In-Class Writing Not Written in Class and Students Who Ignore the Specific Topic

This morning in the Duplicating room I saw a teacher I like and respect a lot and told him that I'd really wanted to respond to the message he sent out about catching a student who had written her "in-class" essay out of class on the pages of her dictionary!  I told him that because my students always knew what the general topic would be--the one related to the unit we were on, the one we'd practiced for for days and days--I was afraid some of them were writing it ahead of time and then handing it in as if it were the one they'd written independently in class.  He told me that he actually went around to their papers and stamped them.  He stamps them with a happy face so it might seem more like a good luck charm than a gotcha! maneuver.

Once home, I decided I wouldn't accept any of the students who handed in a generic mandatory community service essay instead of the one on the prompt I gave them in class.    This is what I've written on their papers:

You needed to focus on the question about CCSF imaginary proposal for a mandatory community service.  Please re-read the instructions on the front page.  Because your  essay is off-topic, I can’t accept it.  This time, I won’t give you a zero.  I simply won’t count it.  In class, I’ll read examples of essays that focused on the specific CCSF mandatory community service program you were asked to write about.  You’ll have the chance to write an out-of-class essay on the CCSF proposal.

The students who wrote on topic got good grades.  

This saved a lot of time because I gave them a generic response with just a few personalized touches, and their writing off-topic meant I didn't have to respond in length to about seven--that saves almost 2 hours!

Now I'm off to Gracias Madre for another celebration--this one with Vilma, whose birthday is tomorrow, and Bill, whose leukemia is in remission!