In France essays are all about writing in a complex way to show how smart you are. Which not only is not a useful skill to have, it's detrimental because we learn to write in obscure and hard to understand ways.
It wasn't a "language" problem because I was already a fluent American English speaker. It was all style-related.
I've recently started reading 19th century French literature again and sometimes I have to reread sentences multiple times because they're so long I come to the wrong conclusion too early.
For some reason, that image will forever accompany that phrase in my mind.
I was once asked to write to then governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, to sway him on some political issue. That's certainly a practical assignment, but I chatted with some classmates about it, and none of us thought the professor would give a good grade to something that might genuinely sway the man.