Proverbs coursework

When I was a student, I had an assignment to read a chapter of the Bible a day, noting the "striking message" and writing a prayer to accompany it.  I thought it was easy marks.  A bit annoying to make notes in my quiet time, but still.  How can you go wrong with this?  

As a lecturer, I thought this would be a great assignment to give my students.  I liked it because it's easy marks (and easy marking for me), but also because it gets the students out of the head-work of studying the Bible and engages the heart.  So I assigned this for the book of Proverbs:  read a chapter a day, and note the striking message and write a prayer.

Wow.  My students really struggled with the concept; I began to question whether I had explained it well.  They kept asking me whether they needed to consult commentaries - nope.  Just write what strikes you, and a prayer that comes from it.  

When they submitted the assignment, I asked what they thought of it.  My sweet student Francis, probably about 25, and always sits in the front row and asks insightful questions, shook his head at me.  
"Reverend," he said reproachfully, still shaking his head... "this one [the assignment]..." still shaking his head.

I'm glad I gave them this assignment; quite a few of them really engaged with the text.  Naturally, some of them coasted through.  But Proverbs is such a practical book, and we dealt with the academics of it in the lecture that I wanted them to try to be able to apply the text.