Discussion on question by Equinox: Is it fair for a professor to grade us on the possession of past papers?

As an aside, why isn't your institution using some sort of cloud-based tool such as Blackboard, Canvas, ...?

The cynic in me suspects that the professor lost some of her grades and is trying to bluff students into returning them to her so that she can rerecord them.

@SolarMike Strange... because I got an engineering degree, and definitely didn't keep all my assignments, lab reports, etc; and I especially didn't keep them organized. This relates more to personal study habits, and unless there's specific rules about keeping that work, it doesn't seem fair to assume that all students will keep their past work accessible. It doesn't matter what you consider best practice to get the results you want in school. The point is, it isn't required in general to keep all old requirements in school. If it were a requirement, it should be clearly stated.

OP, is the instructor asking for essays from the semester currently in progress, or a semester that has already concluded? It's not clear; you say "the whole semester" which sounds like the current one, but then you say "the past semester" which could be a semester before the current one.