This week’s post focuses on a set of three tasks you can ask your students to complete that will allow you to both assess their learning and help them move from understanding the words of the statutes and cases to developing deep understanding of the concepts. All three engage students in constructing their own hypothetical situations.

First, ask students to construct a new, hypothetical situation that meets all the requirements of a rule. For example, you could ask students to construct a communication that is indisputably an offer, that contains both the manifestation of commitment required and sufficient certainty of terms, such as “I promise to sell you my contracts outline for $20, money and outline to be exchanged October 1, 2026. You must accept this offer in the next hour by promising to pay.” Similarly, you could ask students to construct a hypothetical where the requirements for the felony murder rule are met, such as “D, while committing an armed robbery of a bank, fires D’s gun in the air to scare the bank workers and patrons. The bullet ricochets off the ceiling and strikes A, killing A.” This task is called constructing an example.

Second, ask students to construct a new, hypothetical situation that meets all the requirements of a rule but lacks one essential feature. For example, you could ask students to construct a fact situation that gives rise to an adverse possession claim, but lacks one of the elements. A student would succeed if the facts have al the elements except that the possession did not meet the hostile element, such as because the possession was with the permission of the landowner. This task is called constructing a non-example. Ideally, you would ask students to construct a non-example for the same concept for which you asked the students to construct an example, e.g., tasking students with constructing a hypothetical offer situation that is similar to each student’s offer example in all trivial aspects but lacks an essential feature of an offer. A good answer might be, “I am considering promising to sell you my contracts outline for $20. If we do move forward, the money and outline would have to be exchanged October 1, 2026, and you would have to accept the offer by promising to pay.”

Students who can construct original, correct examples and non-examples for a concept understand the concept well.

Finally, the most challenging task you could ask a student to do is to construct a hypothetical situation for which reasonable lawyers for both parties could make credible arguments that the situation does or does not meet the requirements of the doctrine. If a student can construct a good exam-like hypothetical, the student has developed expertise regarding the concept.

Give it a try. It is a great way to engage students in a new way, and law students, particularly first-year law students, love constructing hypotheticals.