Strip ESL

Dr. Nigel Thoroughread was one of the best ESL professors in the entire state, and worked tirelessly with his colleague Michael Redford in the Language Arts department to get those students who were artistically gifted but whose first language wasn't English into English literature and English-language arts. Deeply versed in Shakespeare and Tolkien, if there was any man for the job it was him, and his classes were highly sought after by students seeking to advance their careers in the Anglosphere.

This was true even with his peculiar final exam. On the last day of classes, he would gather all the students around in a ring, with himself positioned in a way to let him see all the students at once. During the hour and a half allotted to the exam, he and the students would converse on any random topic at hand. If a student made a mistake and didn't immediately correct it, or went longer than three minutes without speaking (or, given how chatty some students were, at least making the effort), he or she would have to remove an item of clothing and would not be allowed to redon it for the rest of the conversation. In edge cases students were allowed to appeal to the rest of the class to discuss whether any actual error had been made.

A student's final score was based on how many clothes he or she still had on. Anyone who hadn't lost anything received an A+. Anyone who could still pass as fully clothed (i.e., had only lost hats, sunglasses, outer layers, etc.) received an A. Anyone who still had on anything more than underwear and shoes got a B. Anyone with just underwear and shoes got a C+, and anyone left in just underwear got a C-. A D grade was reserved for female students whose breasts were exposed but whose panties remained, whereas anyone who was rendered fully nude not only failed the class but was (unlike the other students) not allowed to get dressed afterwards. Anyone absent from the exam without excuse, obviously, also failed the course. Quite drastically for a class in the department, the exam was 85% of the final class grade.

This final exam, and its scoring peculiarities, were hammered by Dr. Thoroughread in painstaking detail at the first class of the semester, and he encouraged anyone feeling the possibility of a nudie walk across campus to drop the course while still allowed, but the students still remained in droves. Of course, they were always extremely clothed for the final exam, wearing several layers of shirts and sweaters even in the beginning of summer.

"Good afternoon," Dr. Thoroughread introduced the exam, "I've already droned on about the details of what we're doing today in both the syllabus and in emails this week, so I won't bore you any longer. Let's get right into this, who wants to decide what we'll talk about today?"