Sometimes it is hard for Contracts students to understand the cases and statutes they read because these sources discuss or assume knowledge that is not within their experience. Not many students know about bid procedures for public contracting or have participated in complex real estate transactions, although almost every Contracts casebook has cases involving them.
Students often feel, for example, that they are being charged unconscionable rent.
The problem is in matching students' experiences with the material being discussed. I have done this by asking students, on their own, to analyze contract issues they see in literature and movies. I've added a twist. To enter, students needed to pick a passage from a literary source or a scene from a movie, identify the relevant contract issues present, and then resolve the issues by using the materials discussed in class. In short, I asked them to make up their own exam, and then provide their own answer.