A school can celebrate originality with an assignment that permits only one acceptable interpretation.

Originality is often assessed against a rubric. The task invites creativity and then rewards a particular structure, a particular length, a particular kind of answer, so students learn to produce the appearance of independence within a narrow permitted range. Everyone involved is sincere and the outcome is compliance with a creative vocabulary.

If you set such work, ask whether an unexpected but good response would actually score well. If not, the invitation was not real. And where possible, say plainly which parts are constrained, since students spend enormous effort guessing.