Your Feelings About Wednesday, and Other Pivotal Questions

How do you feel about Wednesday?

"Remember, how you answer has got to say something about you. It's got to say the best about you. You get one chance to answer the question, and your response will communicate a great deal about you. And it will be the only communication you get, the only chance to sell yourself and who you are. So choose carefully."

So went my instructions to my AP students this week. We began our work on college scholarship and application essays and the challenges and strategies connected to the process. The Wednesday question comes directly from a previous writing prompt of one Midwestern university, and it's the first one I gave them the opportunity to write. In 300 words or less.

Before they even saw the prompt, I challenged them to make a chart that listed the answer to two questions: who are you, and why are you good? When I asked them to do that, I told them that what I was asking was hard, so hard that many adults right now might struggle to specifically say who they are and are wildly uncomfortable finding anything good about themselves. No matter. This is the starting point, I told them. If you can't answer these two questions, you really have nothing to say in your response. There is nothing to communicate.

I gave them other advice as well. I told them to be unique. I told them to be real. And I told them no one really wants to hear their resume all over again, because that's just a list of experiences, not who they really are, and the reader probably knows all of that already. The list of accomplishments or activities won't convince their audience; it might get my students in a position to be heard, but it is the real them, the character and passion and values that must speak, because they are what matters. And those 300 words are all they get, ever, with this audience.

Upon finally seeing the prompt, the general student response was initially a combination of nervous laughter, confused smiles, and the occasional guttural yet understated "What the . . ?!" I laughed too. It is funny. It is absurd. And it's a skill that extends much further than this week's prompt or this year's essays.

I'm starting to understand that this is how life works. Every day is an essay question. Better yet, every interaction is a possible essay question. Whether it be a friend, a stranger, a coworker, or the bagger at the grocery store, it is likely you will be faced with an opportunity to influence, to speak, to convince. And it will be in the form of a question that you probably won't see coming.

In your answers to today's questions, were you unique? Were you accurate? Did your audience learn about you, and is it the you that you want to be and want people to see?

Like my students, your activities and accomplishments will probably not impress anybody. They're not going to care how busy you've made yourself or your kids, how many awards or positions you've conquered, or even who you influenced yesterday. They are there, today, and they are asking a question, any question, and your answer today in that tiny space will communicate much about you.

So many questions, or possible essay prompts, every day: How's it going today? Did you watch the game last night? What are you doing this weekend? Did you see that? Why aren't you going?

The question doesn't matter. Your answer does. Are you ready, with an understanding of who you are and what you stand for, to communicate most effectively with your audience of one? There are no throw away questions. No redos. Today's answer may be the only one you get, the one answer that will stick in the mind of your audience about who you are and what you believe in. How careful, how purposeful, how prepared are you?

My students will be ready. They will know who they are, what's important to them, and why it matters. They will know how to communicate it in a limited time and space. And it won't matter the question or who's asking it.

May we all be so ready to answer for the hope we have.