Hope as emotion is so profound. I love that. I am a new student in Lifelong Learning and starting my career over. I have all of the mixed emotions (and then some) of students you mention. Although, methods of motivation not needed here.....i'm starved for it. well written insightful post.
I consider myself an expressive writer (my wife says...too much!) so I am constantly going back and reducing / editing my copy. I use everything I can to get my point across ...it may come from my art training. So, I have been using this technique forever. Nice to see it may be beneficial to getting their attention (or) hanging on my page a while longer. Ciao!