<p>I’m a high schooler but here is some good advice to whip him into shape. Bring him into a room and say this:</p>
<p>“look if you write a crap essay, you will go to a crap college, and have a crap life” Not necessarly true but will do work on the kid.</p>
<p>I think an essay unfairly favors non-science kids. My son is a wiz in math and wants to major in engineering. Why not give him some data as a prompt and have him create a lab report or technical paper with it. It would certainly give the college more insite into whether or not he can handle the curriculum than an essay on a personal experience.</p>
<p>I was talking to H about it last night and we agreed that the questions would be difficult even for US to write about. Even though we’ve both had lots of significant events in our lives (as opposed to DS), it would be tough to isolate one and analyze how it affected who we are, etc.</p>
<p>Here is a shorthand version of the process I write about in my book, which applies the elements of movie scripts (the ultimate “show, don’t tell” writing). Except for some of the most specific prompts (“How did the Russian Revolution affect your life…” LOL), almost all essay prompts are asking for personal statements. So here is how to approach it:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>FORGET ABOUT WRITING AN ESSAY (at least at first). Essays are too hard. But you can do the next steps.</p></li>
<li><p>Close your eyes and think about your life. What memories pop up - good, bad, boring, memorable, frightening, WHATEVER. Forget “essay-type things” like significant events, etc. Just what bubbles up from your life that is in YOUR memory. Make a list of these things (4 or 5 or so).</p></li>
<li><p>Go back to these and, for each one, think back and try to put yourself back in that moment. Try to remember as much about that moment as possible. What were you hearing, seeing, feeling? Describe the surroundings. Don’t worry about writing style or sentence structure or even making sentences at all. Jot as much down as you can and don’t worry. Nobody’s going to read this part.</p></li>
<li><p>Now look over the 4 or 5 collections of recollections. Which of these 4 or 5 moments led to something that changed you or changed your behavior or just gives an insight into who you are. The one that has that quality will become your essay topic.</p></li>
<li><p>Now take those recollections that you jotted down and put them together into a paragraph describing that moment to others. Be descriptive (but not interpretive). Polish it. You’ve just written the first paragraph of your essay.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Example from my own life: One of my strongest memories of high school was from an experience on the swimming team. Our team had the state champion butterfly swimmer, and in a race he was in, someone false started. Well, our guy was so fast that he was already beyond the rope they dropped to let him know that the race had NOT started, and he swam a complete lap before they could tell him. Our coach convinced the meet official to put in another event first to give our guy a rest - the 400 yard freestyle. The coach came over to me and said, “Bob, I’m putting you in this event. Swim as slowly as you can and COME IN LAST, no matter what.” </p>
<p>So I thought back and here’s what I wrote down:</p>
<p>State butterflyer in a race. False start. Too fast - beyond the rope. Needed to rest. Coach arguing with officials, getting the 400-yd freestyle inserted to give our guy a rest. Coach coming to me - get into the next event. 16 lengths of pool. I had to delay - swim as slow as I could. It was exhausting - almost as exhausting to swim slowly as to swim fast. Crowd laughing, calling my name, Everyone finished but me and one other guy on the opposing team. He looked like he was drowning…? No matter how hard I tried, I could come in last unless I just stopped and tread water. Smell of chlorine. Crowd echoing noise off ceiling. THIS WAS EMBARRASSING!!!</p>
<p>So then I took that and polished it into this paragraph: </p>
<p>When the crowd started yelling my name - over and over - it was not a good thing. I was swimming in the 400 yard freestyle in a meet with a rival school and I was second-to-last. Each repeat of my name seared the event deeper and deeper into my memory: the smell of chlorine, the echo of the crowd from the roof of the pool building, the seeming increase in viscosity of the water as I turned for my last two laps. I swam as slowly as I could, but amazingly, the rival swimmer in the next lane would not pass me. I was almost at a standstill, making the motions with my arms and legs just enough to stay afloat. Everyone else had long ago finished except for me and this other person who was insisting on drowning in front of spectators from both schools.</p>
<p>There are other techniques to go from there, show a transition in me to a stronger person, and wrap it all up in a memorable essay, but that’s for later.</p>
<p>Right now, the hardest part is over - starting.</p>