709: On Becoming: The Art and Craft of Storytelling (Ep : Molding Clay) with Calvin Pickett

Ethan Sawyer (00:02)

Hey friends, welcome back to the podcast. This is our series on becoming the art and craft of personal storytelling, where we take a close look at personal essays written by real students, not AI. We talk about why we love them, what makes them work and how they came to be. In today's episode, we break down an essay that is rapidly becoming one of my new favorites. It's conceptually rich because even though it's about molding clay, it could be considered one of many different types of

what we call on the podcast montage essays. This could be an essay about something that the student loves or knows a lot about. It's an essence objects essay. It's about a skill or superpower. And if you're wondering what the heck I'm talking about, don't worry. We'll get into it in the episode. To break it down, I'm joined by Calvin Pickett, the director of essay coaching here at CEG. Calvin's been an essay coach for more than eight years and a lover of words and stories since as long as he can remember.

He studied English literature at Vassar, then earned his master's in secondary English education from Teachers College at Columbia. He believes in the potential for the college essay writing process to be transformational for students, loves helping them see and shape their own stories in ways that empower self-knowledge and self-confidence and lead to exciting college opportunities. If you're a craft nerd at heart like we are, and maybe you're the kind of person who watches behind the scenes footage twice, we hope you'll feel right at home.

Enjoy.

Hi Calvin, welcome to the podcast.

Calvin Pickett (01:43)
Thanks Ethan, happy to be here.

Ethan Sawyer (01:45)
I'm so glad you're here. Like I feel really, really excited because I feel like my, your enthusiasm, either your enthusiasm matches my enthusiasm for SES, or mine matches yours in some way. So I'm like, so I feel honored to be able to like nerd out on this stuff with you for a few minutes.

Calvin Pickett (02:01)
Absolutely. I I love essays and I kind of showed up to college essay guide because you loved essays like I loved essays. We've nerded out so much in private and now to nerd out so publicly a little scary, but I'm excited. Right.

Ethan Sawyer (02:16)
Well, one thing that I want to give in terms of context is like in 2019 when we had that retreat in Pasadena and we sort of like, there was an enthusiasm that you brought in particular to the montage structure that we were just, it was like we were meeting for the first time and being like, oh, you love this too and see this too. And so I think it's fitting that today we're talking about a montage essay. Set us up here. What should we know about this student or this piece before we hear it?

Calvin Pickett (02:45)
Yeah, I mean, this essay is what I worked on with a student years ago. She arrived to the process like really ready to go excited to do the work, had that kind of work ethic, wanted to work hard on things that makes the work so much easier as a coach. But she was also kind of and I mean this in a good way, like a normal high school student. So many students come to us having done X, Y and Z that has already changed the world. They've been written about here and there. And as a coach, I'm just like.

I'll keep my hands off this essay and you just write because you're incredible. This student had done interesting things and had a lot to say about them, which was great. But I just think the essay and the student, you know, it's very grounded, very clear. And yeah, kind of came in ready to go.

Ethan Sawyer (03:33)
Amazing. one of the things that I want to ask you at the end is how this topic came about, but let's just hear it as a piece first and then let's get into it. So yeah, would you be down to read it aloud so we can hear it?

Calvin Pickett (03:46)
Yeah, I'll give it a go. This title, The Molding Clay Essay, is not a title that was given by the student. It's like we've labeled it that. So this is The Molding Clay Essay, and this isn't inherently The Molding Clay Essay because that title was from us. I'll give it a go. I set out a cup of water, my sketchbook, a wooden slab, and tie my hair back into a messy bun. Excited to begin working with a brand new hunk of clay, fresh from the ground.

I sink my eager fingers into the wet and cold mass. I feel alive and deeply human, knowing that through muscle memory and creative vision, I can shape the clay into both decoration and tool, a tradition connecting me to humanity and Earth across distances of miles and millennia. But it all starts with a process requiring neither vision nor creativity, wedging.

While the repetitive needing required to get perilous air bubbles out of the dank fresh clay can seem a chore before getting to the wheel, I have an appreciation for taking time to do things right in the beginning, knowing that I'm setting myself up for success in the future. Whether it's tidying my room before school to have an ideal space for decompressing after volleyball or making notes in my personalized planner, I know that wedging out the bubbles is worth it.

After my hands are completely covered in clay, I throw my fresh honk onto the wheel and center it firmly as I press down on the pedal with my foot. Centering the clay is crucial to maintaining the structure of the vase amidst the chaos of the spinning and whirling wheel. My family centers me amongst the craziness of life, just like my hands center my work. I can always count on my mom for wisdom and advice and my dad to crack jokes to make me feel better. As my foot hits the pedal,

I know my family keep me upright when things are spinning out all around me. When my life is swirling at top speed, music also helps center me. Whether I'm playing my guitar or ukulele, like clay, the feeling of the strings beneath my fingers calms me. Through my music and ceramics, the knowledge that I am creating something new and authentic to myself, whether it be sound or art, is comforting and grounding.

Once my vessel has been shaped and dried, I carefully move it into the kiln to be reborn into its final shape, permanent, forever. This is one aspect of ceramics that I have always admired and felt reassured by. Visiting museums with ancient ceramic plates and vessels that have withstood thousands of years where I feel a deep sense of awe and connection to their creators. I wonder if anything that I make will last that long and inspire others like I myself have met.

Parts of me have been fully fired, Chidi, unchangeable over time. Mom, designated driver, and the hostess with the mostest are what my friends call me. But the underlying values of caring, reliability, and generosity of spirit persist, never cracking or deteriorating under the pressure of time. Last step, committing to a glaze. Although the deceitful bottles in my art class are labeled forest green or periwinkle blue,

They rarely leave the kill looking like the color pictured on the bottle. After spending hours perfecting my vase, I feel like I could ruin my painstaking work with only a few brush strokes, but I have to take a leap of faith. I haven't always appreciated uncertainty. I prefer to stay where I'm in control. Glazing requires taking that risk. And this repeated release of the reins has helped me lean into leaving my comfort zone.

Like ancient potters passing their skills and techniques to me, my family, friends, and teachers have molded me into the woman that I am today. Although I have been wedged, spun, fired, and glazed, I continue to change, shaping myself into the person I want to become.

Ethan Sawyer (07:44)
I don't know what sound effect we need for that, but it's just like, wow.

Calvin Pickett (07:48)
Yeah, I mean, I just, I just think this essay does it all for me. And as I'm reading it, it's like the, the, all of my thinking about montage that we've talked about and all of those sort of connections to different things and the way that you can just pivot, boom, we're here, boom, we're over here. But all of it holds together like that. I really think is happening in this piece in a way that not only gives you insight into who the student is and what they're about,

but also kind of helps you like them, you know? And I like essays that are likable too. So I think it's doing that for me.

Ethan Sawyer (08:19)
Yes.

That's such a good point you're making about like how an essay like this can cover so much ground, but there are like specific things that I see this student doing. And maybe we can get into it piece by piece here of like that are, that are helping reorient me or like reassure me that it's all of a piece that, know, that that's from the safe student, that it's in the same world. You know, there are all these little things with, with repetition of values, bringing us back to the central theme that are just so

it's just giving the give in such a huge way. And I'm just, mean, thing I love about this too, is that it's, it's kind of all the montage types, you it's like, you know, it's an, love, I know it's an essence object. It's a skill and superpower. It's an identity. It's a home. It's an uncommon extracurricular activity. I guess the only one that it's not his career, which I don't even care. But, my gosh.

Well, let's break this down. if we're opening paragraph, set out a couple, let me just ask you actually, before we get into the breakdown is like, how did the student come up with this topic? How did that process go?

Calvin Pickett (09:29)
We looked at the students brainstorming. And what I like to do with students is we talk through the brainstorming. I'm excitable. You know this about me. I'm enthusiastic. You know this about me. And so when I'm going through brainstorming with a student, I'm very often like, my God, we can write an essay about this. And wow, we could write an essay about this. And so as I'm talking through brainstorming, we're talking about different possible things that we could write about.

one of those that we kind of like surfaced was ceramics. I can't remember what the others were because pretty quickly she was also like, that's cool. And I then, once we talked through all that, students, I asked them to write pitches, like tell me if you were to write this ceramics essay, what might it be about? Why might that be a great idea? So she brought back her pitch and we got going. You we had met three times and after that third meeting, she was off and writing a first draft that

You can see some of the seeds of the great stuff in the final essay really early on. So I think we landed on the topic mostly because it was easy for her to talk about. It was easy for her to write about and letting ease be my guide as a coach has been hard earned, but I think has been a really has really made me a better.

Ethan Sawyer (10:49)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love I love what you're saying here and it seems like fortuitous or something that you know this and I think these are in the back of our minds right with students but like that it's something that's elastic right that's stretchy enough to talk about lots of different sides of her it's something that is somewhat uncommon like I've only probably worked with like two or three other students who've written about you know molding clay and then you know this you see these admission nutrients these qualities that colleges are looking for that are woven throughout so

All right, let's get into the first paragraph. she says, she starts off with, set out a cup of water, my sketchbook, a wooden slab and tie my hair back into a messy bun. Excited to begin working with a brand new hunk of clay, fresh from the ground. I sink my eager fingers into the wet and cold mass. I mean, that line just so good. And then we get a little, what moment I feel alive and deeply human knowing that through muscle memory and creative vision, I can shape the clay into both decoration and tool. First insight, but maybe third.

A tradition connecting me to humanity and earth across distances of miles and millennia. Like there's the whole essay right there.

Calvin Pickett (11:54)
I've seen essays that have that much insight in the whole thing, for sure. I mean, there's these things you could just unpack so much of that. And it's grounding. It's also, it's tactile. think it's really easy to connect with right away. And I love essays that hold things in tension. Even if that's not the whole concept of the essay, but when you're seeing decoration and tulle, that's just rich. And that's student who can see things in two different ways. I mean, I like to think colleges want students.

who are flexible thinkers who can take different perspectives on things. So yeah, I mean, by the end of the intro, you're already kind like, okay, yeah, we're on track.

Ethan Sawyer (12:29)
I mean, we're on check. Yeah. There's also, so she brings in a visual at the start. So we have an image of her tying her hair back and like beginning something and it's creating this sense of intrigue, which for me is like the jam. Like that's what we wanted to start. Right. And then she's also like orienting us in the next couple of sentences, but she's doing it with the, with the five senses here. Right. There's like, there's the, there's the, feeling of the wet and cold mass. There's probably, she doesn't mention it here, but I'm already starting to like smell the room and I can sort of, you know, it's situating us.

Calvin Pickett (12:31)
like she's

Ethan Sawyer (12:59)
So it's orienting us both physically and like conceptually around the thing that it's about to happen.

Calvin Pickett (13:06)
I love too that like it starts off very grounded, but very quickly she raises the stakes. You know, this isn't just, I love making pottery. It, you know, she can shape it into something. And then that last phrase, a tradition connecting me to humanity and earth across, across distances of miles and millennia. Like the stakes are suddenly really high. It's like, ⁓ Whoa, I guess ceramics is really cool and really important. Yeah, exactly.

Ethan Sawyer (13:36)
It's a tradition unlike any other we'll get you to dance to do a little voiceover here. then the next, and I love when it, unless he does this, there's an, there's an orienting sentence in between the paragraphs and we'll put in the show notes, the texts that you can see it, but it's like, but it all starts with a process requiring neither vision nor creativity wedging, you know, and that is already raising new questions for me. like, what's wedging? Like, how does that work?

Calvin Pickett (14:01)
And I think there's something about this essay as a whole that goes back and forth between like reverence and irreverence between like high stakes and low stakes. I think that sends the playful moment where she's just said, the last three words are vials and millennia. And then she's like, but really, it's not actually a big deal where we start. Like, really, I'm doing this, like not important thing at all. And so you're just like, whoa, rushed right back to something new and different and intriguing.

Ethan Sawyer (14:31)
Yeah. I love that. The next paragraph goes, while the repetitive needing required to get perilous air bubbles out of the dank fresh clay, just, and I'm not, I don't want this to be a podcast where students are like, I need to like make the language like, you know, make all of the alliteration and, and assonance and really make the language pop. You don't have to do that to get into a great college, but I just want to notice when it's happening because there's something about the perilous air bubbles out of the dank fresh clay.

that's not Shakespeare, but it's not not Shakespeare in what it's doing in terms of the language. She says, go ahead, jump in.

Calvin Pickett (15:10)
And I think one thing that you, that any student can do is get really specific, right? I might not, when I was in high school have arrived at, terrorless air bubbles, like, that's nice. But taking time to get really specific, I think always helps anything you're writing stand out and be a little more uncommon.

Ethan Sawyer (15:30)
She says, while that process can seem a chore before getting to the wheel, I have an appreciation for taking the time to do things right in the beginning, knowing that I'm setting myself up for success in the future. And that segue that just raises a question in our minds as a reader, it makes us hungry for like, ⁓ well, where else in life might you do this? And then she delivers that payoff here.

Whether it's tidying my room before school to have an ideal space for decompressing after volleyball, or making notes in my personalized planner, here's the insight. I know that quote unquote wedging out the bubbles is worth it.

Calvin Pickett (16:09)
And I like it because there's an insight in the middle and then a slightly sharper, more pointed one after. It's like early stage insight. I have an appreciation for taking time to do things right in the beginning. And then there's something a little more personal at the end that's like, I know that it's worth it. So there's like the introduction of a potential insight, some examples, and then kind of a final like, here's where I stand on that insight.

Ethan Sawyer (16:34)
Yeah, I love that. And there's, there's like two things happening for me, even in record as we record this is like, want to appreciate this both as a piece of writing and also as a thing that is doing a thing. So it's a piece of writing that's intended to reveal information. That's not obvious from elsewhere in the application. And that's what I'm getting in such a big way in that middle part that there's this appreciation for taking time to do right in the beginning, taking the time to do things right in the beginning, knowing I'm setting myself up for success in the future.

Like that's just such an awesome thing that they wouldn't get from your activities list. Maybe they get that from a recommendation letter, but then there's this other, you know, I don't know, writerly move of like this metaphor of like wedging out the bubbles. That's so neat.

Calvin Pickett (17:20)
And one of my favorite strategies for writing insights or really just writing the last sentence of any body paragraph is using some blended language, using the language of the topic or framework to talk about yourself. Right. You see this later when she talks about herself being fully fired. It's just like brings you right back to the framework, helps the whole concept feel earned. And that blended language using the language of the framework to talk about yourself.

It works as a way to kind of pull it all together over and over and over again. I get tired of it. You think that I dig up and it's doing it again, but it just works.

Ethan Sawyer (18:00)
Cause it's so satisfying, right? And it's the first of like, I don't know, three or four qualities that we'll probably point out that gives it that sense. Like you're talking about of coherence. And also it does this thing that is, think under discussed in this particular genre or this art form, whatever you want to call it, but it's, it's, it's irony. There's this quality of irony where it's demonstrating intelligence and also like a meta awareness of the thing that, that, that's being done here. You know, there's this.

Part way I'm talking about myself, but I'm aware that I'm using a theme or a topic and it's demonstrating that subtly. So it's a very particular form of irony, but I think that it's one of those, I think under discussed qualities that if students, and it's hard to be like, you should do this in your essay, but if you can, if it's right there, why not?

Calvin Pickett (18:48)
Yeah.

Ethan Sawyer (18:49)
After my hands, she continues, are completely covered in clay. I throw my fresh hunk onto the wheel and center it firmly as I press down on the pedal with my foot. Okay. Reorients us back to the thing itself. Here's that, you know, okay, here's we're back to, you know, molding. Centering the clay is crucial to maintaining the structure of the vase amidst the chaos of the spinning and whirling wheel. Now we kind of already know where she's going because we've read it before, but here it goes. My family centers me amongst the craziness of life, just like my hands center my work.

I can always count on my mom for wisdom and advice and my dad to crack jokes to make me feel better. As my foot hits the pedal again, back to the image. I know my family will keep me upright when things are spinning all out, out all around me. When my life is swirling at top speed, music also helps center me. love the little transition there because you know, she's satisfyingly delivered the thing and then the, you know, how it's a metaphor in her life. And I think that earns her the potential to be like, and also here's another thing about me.

Music also helps center me. Whether I'm playing my guitar or ukulele, like clay, the feeling of the strings beneath my fingers calms me. Through my music and ceramics, the knowledge that I'm creating something new and authentic to myself, whether it be sound or art, is comforting and grounding. Yeah.

Calvin Pickett (20:05)
Yeah,

I like that insight because it introduces something new, right? She hasn't really, she's touched on it, but now she's talking explicitly about creating something new and authentic to myself. That's something she values, is creation. But it's not out of nowhere because this idea of comforting and grounding, those values are the sort of glue of this paragraph, right? It's been about being grounded. It's been about finding comfort. But we get this again, just sort of leveled up.

insight into who she is because we are hearing again that the act of creation, something new and authentic, that those would help her feel grounded. It's a green naming what she's been talking about in a way that adds some depth and weight, which I think helps that insight kind of.

Ethan Sawyer (20:53)
Hold up. Yeah, I agree. Yeah. What's, what's neat about this structure too, for those of you who are not familiar with what we're talking about, this montage structure, it's basically you pick a topic, you connect it to different sides of yourself, different values you care about and you give examples, you give examples from the thing you're talking about and you get examples from life. And that's sort of the basic gist of this. One of the things that I love about this is that it's modular. Meaning let's say the, the author realizes, I don't really want to talk about music here. Well, you know, there can be something else that's grounding.

Or let's say this student has to condense this for a 350 word essay. Well, that's a part that can be cut out potentially if needed. But the sort of separate pieces of this allow a lot of the student to work on like tiny canvases within the larger canvas. So they don't have to like, it all has to rely on one particular story for instance.

Calvin Pickett (21:42)
Yeah. And what I love about Montage, you're not seeing in this final draft is all of the modules that didn't make it. Right. Like there are other parts of the ceramics process. We talked about rolling coils. We talked about smoothing edges. We talked about, and this one was the hardest to let go of, slipping and scoring, because that's how you like attach pieces of ceramics to each other. And I just loved the sound of slipping and scoring. I love the specificity. I get attached to pieces of writing and maybe more than my students do.

Like what I love about the montage that we got to play with all of these pieces you're seeing and hearing, but also all these other modules that we developed, we worked on and then decided that piece isn't as important. These other ones are working better for these reasons. think sometimes it's, they're more alive for the student. They're more grounded in distinct roles and values that aren't going to show up elsewhere.

Maybe they address an admission nutrient that isn't as strong in other parts of the application. But you get to pick and choose if you've got a really modular montage.

Ethan Sawyer (22:48)
Yeah. If you've got a format that allows for it. And you know, the other thing that I love about this is that it allows for weaving in these maybe somewhat slightly more common extracurricular activities. So in an earlier paragraph, you know, we, see the mention of a sport, you know, volleyball that's, that's more common. here we see like, you know, playing music and granted, you know, ukulele is a little bit more uncommon, but we're still talking about things like volleyball and music, right? That if they had been the main topic,

We're probably you know looking at an essay that's similar to other essays we've read so for students who are like self-conscious about this or who have Heard you know you should write about it. You shouldn't write about you know these particular extracurricular activities This is just a beautiful way to do it because we we get the essence of that what guitar and ukulele and music mean in her life And it's done here in one two three solid sentences and we get that now that you know if we use another metaphor that that like

Flavor is like in the the broth here as it were so Once my vessel has been shaped and dried I carefully move it into the kiln to be reborn into its final shape permanent forever just for those of you who are listening these are separate single word sentences, so we have a long sentence here and then we have permanent period forever period lovely just Side note just a lovely stylistic move you got a long sentence. Give me a short one and it could yes one word sentences are okay

This is one aspect of ceramics that I've always admired and felt reassured by. Visiting museums with ancient ceramic plates and vessels that have withstood thousands of years of wear, I feel a deep sense of awe and connection to their creators. So notice some new values coming out here. Yeah, go jump in.

Calvin Pickett (24:29)
thing that I want to point out about that sentence is like, if there are writing teachers, writing coaches, students, any writer who has heard 100 times, show, don't tell. And I think in a college essay, you're going to have to show and tell. Like this is a telling sentence. It would have been easy as a coach to highlight, I feel a deep sense of awe and connection to their creators and say, show, don't tell. And to push for some like

my mouth opens and my eyes light up. But you don't need that all the time. Sometimes you can just tell me how you're feeling in this moment. Because again, with this montage, this is an essay only about looking at ancient ceramics and feeling things. You've got to kind of keep the pace moving quickly. just a shout out to giving everyone permission to show and tell. It's OK to tell.

Ethan Sawyer (25:24)
Yeah. And, and if students who've written, who are already writing, like look at the, look at the balance too, in your essay, like to what extent do you have showing, what extent you have telling? Some students will go all show and I miss that. I'm like, give me the, the so what, what does this mean? A simple way of thinking about this is like, try just showing in the first parts of your paragraph and then telling later. That's a simple way. If it starts to feel repetitive, you can flip it and you'll sort of start to get, become more facile with, you know, it'll become easier for you to kind go back and forth.

She says, I wonder if anything that I will make will last that long and inspire others like I myself have been. Parts of me have been fully fired too, unchangeable over time. It's so good.

Calvin Pickett (26:06)
that's my favorite part of this essay. I just love that idea. And it's interesting, know, at this point I had been working with you, Edea, with C.H.E. for a while. And this idea of grounding your essays in values is something I really believe in. And I've seen work over and over again. And that phrase, parts of me have been fully fired to, unchangeable over time, just gives her permission, because of that blended language again, to just like,

be really direct. I'm going to name my values. I'm going to name the roles I play. And it doesn't feel hokey or praggy or too direct, I think, because of that lovely use of language that anchors it again in this overall framework of ceramics.

Ethan Sawyer (26:53)
Yeah. It's just so, it feels, again, it feels like it's of a piece when we get language like that. And then she gives these different, I love these different roles and she puts these in quotes, mom in quotes, designated driver in quotes and the hostess with the most is what my friends call me. And so we get, I, know, people who've listened to watch any YouTube videos or any of our webinars knows that I'm a super fan of roles and identities, but the way that she, this might've even, you worked with a student maybe before we started like really talking about roles and identities. Yeah. ⁓

Calvin Pickett (27:23)
This one really just like it had the stuff in it before we named it, which is why

Ethan Sawyer (27:27)
Yeah, it's so cool.

Calvin Pickett (27:30)
I really love the fact that she actually presents these titles as what my friends call me. So it isn't like, who I am at my core. It makes it even more playful. makes it social. It makes it communal. She's someone who has friends who call her things. Like even just that is indicative of a kind of person who like has a reputation in a social group. it so clearly contrasts the

weight of visiting museums and the permanence. And now we're back in this playful space. And I get that back and forth just keeps me as a reader engaged and delighted.

Ethan Sawyer (28:10)
Yeah, totally, totally. I love that you're pointing out here. There's again that, yeah, it's your own meta awareness that I'm tripping out on here, but this moment of like, cause you, you know, you'll, you'll maybe, maybe if you're a student who's gone through this or going through this process, people are like, what are your, what do your friends say about you? Or you'll have some assignment that's like, give me five adjectives that your friends, you haven't done this one. It's, can be kind of cheesy, but there's a really good version of this where it's like, what are the roles that you play in your friend group?

And you can actually go out and ask them and you who knows, maybe it makes it into your personal statement, but she says the underlying values of caring, reliability and generosity of spirit persist, never cracking or deteriorating under the pressure of time. mean, good Lord. It's just, this is the part that the fully fired part where it's just like, she does make a big claim here.

Calvin Pickett (28:58)
She lands the plane with another subtle connection to the framework. Cracking or deteriorating under the pressure of time. We're reminded, before we make a jump to another part of this montage, right before we're about to zoom out and go somewhere else in her life, we get this little anchor back to the thing we are familiar with at this plane, which is that we are talking about ceramics.

Ethan Sawyer (29:26)
love this image. Just as you did that, I was imagining like we're on a map and we're sort of zooming into different places on the map, spending a little time there. And then, you know, it's the plane is the helicopter, whatever is taking off again and kind of taking us onto another part of this person's map. So just had that image of like, I think that's what a good montage does is that it, you know, sometimes abruptly we're suddenly we're somewhere else, but I think a good one like this will sort of, you know, gently take off and then land somewhere else. I love that.

Last step, says, committing to a glaze. Although the deceitful bottles in my art class are labeled forest green or periwinkle blue, they rarely leave the kiln looking like the colored picture on the bottle. Yeah. What were you going to say about this?

Calvin Pickett (30:06)
just love deceitful bottles. Again, just, there's like deceitful bottles. It's like infusing this inanimate object with like personality. I can just imagine her kind of in a long standing sort of nemesis relationship with these bottles. know, they've got beef, they've got mystery, her and the deceitful bottles. And just, it's one, one adjective that just brings this example to life right off the bat, deceitful bottles.

Yeah, that's just another one of those. It helps when you have a great writer to work with as it goes. But again, it's specificity. What can everyone do? Everyone can think, how can I describe this in a way that isn't just naming a random specific quality of it, but gives it a lens that is personal? How do you see the thing you're describing? Not what is objectively true about the thing you're describing. How do you see it through your eyes? That's the kind of specificity that makes

Any topic on comic.

Ethan Sawyer (31:05)
And I think that's what we mean when we talk about voice. Like when we say, know, is voice in an essay, it's exactly what you just said, like copy paste. What do you see, you know, and how are you relating it? Sure. There are some technical things, some like, like practical things, like long sentences, then short ones that can, you know, sort of hint at voice, but there's something in even just like the choice of a, of an, of an uncommon adjective or surprising adjective or looking at those bottles.

When someone else looks at those bottles, say this, here's what you notice. You notice that those bottles, the labels on them, whatever it says, isn't going to be actually what comes out. Now the bonus points that there's this sort of, and I don't think she was like logic or like, you know, explicitly thinking about this, but there's an interesting metaphor there too, right? With this process where we sort of go in one way and we come out, you know, another way that's, that's unexpected, which feels like this other layer of metaphor.

Side note to students, you do not have to have this layer of metaphor in your essay in order to get into a great college. But again, when you see a little Shakespeare, you gotta, I gotta point it out.

Calvin Pickett (32:12)
Well, and I also just, you know, if I'm being remiss, I didn't mention that part of what I love about this essay, too, is that it's about a process. And that's what we were doing together the whole time we were working on it. The whole time you're writing your essay, you are wedging out bubbles and getting centered and, you know, firing it and then choosing how to polish it and glaze it. And so there is just something rich. think a lot of people are drawn to writing like that.

A movie that's aware it's a movie, an essay that's aware it's an essay. You can go way too far, but there's some sweet spot where there's something meta happening, and I think this essay lands there.

Ethan Sawyer (32:53)
Yeah, totally, totally. After spending hours perfecting my vase, she says, I feel like I could ruin my painstaking work with only a few brushstrokes, but I have to take a leap of faith. I love this part coming up. I haven't always appreciated uncertainty and prefer to stay where I'm in control. Glazing requires taking that risk. And this repeated release of the reins has helped me lean into leaving my comfort zone. So talking about this, how did this come about?

Calvin Pickett (33:19)
Yeah, well, I mean, before I even talk about how we got there, one thing I love about this is that it takes something people associate with narrative and moves it into montage. People think about like a narrative is great because you witness change and growth. And you think that if you're just doing a montage essay, you're going to write about different parts of you that are represented by different parts of the ceramics process. You're not going to get that arc of growth. And here she is weaving in this tight micro narrative of

like being someone who likes to be in control and like wanting to be someone who can release the reins a little and finding a way to do that. And like we witnessed this growth. We are like happy for her. And then there's something satisfying about knowing this has happened. And it's been a couple of sentences. And so when you're thinking about, ⁓ I don't want to write a montage. It's not going to show my growth. You can show growth in a montage for sure. And she's doing that right here.

Ethan Sawyer (34:16)
So here's a 35 word masterclass on how to show, how do we have a challenge? Because look, like to your point, this, whole essay could have been about this person who has, you know, preferred to stay in control and demonstrates this quality of like, you know, being interested in control. And then here's some things I did about it. And here's what I learned. And one of the things that helped me along the way was, you know, this, you know, molding clay, but instead we've got all these different sides of her. And then one of the things.

She says, I haven't always appreciated uncertainty. to stay where I'm grounded, which is like a vulnerable admission. It's just a beautiful little subtle weaving in a vulnerability. But here's how this process glazing requires me to take a risk. It's helped me, you know, encourage me to leave my comfort zone, which is just an awesome quality. You know, if any admission meter is going to be excited about that, were you going to say something, you're going to jump in on something on that?

Calvin Pickett (35:08)
Yeah, but it's already gone. There's so many things I would love to say. What was it? Because I'm already just thinking about kind of the, you know, all the moves that she's making and that vulnerability invites you in. You get to witness that growth. And again, we're back on this sort of like low stakes to high stakes. The deceitful bottles, it's playful and the vulnerability is heavy, I think isn't quite the right word, but it feels important.

And you're getting all that stuff in one paragraph again. How do we get there? If you're writing the paragraph and you know that you want to write about taking risks, I'm someone who's okay with taking risks, think about what value are you writing about and ask yourself, what is your relationship with that value? And how has your relationship with that value changed over time? A of students want to write about the fully fired values. They want to write about the things that are like,

eternally true, or they want to a story that shows them experiencing some tremendous change. And all of that can work. But I think that the asking yourself, how do I relate to this value in that zoom out that self-awareness, it often leads to great to great insight.

Ethan Sawyer (36:22)
It's so good. Go jump.

Calvin Pickett (36:25)
and the other sort of strategy that I wanted to mention is like if you're if you find yourself writing that essay, that's one story of learning to embrace risk and you're feeling like it's not doing enough. It's not quite like getting where I want to be. It's not showing all the sides of me. Take the essay you've worked hard on. You know, give it a hug. Thank you for its service and turn it into a paragraph in a montage. Take that essay.

make it a paragraph and then think what kind of montage framework or topic would let me tell this story as part of it. And then all of sudden you've got four or three or four more openings to write other little mini essays all about yourself in a way that's created and compelling and delightful and you're off and running and your essay will be better for it. But I'm like a montage trooper. So like I'm in the minority here, but I believe it. make that

Okay, good, not great narrative, a paragraph in a montage and dress is going to be more fun.

Ethan Sawyer (37:29)
Give it a plaque, give it a plaque in the new essay. I'm so with what you're saying. And I wanna highlight two things that if folks were, I don't know, distracted for a moment that I think are so useful here for students actually going through this process. One is the notion of the micro narrative. I love that term where there's some small challenge or something. Maybe it's something that was the ghost of an essay idea past that you can weave in here.

this practical strategy of looking at your values as being things that have not been static, but that you've had a, you know, an ongoing relationship with and you know, and there's, there's a history with, with, with, with, with creativity. there's a way that I relate to creativity now that's different from it was, you know, a year ago, that's different from it was two years ago. So looking and speaking briefly to how that relationship has shifted and showing yourself as, you know,

dynamic and changing is just so good. And it's such a practical way of doing that. love what you're sharing. Here's the ending. Like ancient potters passing their skills and techniques to me, my family, friends, and teachers have molded me into the woman that I am today. Although I have been wedged, spun, fired, and glazed, notice how it sort of sends us back through the whole essay, I continue to change, shaping myself into the person I want to become.

Calvin Pickett (38:54)
I mean, it's a little harsh, but I think the conclusion is sort of the most take it or leave it part of the essay. It's fine. I do love you played out the piece that I love where you get that kind of like quick review of the pieces, a reminder of the journey we've been on together. But this is this is an essay that to me points to the fact that you don't need some sort of magical, like mind blowing ending in order for the essay to work. It's like wrap it up.

You want to give the reader that feeling of, ⁓ we've reached the end, you know, and there's a few phrases in there that do that. One thing, and I don't know if this makes the final cut, Ethan, but one thing that I think is funny in this conclusion is it's like, I have been shaped by others. Actually, I'm shaping myself. There's a little bit of like a sentence to sentence contradiction, but again, I think it works because we're all the way bought in at this point. She couldn't...

She couldn't flub the ending if she tried because so much has happened. I care so much about this student and her journey with taking risks and who she is with her friends and her family and you know her interest in history and permanence and by the end at this point I hit that last paragraph and it happens very quickly. My eyes are kind of just scanning it because I'm like once I get the sense that it's the end I'm like wow that was great.

Ethan Sawyer (40:18)
Totally. It's funny. I like when I read that, I'm like, it feels very satisfying. It brings it to a close. Of course. I love the word become as someone who loves this notion of on becoming, you know, podcast title. Like I'm like, yes. So it's, it's pointing to that for me, which is satisfying, but it's funny because as you say that, I'm like, you know, I kind of had this sense about the opening where I'm like, this isn't the most like what, where is this essay going to go opening?

I set out a cup of water, my sketchbook, a wooden slab and tie my hair back into a messy bun, but it does the job of intriguing me and it does the job of setting us up. And I guess the thing that I want to say to students, you know, listening to this is like your, your opening, your final line, your first line and your final line. Don't have to like blow the mind of the reader. think students spend so much time obsessing over the perfect hook that's going to just, you know, be totally, you know, uncommon and just no one's ever said it hurt anything like this.

I think the most important parts of your essay to make work are the middle, the values, you know, the qualities. And if you can connect it to a nice theme, like the student has done bonus points, you know, but I just think there's so much hand wringing that, goes into openings and endings that I just want to kind of like show, Hey, this is a true example of a, to me, this is a 10 out of 10 excellent essay. And yet it's not the best opening I've ever read or the

best, most satisfying conclusion. Now in the same breath, say both of them really work and I think they have great things to offer.

Calvin Pickett (41:50)
Yeah, for me, it's about just orienting the reader at the beginning so that by the time you get to the meat of the essay, you have a sense of where you're going and you're excited to see what it all looks like. You know, don't want to... I've seen students write a thesis sentence at the end that sort of is like... And I've actually... Students I've worked with, I've looked at old essays as I was preparing for this and there are some that end with like, and working on surroundings embodies my values of X, Y, and Z. And then I'm like...

Cool, done with this essay, I know what you're writing about. So like, you don't want to orient someone too much. You want to like give them like the kind of like a treasure map. It's not like a super clear, you know, highly detailed map that already shows you everywhere you're going. It's like a treasure map. We're like, Ooh, I wonder what that image represents. But it has the little dotted line that shows you like, I'm going to take you this way. And we're off and off and moving.

Ethan Sawyer (42:43)
I think Calvin, some students could listen to this or counselors and feel really intimidated by this because of our enthusiasm and because of the levels of like depth and nuance that we're pointing to. Can we just zoom back for a minute and just talk about like, what are the concepts? Some of the concepts here that are pretty fundamental that are working well that any student as it were, or any counselor or even parent who's helping their, you know, student write this.

that really work here? Like, what are some things that you see here that anybody can do?

Calvin Pickett (43:14)
Well, I've got two things that I think raise the floor of your essay really high right off the bat. And we've talked about them already in some ways. The first we've talked about a lot, and that's specificity. If you can be really specific about things and not just in how you describe things, but like your relationship to them, you know, how your thinking has changed. If you can be really specific, it inherently becomes uncommon because if you're giving the reader

your take on something, how you specifically see it or felt it or think about it. It is uncommon because it's yours, even if you're talking about the most common topic, it's uncommon because it's just yours. And the other sort of like everyone can do this is organization. Have a clearly organized essay. This, to me, this more than anything in terms of what kind of montage is it, it's a process montage. And that sets it up.

to be really readable. Right off the bat, you know there are steps in this process. And I will be talking about steps in the process and how they relate to me. And so something like a process gives you inherent organization. The reader is calm. They know enough about where it's going. But because it's a montage, they don't know exactly what you're going to say. I first off, they don't know that much about ceramics. But even if they were a ceramicist, they'd probably be wondering, I wonder what she's going to say about firing.

You know? And so that organization and that structure raises the floor of your essay right off the bat. And it doesn't need to be a process. I don't want you to hear this and think, God, what process am I going write about? It can be something that has multiple parts. It can be something that has changed over time. It can be, I mean, as you know, it's like the different places you feel at home. If you're here listening to this podcast, you probably have some knowledge of types of montages. And if you don't,

Go check it out. But anything that has sort of inherent structure can make for a great topic.

Ethan Sawyer (45:19)
Yeah. What you're pointing to, I think is an important point. So I want to underscore this, that there's like, can, part of what we're, you know, trying to help students do is like set the reader up with something that is going to give them some orientation, some sense of where the thing is going without so giving away the ending that it's sort of, as you pointed out earlier, kind of boring. it's like, whether it's parts of a process, whether it's like, you know, another essay that I've talked about before is like trivial pursuit. You're talking about trivial pursuit and you give the example of like the different wedges.

We know that there's going to be like a paragraph on the entertainment, the pink wedge, and there's probably going to be a paragraph on the orange. Maybe that one's entertainment actually, no orange and sports and leisure. We know there's going to be sports and leisure, but it's the how that you do it that makes it satisfying. And that to me connects back to just great storytelling where it's basically just set up and pay off, set up and pay off. So you're setting up these concepts. You're giving us some sense of where the thing is going, which makes us expectant leaning forward and the how you do it. And in each of it, it doesn't have to just be at the ending.

Like each of these different paragraphs creates a mini turning point along the way that has the potential to be both surprising and inevitable. We knew that she was going to talk about firing if you're into ceramics, but how she did it was a little surprising. So it's that quality of those qualities of surprise and inevitability. There's another tension that's at work along the way that create that satisfying sense, you know, as we go. And if you're working in this sort of modular framework, you've got

five chances, you know? And even if three of them are really solid, that's pretty good. And if, you know, maybe the third paragraph doesn't work out, maybe it's picking up the slack for the fourth paragraph that was, but that to me is a different orientation to this process than trying to come up with this one story that made you realize this thing that you should have known all along, you know, and that it just kind of, you know, spreads out the insights along, along the story that you're telling.

Calvin Pickett (47:09)
Absolutely. And if you're sitting there feeling intimidated about having to set up, you know, uncertainty and insight and payoff five times, I'm here to tell you that even if you don't do that five times, even if you don't do it one time, if your essay is specific and it is well organized, it will be readable. It will give the reader something to walk away with and say, ⁓ this student is these three things. Or, you know, this student would bring these four things to the table.

Right? This genre, college essays, has the potential to lead to wonderful pieces of writing. That's what we're seeing here. I think this is a great essay, but it also is performing a job. You're writing for an audience and for a task. And if you can hold that piece in your mind, especially if you're feeling anxious about writing something beautiful or like a great piece of writing and you're thinking, I'm not a writer, try and remember that you're writing for a task and that task isn't

to prove that you're a great writer. It's to show meaningful sides of yourself, roles, identities, values to an admissions reader. And if you can be specific and organized, they're going to walk away with something and you will have done your job. Even if you don't end up crafting deceitful bottles, you know, somewhere in your ass, and you're that's fine. That's fine.

Ethan Sawyer (48:31)
So as we wrap, want to ask you about, I want to talk just for a minute about AI, because I think that there are probably students out there who are listening who are like, or I could just use Claude to write this. And I just wonder if you could speak to those students for just a minute or so. And what advice would you give to students who are seeing the potential of using large language models to, to, basically help get them through this pretty tough piece of writing? I mean, it's sitting right there. What would you say to them, those students?

Calvin Pickett (49:01)
All right, I'll give you my heart answer and my head answer. So my heart answer is that writing your college essay can be a meaningful chance to look back at who you've been, take stock of who you are and consider who you are becoming. And that is a powerful thing to do. Storying yourself builds the truth of who you are. How we think about ourselves becomes who we are. And so using this

college essay process as a chance to do that, to think about who you are and find connections between different things you've done and consider, you what are my core values? What roles do I play? Have I played? Do I aspire to play? It can be a big deal and it can give you the kind of self-knowledge and self-confidence and self-understanding that translates across so many parts of your life, anywhere that you're talking to someone or you're hearing someone talk about themselves.

You have the you now have this understanding of yourself. You see yourself in relation to the world and to your past self and future self such that you can see yourself in relation to others in beautiful ways as well. think doing this work without AI and doing it in a more thoughtful way just pays so many dividends. And so that's my heart answer is this work can be transformational and it's worth it. My head answer is I'm going to go back to specificity, but like

If you can write an essay that is just yours, that if the phrasing you use is a little bit weird and a little off center because it's the word you always use to describe this thing, that's going to stand out. What Claude is doing, what GDT, what they're doing, what LLMs are doing is they're just looking at all the words that are out there written and be like, what's most likely to come after this? It is inherently common.

because it is just taking the thing that it thinks is most likely and putting it in there. And so it's hard to write an essay that stands out with AI because you're unlikely to have something that is truly yours and singular. And even if you've done that, even if you're the AI LLN prompting master, then you've really figured it out. You've built some AI prompting skill. You're going to do that over the next few years anyway. But what you've missed out on

is this other opportunity to build self-knowledge, to build skills and muscles that you don't always get a chance to do. This is a time to store yourself, and I think it's worth it.

Ethan Sawyer (51:41)
Thanks. I feel so freaking grateful to work with you and to know you and thanks for nerding out with me little bit.

Calvin Pickett (51:48)
That goes both ways even. I love this stuff.

Ethan Sawyer (51:51)
You too.

Thanks friends, as ever, for listening. You'll find the show notes at collegeessayguide.com slash podcast, including the text of this essay. So you can check it out for yourself if you would like. If you're interested in learning more about our work, just go to collegeessayguide.com and at the bottom of the homepage, you can sign up for our newsletter. We'll share with you our latest resources, upcoming free live events, info about our pay what you can courses, or one-on-one coaching, and lots, lots more. That's it. Thanks friends, and stay curious.