Podcast with Meghan Sheriff: Helping Your Student Succeed

I think it allows people to hear their voice. It allows them to see who they are, how they interact with other people, what they value. So I think a lot of times kids are nervous to be vulnerable in a college essay. They want it to be academic because we've taught them how to write academically for so many years. And so they're not comfortable in that space of writing from that first-person perspective. This is who I am. This is what I'm about. This is what I care about. So I oftentimes talk to them about that vulnerability. It's especially hard with boys. And as a mom to boy moms, I think that that It's fair to say that I just think it's out of their comfort zone, and it's definitely out of comfort zone for some of my other students as well. So I start with showing them exemplars. We look at some award-winning essays of students who wrote about tough topics.