Cade?

I think of Bloom's Taxonomy with this kind of thing :3c It helps me get past the stage of "ugh you KNOW i know this though, why do i have to do this?" Because, remembering is the lowest form on the triangle, and by that, it's like the simplest. Everything higher needs the previous skills. Kind of a cool chart for what OP described above, the understanding, the rewording, synthesizing, all these other skills that are being checked besides knowing/remembering.

The answers might seem obvious to you but they won't for everyone in the class; or one part of the answer might seem obvious to you but a different aspect of it needs some thinking through before it clicks. People learn in different ways and at different paces. (Also, if the answers to the questions aren't obvious to you, you're not stupid! Learning isn't always easy, and you're taking this class because there's stuff you don't know!)

You do not need to write deathlessly beautiful prose in answer to the questions. Depending on the professor, you don't even need to write with perfect spelling or grammar (though these can be helpful for clarity and it's useful to practice them). For some students, especially those who think of themselves (ourselves) as "good writers," writing assignments can feel like a bigger deal than they are because we worry about style or looking polished and smart. In my experience this is likely to lead to tortuously convoluted attempts to be impressive, when basic and boring would be more effective.

Your professor (or adjunct) is going to read and grade possibly hundreds of these, so they will appreciate you writing clear, businesslike prose that demonstrates you understand the concepts. But they're probably not going to remember or care that much about your assignment specifically. Again, don't overthink it.

Everyone in this movie is autistic and not being great at connecting to people is a Neutral Trait (i am feelings about this often)

Ryland Grace isn't looking for a partner or kids (or a pet) and his life is just as valuable as anyone else's and the removal of his ability to choose what to do with it was a horrific tragedy (you are not worth less if you don't adhere to society's expectations for you)(i am having realizations abt myself as we speak)

grace doesn't have his laptops on him, so we as the audience don't get to understand what rocky says just yet, but at this point, grace does.

and what does he respond to rocky's longer vocalization?

its just so nice that the film sits there and says ‘ryland graces job as a teacher is important’, because its very common in these kinda films that the protagonist starts off as a teacher purely to give a bit of exposition before the government person shows up and goes ‘youre the best (insert science here)ist in the world, and we need your help to save the world’ or whatever, and i assumed at first that thats what this film was doing as well

but its not

grace starts the film as a teacher, he goes through the film as a teacher, and he ends the film as a teacher. he is a teacher to his students. he is a teacher to the astronauts. he is a teacher to rocky. and at the end of it all, he is a teacher to his students.

and his speech has taken on eridian habits from years of only really communicating in eridian: he drops and raises octaves to show emotion, he's speaks melodically and with a rythmn that pings as music when you first hear it. his creaky old man voice is that of somebody who has spent their whole life singing, somebody who speaks for a living, because he's both of those things. his syntax is strange and his sentences are structured oddly. he looks around at everything with the delight and wonder of somebody who thought he'd never see any of this again.

he watches a sunset. he watches the rain fall. he watches a spider spin a web. he watches a waterfall. he smells and tastes and feels and sees and hears all of the things he left behind. he misses his home on erid. he's never been happier to be anywhere in his life. it's strange. rocky, it's strange. this isn't home, anymore. but it's still part of me. rocky, it's strange.

there's a statue of him in every major city he visits. he stands in front of the school he used to teach at, which was named after a dead president when he was here. now it's called ryland grace memorial middle school. it was named for him as the sun got brighter and the earth mourned his sacrifice yet again, but praised him for saving them. the lab he used to teach in, on the days he got to lead practical experiments, is named after rocky. rocky, it's for you! they love you, too! rocky, this sign is for you, it says your name!

eva stratt is an old woman, now. she was pardoned, in the end, in the wave of relief that followed the beatles' arrival with the taumeba. she's lived out the rest of her life quietly, ambition tamped down in the wake of it all. she's still sharp. harsh. she greets grace with an, "I told you so," but even after so many years, grace can see that she's glad to see him. glad he survived. glad he doesn't seem angry with her.

and it's not that grace has forgive her. he explains this to her over a cup of strong, black coffee. rocky explores the forest to give them time to speak. it's not that he forgives her. what she did, the decision she made for him, it wasn't right. it wasn't good. it saved the world, yes, but it wasn't fair. but. but, he says. i have a good life. i have friends. i have a classroom. i know now that you were wrong about me, back then. i am not a coward, and i am not selfish. i was afraid. i was terrified. i was lost. and now i am none of those things. i do not forgive you, but i am not angry with you, either. it is what it is. rocky and i, we saved two worlds. i can live with that, even if i don't forgive you. and eva stratt nods and understands. and they finish their coffee.

a handful of grace's students, the last class he taught before being wrapped up in the end of the world, they ask to see him. not all of them. some of them didn't make it through the disasters that came with the years long dimming. some of them never really believed that grace was the one who saved the world, falling into the rhetoric of those who say the whole thing was a hoax, and the weather patterns fixing themselves is just proof of it. but the ones who do come are surprised when grace remembers each of their names. remembers where they sat in his classroom, and the jokes they thought were funny and the jokes they thought were lame. they talk to him and he remembers throwing them beanbags in the end of the world and trying to make them laugh. when grace laughs at something rocky sings into the world, he's laughing through more than a few tears. he tells his students, the kids he saved the world for, that they've just been called leaky blobs by the other savior of the world.

when his students leave, grace sits in the setting sun, strong and warm, and looks out over the ocean. rocky, isn't it beautiful? rocky, don't you see? we made this possible, rocky. we saved them. we saved this. rocky, we did it.