All my essays through high school consisted of the teacher reading the essay making comments through out, then picking what grade he thinks you deserve according to how good he thought it was. He would grade according to the essay's structure (from paragraphs down to the clauses) and how clear and valid your thoughts were(for the most part, some other stuff like his general feeling about the paper with no specific reasons took and gave a few points here and there). So you couldn't just go and write what would get you points...