Your first essay on a topic won’t be smart. Your fourth will be better. Write the first three.

Early drafts on an unfamiliar subject are weak because you are still working out what you think, and that process cannot be skipped by waiting for a better idea. Each attempt clarifies the next one, so a fourth essay is good partly because the first three absorbed the confusion. Judging yourself by the first is judging a rehearsal.

Write the weak one and finish it rather than circling the opening. Hand it in, read the comments, write another on the same theme. Three rounds in a term changes what you can do more than any amount of planning.