Stop writing about mission trips, sports injuries, and moving to a new school. These safe topics produce formulaic essays that sound like thousands of others. Write what actually interests you instead.
Sabotage number 4, pick the safe, expected topic. The mission trip, the sports injury comeback, the COVID reflection, the moving to a new school taught me to be brave essay. None of these topics are forbidden, but when a student picks the topic because it feels like the topic you're supposed to write, the essay usually ends up sounding like every other essay in the pile. Because 1,000 other students had a version of the same experience and reached for the same conclusions.
