The difference between Exercises A and B hinges on clarity.  The caveat on Exercise A is that it is too broad in scope to enable truly coherent execution.  It asks for at least three things at once: 1) personal impressions of the reader (communication standards) and 2) perspectives of characters in the play (culture standards), and 3) analysis of a cultural pattern from an outsider's perspective (comparison standards).

     In the first instance, students will have to elaborate on their opinions and in the second, they will be presenting not opinions but speculations ("Wenn ich Beckmann wäre, würde ich eine neue Frau finden").  Moreover, it will be hard for students to know what or whom to speculate about.  What is a "personal perspective," or how does one "act" like other people or, in the case of this prologue, like a river?  To eliminate confusion about the type of voice to assume (part 1) and the covert demand for use of the subjunctive (part 2), the task could be recast by asking instead that students assume the roles of characters in the play.  Such a revision would involve changing the wording to "If you were Beckmann, the Beerdigungsunternehmer, or das Mädchen, what would your diary entry be?"  This revision introduces the idea of character perspective without labeling it abstractly.  Equally important, it clarifies the student's role as impersonator rather than interpreter of or speculator about character behavior.

     The third portion of this question -- would the student act as these people do under similar circumstances -- introduces the need for causal logic in addition to subjunctive forms.  By exploring the potential similarities and differences in role execution, it asks students to compare behaviors, since, as part of the task in Exercise A, students must address the question of "why" they would act in the same or different fashion.  To do so, they must use discourse markers that often alter German word order in a variety of ways with words such as "weil, darum, infolgedessen."  Thus they must not only use the subjunctive to assert "Wenn ich Beckmann wäre, würde ich eine neue Frau suchen," they must also add the "why" with indicative clauses such as "weil das Leben weitergeht."

     To be sure, if the class is specifically reviewing subjunctive forms, such a call for speculation is appropriate. Demands for new verb forms AND complex word order, however, are preferably sequenced rather than asked for simultaneously.  Thus, for example, a Phase 4 assignment might eliminate the "why" to reduce this cognitive overload.  If students only needed to speculate about how they would act in this situation, they would not need to use the discourse markers to express why they acted that way and, consequently, their linguistic load would be considerably reduced.

     In general, the success of a writing or speaking task based on a reading assignment will depend on a prior articulation of that task in matrix format.  Armed with that matrix of linguistic and thematic information, a student's success in Phase 4 of the average curricular sequence will depend on how many additional linguistic or cognitive problems must be solved in order to give a particular discursive focus to that matrix.  In the example above, asking students for a role play in writing -- the diary entry as a specific person in the text -- constitutes a reasonable expectation for Phase 4.  It also allows teachers to assign a Phase 5 assignment in which the "why" idea is introduced.  Thus the students can take a position in a text they create and analyze why the individual they impersonated was indifferent or caring or cruel toward Beckmann.

     In sum, the key to success in all of the examples above is the minimal step from that of a neutral summarizer of content to that of a unambiguous voice vis-à-vis the text.  Such voices are encourage with an assignment that asks students to use the language of Draußen vor der Tür to convince others about what the play says or does not say to them.