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My all-time favorite teacher was my eleventh grade World Literature teacher, Mrs. Godshall. She would often pose open ended problems to the class to try and challenge us. She had a fresh teaching style and was quick to incorporate social media and current events into her lessons to get us involved, but she still used the traditional banking method Paulo Freire describes in his essay entitled The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education. Freire describes the banking concept as the act of teachers ‘depositing’ information into their students, similar to a vessel being filled. Mrs. Godshall used this method. She did not get to choose the material she was teaching during some aspects of the course and had to occasionally teach in the lecture
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Godshall taught us to follow a standardized essay format. She reinforced the five paragraph essay format that we had learned in middle school because it was a clear and concise layout that was easy to grade. She also knew that the five-paragraph format was used on the Keystone exams, the PSSAs, and in twelfth grade English class. It would be hard to break away from the five-paragraph essay format completely because we had used it for all of high school and most of middle school before that course. Freire might argue against these teachings because when a student is forced to use only one format for essays. They lack the freedom to figure out different ways of writing and what layouts work best with different types of essays. Then, when the have to write a paper later in life they may struggle to break out of the set essay mold they have been taught, thus inhibiting their writing abilities for further development. In Freire’s essay The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education, he emphasizes the need for consciousness in the class room to prevent the students from becoming comatose information “receptors” (Freire 2). I liked how the five- paragraph essay setup was clear for students because it taught them how to write to satisfy all their teachers in high school, even though it would be considered banking. This essay format has not hindered me as a writer but instead helped me develop my composition skills. Not worrying about the format of the essay has freed me to concentrate more on
“Unteaching the Five Paragraph Essay” by Marie Foley demonstrates how a five paragraph essay formula disturbs the thought process of the students and limits what they can write. A five paragraph essay is an introduction with the main idea, with three supporting topics showing the relationship to the main idea, and a conclusion summarizing the entire essay. Foley argues that this formula forces students to fill in the blank and meet a certain a word limit. She noted that this formula was intended for teachers in the education system to teach an overcrowded class how to write. While it is beneficial for the first-time students learning how to write. In the long run, this standard destroys any free style writing, new connections between a topic,
However, their critical analysis of FYW and strong points for other teaching methods, one’s takeaway from the article is the question, “why even teach FYW”? It’s evident that content and context are the key points in academic writing, so why then do we even make the FYW a mandatory class? A student doesn’t need a semester to understand what content is, for some they already understand what it is, and for those who don’t they should still be able to learn it, in a week. The misconception of writing being universal is very true, but for a student to improve on one’s writing, the easiest solution is to have him or she participate in that discipline. In a realistic world, the more probable solution to most of the problems Down and Wardle bring up is eliminate the course and replace it with a class that allows a student to see and understand the writing in their field without the repercussion of grades. Thus students get more experience within their field and get to learn firsthand what academic writing in their discipline consist
However, though John Warner’s argument is strong, Kerri smith’s argument is stronger. In Kerri Smith’s article “In Defense of the Five-Paragraph Essay,” She claims that the five-paragraph essay should stay taught in schools as a guideline for a well-structured essay. She explains the five-paragraph essay as an “introduce-develop-conclude structure” that even great expository writing follows this structure (Smith 16). She purposefully communicates to her audience this idea to show that this structure gives students the knowledge and capability to write a professional essay. The five-paragraph essay includes the three key points to have a well-structured and organized essay. By mentioning that other great writers use this form of structure, she creates a stronger argument as to why the five-paragraph essay is important to education. She continues her article by explaining her early stages of writing and how she was taught; over time, her teachers would show her new ways to improve her writing which, in the end, she was told to think “of those five paragraphs simply as a mode of organization” (Smith
Education has become stagnant. Intelligent individuals are still being molded, but the methods of education are creating individuals who lack free will. Through deep analytical understandings of education, both Walker Percy’s essay, “The Loss of the Creature,” and Paulo Freire’s essay, “The Banking Concept of Education,” have been able to unravel the issues and consequences of modern-day education. Despite creating clever people, Percy and Freire believe that the current form of education is inefficient because it strips away all sovereignty from the students and replaces it with placid respect for authorities, creating ever more complacent human beings in the long run.
In Patricia Limerick’s article “Dancing with Professors”, she argues the problems that college students must face in the present regarding writing. Essays are daunting to most college students, and given the typical lengths of college papers, students are not motivated to write the assigned essays. One of the major arguments in Limerick’s article is how “It is, in truth, difficult to persuade students to write well when they find so few good examples in their assigned reading.” To college students, this argument is true with most of their ...
I agree with what Allen states in the article “The Inspired Writer vs. the Real Writer” because of how much my writing skills had evolved over the years. When I first started in high school, I believed I was a horrible writer and I struggled a lot just to write a few paragraphs. However, after determination, and several trials and errors, I was able to improve greatly on my skills. In Irvin’s article, “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?” goes over the myths about writing. When I first started to write essays, I believed some of the myths that Irvin talks about in the article. Such myths were the five paragraph essay and the use of “I.” However, the more experience I gained in writing, the more I realized how the five paragraph essay is more of a suggestion. The format might had helped when I first started, but I had grown apart of it now. In addition, I had learned how the use of “I” is situational. In some of my past essays, I have used “I” to help develop my essays. In Bunn’s article “How to Read Like a Writer,” it mentions the importance of Reading Like a Writer. When I first started writing essays in high school, my essays were cookie cutter. The essays were not imaginative and lack literary devices. However, the more I payed attention to how an author writes, the more creative my essays become. I am able to include methods that give creativity in my writing,
We would do research on a subject or a person, and write about them. We, once again, were not allowed to be unique in our writing or think creatively or critically. This is the time when I was taught the five paragraph essay. As stated in Gray’s article, the five paragraph essay is detrimental to students’ writing. This format for writing is damaging because it doesn’t allow students to express their own ideas about a topic. It does not allow for any creativity or uniqueness in a paper. In tenth grade, I wrote many papers for my English class, but I never once got an A on them. I was led to believe that my writing was weak because I could not relate to what I was writing about. I did not have any emotional connection to the research papers I had to write, and it made it harder for me to write them. I had grown up not being allowed to think critically, and therefore, my papers in high school lacked creativity and deeper
Consistency, is what essay formats seek to provide for readers. Without essay formats, readers may find themselves lost in the style of the author’s text rather than contemplating the ideas and thoughts that the author wants the reader to acknowledge. However, why is it that there are so many different essay formats? Wouldn’t it be simpler to just have one universal essay format? The two most widely used formats, MLA and APA, both have great degree of similarity as well as very distinct differences. Most of the similarities exist due to their effectiveness. On the other hand, the two formats’ distinct differences such as in-text citations or setting aside a whole page for a title, serve to strengthen the clarity of ideas within a field of study the author is trying to convey. Different formats exist due to the specific necessities fields of study require in order to convey their ideas to the reader.
Education is a topic that can be explored in many ways. Education is looked at in depth by both Richard Rodriguez in his essay, “The Achievement of Desire”, and by Paulo Freire in his essay, “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education.” After reading both essays, one can make some assumptions about different methods of education and exactly by which method Rodriguez was taught. The types of relationships Rodriguez had with his teachers, family and in life were affected by specific styles of education.
In Paulo Freire’s essay “The Banking Concept of Education” he talks about how in education there is no conversation between the teachers/professors and their students. In this essay there are a few points I do disagree with, such as that there are some class in which there cannot really be any conversation or discussion, for example mathematics cannot be disproven because there are theorems and concrete facts, so teachers and professors have to teach for memorization. Another reason I disagree with Freire’s way teaching is because in the banking concept Freire is against when teachers are just telling students things and they are regurgitating them, but some students learn better using memorization for learning in the class room and also when studying. The next point I disagree with in Freire’s essay is he doesn’t really look at it from the teachers stand point, because in the United States at least the teachers are now forced to only teach certain points in their subject because of all the standardize testing that they now have in place, specifically grade school. The last thing in Freire’s essay that I disagree with is how he seems to kind of put down teachers.
In The “Banking” Concept of Education,” Brazilian philosopher Paulo Freire profoundly elaborates his idea of education as a concept. Freire supports his premise through use of teachers’ and students’ roles by breaking down education into detailed segments. Paulo Freire’s purpose is to explain the key components in order to define education. Given the smooth language within his essay, Freire appears to be writing to an audience who is interested and motivated to have a good education.
The passage “The ‘Banking’ Concept of Education” by Paulo Freire discusses two different forms of education, “banking education” and “problem-posing education”. The former is an education model in which a teacher “deposits” information into the minds of students. The latter is a model where teachers and students interact, question, and communicate together. I’ve definitely had a lot of experience with the banking model of education, especially in the public school system. I would get frustrated with memorizing useless facts, and having teachers that talked at me, not with me.
middle of paper ... ... A fight for the right to evenhanded schooling should always be present because nothing should privatize someone from their own education. Teachers and students are now able to establish and promote creative lessons that will fulfill each other in multiple ways. These lessons may associate both “banking” and “problem-posing” concepts; it all depends if appropriate usage is given or not.
I have learned many things throughout the course of the term, including such things as: how to write an essay and how to improve on essays that I have already written, how to locate and composite better research through the use of numerous resources found at the campus library, the internet, and the “Common Sense” textbook, how to cite research, examples, and quotations properly within the contents of my research paper as well as document it accurately according to MLA standards. Through the exploration of the “Subjects and Strategies” textbook, I have learned nine different methods used when writing an effective essay and how the different writing styles affect the overall theme and tone of the essay when used properly. This past semester, I have encountered many difficulties when trying to write these essays, but through the use of the textbooks, the aide of the instructor, and once I was able to classify the different types of essays and styles, I found them possible to overcome.
In this course I experienced an important change in my beliefs about teaching; I came to understand that there are many different theories and methods that can be tailored to suit the teacher and the needs of the student. The readings, especially those from Lyons, G., Ford, M., & Arthur-Kelly, M. (2011), Groundwater-Smith, S., Ewing, R., & Le Cornu, R. (2007), and Whitton, D., Barker, K., Nosworthy, M., Sinclair, C., Nanlohy, P. (2010), have helped me to understand this in particular. In composing my essay about teaching methods and other themes, my learning was solidified, my knowledge deepened by my research and my writing skills honed.