I never give my actual opinion to my students

I teach at a university and I usually have around 20 students in a class each semester. Every couple of weeks I give them a topic to write an essay on, and then I hand it back with my thoughts, and the occasional complimentary comment.<br><br>The thing is, I don’t actually read most of them. I just skim through them enough to give something like “This is a very thoughtful essay” or “I like your use of examples”, and then hand it back. I have around 80 students, so I don’t have time to read through every single one of them. I usually read around 20% of them.<br><br>I tell the class that I read everyone’s essays so they feel valued, but in reality I only read the ones turned in by the students I like, which are usually the ones that participate the most in class.