I feel like the mistake is assuming that essay writing is about the content. It's just a thing to give the student something barely non-trivial to write about.
When your essays are graded they're marked down for mechanical and wording problems. There's really no point in trying or grade 'good ideas' on a subject piece you had maybe 10 minutes to skim.
That's a travesty, and you know it because when the kids are in college and they have as much time as they like to write their assignments they all use the wrong words and then misapply them.
When your essays are graded they're marked down for mechanical and wording problems. There's really no point in trying or grade 'good ideas' on a subject piece you had maybe 10 minutes to skim.