Rule 2: Trust Your Gut
what adcoms want to see is something that gives them insight into you. Many applicants look at this from an external content point of view, such as the OP here in repairing his/her academics to reapply. But what does that say about you, how did you feel when not being able to apply, what values, internal qualities that he/she engage within themselves to face and overcome this obstacle. So my "fable" about the family BBQ was about bringing members of a tension filled, somewhat broken family back together, not how itself how to make good burgers.
As to the OP here, while the story of repairing yourself and the internal obstacles in doing so could lend itself to this, it raises another issue. You are laying bare your direct academic faults and negative factors for the adcom. That tends perhaps to be a bit more of gamble than other topics but it begs the question: do you sweep the dirt under the rug or do you take your skeletons out of the closet and dance with them. I actually tend to the latter but the only way to do figure this out is to write it up for yourself and see if it works. You can always decide to go another route but if you go this way, be completely bold, do not try to minimize, do not try to write thinking about what the committee will think but only how you want to express it. For this to be effective it must read true, passionate, motivated and committed. This should feel right to you if you go this route.
