If everyone in your class would make the same thing, make the thing they wouldn’t.

When a prompt produces twenty versions of the same answer, the obvious reading has already been used up. The interesting ground is whatever everyone glanced at and dismissed, usually unoccupied because it looks harder or stranger rather than because it is worse. Going there means risking a piece that does not fit the row of others. It also means yours is the one people stop at.

With your next assignment, write down the first idea you think of and set it aside on purpose. List three you would not normally pick, and make the one that leaves you slightly uneasy.