Due Date

A teacher assigned a term paper and then continued on with the lecture. Up went a hand. When is the paper due? There is no due date. You mean, we can hand it in on the last day of class? Perhaps at our last class. Or perhaps at our next class. It all depends on the lottery. The lottery? Yes, the lottery. At each class, I will draw a name and that person will hand in their term paper.

Panic. Confusion. He is nuts. How can we plan our time? How will he grade? 

How will you grade the papers when some people have more time than others? Whoever has more time to work on the paper should deliver a more polished product.

So at the next class he drew a name. There were more classes than students, so some of the names were "ghost" students. Fortunately, the first drawing yielded a ghost student so no one had to deliver their paper. Not so lucky at the next drawing. Poor guy hadn't even started his research. Bummer. Then another drawing and a beaming young lady delivered a pretty good rough draft, confident of getting a high grade and freedom to focus on other matters. Soon, everyone was hoping their name would be drawn. And so it went until the last few classes. The few students who had not yet delivered their papers were going nuts, hoping their names would be drawn, revising their papers over and over.

Why me? How could he be so cruel? It isn't fair.