The assignment was to write a conversation in which Speaker A is appealing to Speaker B to change something and explaining why the change needs to be made.

What I got was more random than that.

At the end of the year students tend to give up. They figure that, no matter what they do, they’ve already passed, or they figure that, no matter what they do, they’ve already failed.

Either way, they focus their energy into other courses and the course I teach is of much less importance. As a result, end of year exams can be quite the debacle.

First you have students who ignored the rule to save all their worksheets (the end of year final is comprehensive) and therefore can’t study; and Second, you have the students who figure that if even if they fail my class they can still move on.

This comes to me as exam essays that don’t match the assignment. I’ve got conversations about new inventions, conversations about new gadgets, conversations about school and conversations about nothing.

These students get a low score, but they do make me more sympathetic to the students who actually follow the assignment.