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We worked with this student over several drafts before we arrived at the final version below.
First Draft with Actual Feedback
As I exited the classroom, I watched in horror as the ramekin containing my chocolate soufflé began to slide, piercing the outline of piping chocolate, smearing raspberry coulis across the plate. On my way to deliver my third and final course, I saw my culinary future begin to evaporate in front of my eyes. The Executive Chef remained quiet as she watched me place my now ruined dessert on the table. She sighed empathetically with hint of disappointment and ushered me back into the classroom to await my results. The Army’s Advanced Culinary School had gotten the best of me.
How could this have happened I wondered? I had planned every minute of the three-hour final exam, only to watch a rogue ramekin leave me with the previously unthinkable prospect of going home empty handed. It was a simple yet elegant three-course meal, and I had practiced for weeks to refine my skills to prepare each course: a roasted beet salad with citrus vinaigrette, filet mignon with tourné potatoes and sautéed asparagus, and my soon to be nemesis, a chocolate soufflé with raspberry coulis and crème anglaise. I arrived at this school with no formal culinary arts training and worked quickly to catch up to my peers, many of whom were already employed as chefs for Generals and Admirals across the military.
What I lacked in experience I made up for in sheer determination, work ethic and meticulous preparation. I spent hours most nights preparing detailed schedules to guide myself through the rigors of each exam. I conquered tests in preparing hors d'oeuvres, mother sauces, and a refined dinner for two and was filled with nervous confidence as the final exam approached. It was especially difficult, as we were required to serve each course within back-to-back ten-minute windows, and soufflés are notoriously unforgiving.
We had a dry run to fine tune our three course techniques, but after serving my salad at the end of the first window, I couldn’t make up for lost time and submitted both my entrée and dessert several minutes late. I was disappointed but confident in the strategies I chose to use my time more efficiently. As I watched time slip away on test day I was secure in my ability to finish on time. As I made my way to the judge’s table with my failed dessert, I knew my fate was sealed; there would be no recovering from that mistake on that day.
That night I tightened my timeline and revised my game plan. The next day reached another level as I left heart and soul on the plate, as I knew nothing less would suffice. My salad was sublime, a near carbon copy of the instructor’s example. I seared the filet mignon to perfection, browned my tourné potatoes, sautéed the asparagus and plated this exquisite entrée atop a chasseur sauce. All the while I worked feverishly to ensure my egg whites were whipped into stiff peaks, and with less than twenty minutes left I frantically folded the egg whites into my soufflé batter and filled the ramekins. I piped the chocolate design and filled it with the raspberry coulis and crème anglaise. I knew the soufflé had to be perfect or I was going home, but I was short on time, so with 90 seconds left I pulled my soufflé from the oven, plated it up, and cautiously approached the judge’s table. I watched as two very talented chefs were sent home, knowing I could be next, and then before I knew it the judge called my name. Here I was on the verge of being sent home and I had no idea if all my hard work and dedication would be for nothing. I met the Executive Chef at the judge’s table; she pierced the soufflé with her fork, it was light and fluffy all the way through: perfect. She turned over my score sheet, checked off the dessert, smiled and said, “congratulations chef.”
Our Feedback
Donald,
Your essay is well-organized, suspenseful, and full of specific details. That said, I think we’ll have to go back to the kitchen and cook up something a bit different. Right now, it’s hard to see what you learned or how you grew from your experience at the Army’s Advanced Culinary School.
This may sound counter-intuitive, but when you write an essay about overcoming a challenge, the true subject should be you, not the challenge. Your essay should answer the following questions:
- How did you adjust your attitude to overcome the challenge?
- What did you learn from this challenge?
- How has this experience made you the person you are today?
Right now, you put all the narrative pressure on your final exam. But doing well on the exam doesn’t actually require you to draw on your unique resources as a person. You mess up the dry run and then, like anyone would, you refine your approach and try again. That’s why they give you a dry run, after all.
I think you should conceive of the challenge as cooking school in general, not this final exam in particular. Show us how hard it was at the beginning. Then show us a turning point: you adjusted your goals, or began to study harder, or something like that. You can include a paragraph about the final exam to show us your triumph. When it’s finished, your essay might be structured like this:
- The intro: a scene or paragraph demonstrating how inexperienced you were compared to your classmates. Maybe write about the first day of cooking school.
- The challenge: let one specific challenge or assignment stand in for the broader challenge of cooking school. E.g., you just can't make a soufflé.
- The turning point: someone says something to you or you make a decision that helps you do well in cooking school.
- The triumph: after messing up the dry run, you do well on your final exam.
- The reflection: you learned such-and-such from the experience.
I think you should start your second draft with a blank page. Keep the marked-up draft open in one window, and start your second draft in a new window.
You’ve made a great start, Donald. Everyone has to revise. We’re on a journey together now, and I’m looking forward to it.
Tourné Final Draft
As I exited the classroom, I watched in horror as the ramekin containing my chocolate soufflé began to slide, piercing the outline of piping chocolate, smearing raspberry coulis across the plate. My instructor remained quiet as she watched me place my ruined dessert on the table. A few minutes later, my instructor turned over my score sheet with a failing grade. “You’ve got one last shot tomorrow to retest,” she said. “Otherwise you’ll go back to your unit for failing to meet course standards.” There was nothing to do now but focus on my second chance.
I thought back to my first week of class, when I’d quickly learned that I was behind my classmates. I had trouble making a tourné, which entailed cutting a potato into a two-inch-long seven-sided football-shaped product with flat ends. I watched as my classmates deftly turned one large potato into eight perfect tournés while I fumbled to make just one. Over the course of the next six weeks, the tourné came to represent the broader challenge of culinary school as a whole.
Before cooking school, I had always managed to excel in the army because of what I thought of as natural talent. Being bested by a French potato football was a lesson in humility. I realized that it would take hard work to compensate for my evident lack of cooking talent. I began to bring sacks of potatoes back to my hotel room and set up in front of the TV for long sessions of carving. It was two weeks before I could consistently make more than one tourné out of a single potato. By the fourth week, I was up to four tournés and began to receive compliments from the instructors. My boosted confidence helped me excel on our practical exams covering hors d’oeuvres and a dinner for two.
The night before my retest, I thought things over in my hotel with a big sack of potatoes in front of me. I reflected on how I was facing the first prospect of significant failure in my four and a half years in service. I contemplated the mistakes I had made that day and developed strategies to guard against them. I wrote out a comprehensive schedule for the three-hour testing period in order to keep myself on track. I carved my last tourné and went to bed.
During the retest the next day, my hard work paid off. I crafted my salad meticulously, so that it was a near carbon copy of the instructor’s example. I took my time as I carved each tourné, then pushed myself to ensure that all of the entrée’s components came together on one beautiful plate. As I balanced the demands of the entrée course, I worked feverishly to whip my soufflé’s egg whites into stiff peaks. With less than twenty minutes left, I frantically folded the egg whites into my soufflé batter and filled the ramekins. I decorated my dessert plate and hurried to the judge’s table with my final course. Nervous, excited, and fatigued from this three-hour culinary battle, I watched as the judge examined each of my courses. She rolled my lightly browned tournés with her fork to inspect them, then stabbed through to see that they were perfectly cooked. After what seemed like an eternity, she turned to me and said, “Congratulations, chef.”
I felt a rush of exhilaration. All the hard work and dedication I had put into those six weeks had finally paid off. My time in culinary school was both humbling and empowering. On the one hand, it showed me that talent won’t always see me through. On the other hand, it showed me that I can make up for my shortcomings with discipline and practice. I look forward to bringing this same perspective and work ethic to law school, and I know that it will help me succeed.
Why the Final Draft Works
1. The essay tells a story.
Something happens—the author passes his cooking test—and the author both learns and changes.
In the first draft of “Tourné,” the author passes the second test without considering why he failed the first one. Though he tries harder the second time around, he doesn’t learn anything. The key to revision was discovering the story’s lesson: the author realizes that he’d been overconfident, and that he could make up for poor cooking skills with hard work.
2. The essay is full of specifics.
The author uses the narrow challenge of the tourné as a stand-in for the broader challenge of cooking school, which makes his struggle more concrete. He also heightens the drama with details, noting for example how the ramekin pierced “the outline of piping chocolate” on his disastrous first run, and how the judge “rolled [his] lightly browned tournés with her fork” in the triumphant do-over.
3. The author takes action to solve a problem.
We reveal our character not by being acted upon, but by acting. It’s okay to write an essay in which something happens to you, but better to write an essay in which you do something.