Sometimes I will have students write a good question rather than a short paper. Feminist pedagogy informs my teaching from the perspective of how I think about power and knowledge construction. Questioning is a feminist approach. The challenge in the classroom is to try to create assignments that can push the constrictions of traditional grading. One of the things I am learning to do is to be more specific about what I am grading on.
Students know, so there are no surprises.
Today's students think differently. I kind of like that. Students are much more computer literate than when I started teaching. Using the internet forces another kind of questioning that they are getting good at. Because they know how to find information on the web, they know how to make connections.