To improve instruction in a community college course on Latin American culture and civilization, an instructor designed three interrelated classroom assessment techniques (CATs) to study student reactions to instructional approaches and student learning strategies. Between 26 and 37 students responded to the assessments. Results from the first CAT validated as useful and effective the instructor's teaching approach through multiple methods to engage students in analyzing and reflecting about course readings. Taken together, responses to the three tests seem to identify a gap in assumptions about student learning strategies (at least for reading course texts) in which the instructor may assume that students engage the text with specific learning techniques, while the students are not actually using these techniques and may be expecting the instructor to initiate or lead them through the learning process. Some implications for instruction are discussed. Five appendixes contain the CATs, results from these tests, a student statement about learning strategies, and some instructor-prepared questions. (SLD)