for an assignment and part of your job is to figure out what those goals and/or purposes are.
Put yourself in the role of your instructor and consider:
- “How does this assignment relate to the course objectives?”
- “Why am I being asked to do this assignment or to think about this topic/question in this way?”
By giving you this assignment, your instructor may be asking you to:
- express ideas or concepts in your own words to demonstrate understanding
- apply relevant concepts to a situation or phenomenon
- analyze ideas and concepts and consider relationships among them
- evaluate a decision, perspective or a particular way of doing something
- create new ideas or perspectives given a particular topic or issue
