I mean, it’s a rambling response totally divorced from the context of the field she’s supposed to be studying, where she basically copied down her pastor’s word salad on the topic, so I wouldn’t qualify her response as anything like being thoughtful. The whole thing is a series of repetitive tangents that just abruptly end with her fundie non sequitur about how things would be better and problems would decrease if everyone just believed the same religious doctrine she does, a claim she makes with zero support. In light of this, I would struggle to call it clearly written. And it’s only 629 words, which was an automatic 10 point drop.

So, even if I’m feeling charitable and say that it shows a clear tie-in to the article and merits being called a thoughtful reaction, she’s still sitting at a 10/25 as soon as you dock 10 points for her inability to use a word count function in her word processor and the 5 points for being so terribly structured and written that I feel bad for having read it.

And if I were to say I feel even more charitable, and credit her with crushing all 3 criteria given in the assignment and earning full marks on the merits of her paper, she still has a 15/25, aka a failing grade, as soon as the professor sees she didn’t hit the word count.