Summary of Unteaching the Five-paragraph Essay

466 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: Summary of the five paragraph essay

In an excerpt of Unteaching the Five-Paragraph Essay," Marie Foley reveals how the Five-Paragraph Essay formula contradicts writing instructor's most basic goals. Foley shows that the formula deters from generating individual thinking. In today's society, essays are used by millions of people in order to express their different ideas. The Five-Paragraph Essay formula was originally developed to help retain the efficiency and clarity of the essay. Foley, however, believes that this process eventually separates the student from his or her written expression and should be used only as a first step tool for beginning student writers. Foley insists that the formula blocks discovery, squelches authenticity and undermines the reader's need for coherence. Foley shows that patterns of organization and more natural thinking can benefit the student.

Foley feels that students no longer feel the need to continue thinking about their topic once they have met their quota of three body paragraphs. Foley states, "the prefabricated structure invites students to fill the five slots wit what they a...

Show More
Related

  • Unteaching The Five Paragraph Essay By Marie Foley

    336 Words  | 1 Pages

    “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,

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Kill The Five-Paragraph Essay

    506 Words  | 2 Pages

    The five-paragraph essay is perhaps the only kind of essay many students hear about. Argumentative essays, research papers, and even book reports have a tendency to fall into that formula strictly and allow for little flexibility. This can be a tedious and boring process, as John Warner’s fervent argument insists. However, Kerri Smith demonstrates a stronger argument with her defense of the five-paragraph essay by emphasizing throughout that it is simply a building block for more elaborate essays and by using credible influencers that prove her point effectively.

    Read More

  • Kill The Five Paragraph Essay By John Warner

    413 Words  | 1 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Unbroken Essay

    742 Words  | 2 Pages

    One main idea of this book was that with the right mindset anything is possible. This is proven in the book when Louie is in the concentration camp and has to hold up a large piece of wood while having the Japanese guards stare at him. This shows that he had the mindset that he could outlast the guards and that he could overcome any obstacles in life.

    Read More

  • Paragraphs Socratic Seminar

    607 Words  | 2 Pages

    The word evil is defined as profoundly immoral and malevolent. The immoral or unethical things we sometimes find ourselves doing are a result of desperation, confusion and anger. Once we realize what our actions have become, we either feel relieved or guilty, afraid of the possible outcome. Our first instincts are to try and cover up our immoral actions with actions that in our minds will fix the problem; more immoral thoughts and actions. Honesty and truth seem so distant in these situations as our desperation and fear of judgment direct our irrational choices. In Macbeth, Macbeth and Lady Macbeth experience the guilt of their role in the King’s death. As a result, Macbeth does not admit to his crime for fear of his life being taken, but instead plots against Banquo to cover his tracks. Though murder is an extreme case, the same thoughts and morals apply in the situations we face everyday. A lie, in fear of the consequences, can cause more pain and guilt than we intended thus another lie is created which adds strength to the first lie. Evil is a strong word, when heard it creates...

    Read More

  • Dancing With Professors By Patricia Limerick And Shitty First Drafts

    566 Words  | 2 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

  • Analysis of Mike Bunn's 'How to Read Like a Writer' and Other Articles

    1549 Words  | 4 Pages

    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,

    Read More

  • Jean Anyon Essay On Social Class

    826 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Self-Analysis Essay of a Writer

    1134 Words  | 3 Pages

    My portfolio absolutely reflects my understanding of persuasive writing. Persuasive writing focuses on the ability to formulate an essay that takes an argumentative stance, but takes the opposition into consideration as well. My portfolio also represents the goals and objectives of persuasive writing. The essays I have written for this course demonstrate that I have certainly developed my critical thinking skills, and developed, or better yet, mastered my communication and personal responsibility skills; but, because of my occasional lack of analysis and issues with word choice, my writing process is not perfected.

    Read More

  • Unchained Essay

    756 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Unchained” by L.B. Tillit, “Unchained” is a book that talks about the life of TJ, the main character, who's been raised by drug addict parents. His dad dies because of the drugs. He joins a gang, and when his mom found out, she told him that his father was afraid. That he tried to push them away so many times until he couldn’t take living in fear, so he bought drugs from them, instead of joining them. That this kept them off his back. He always thought he was a failure because he could never join the gang. He never wanted to. But TJ knew he was like his father, except that he did join the gang. He was afraid of living in fear. TJ knew that if he joined the gang, he would have to hurt people, he didn’t want to. But he did it anyway.

    Read More

  • Needs Analysis: Writing in High School

    1125 Words  | 3 Pages

    Students struggle to understand writing prompts. Instead of starting with a strong topic and thesis statement they are frustrated and confused by what is expected of them. They are unable to begin the process and cannot organize their thoughts into a written response.

    Read More

  • What I Have Learned in My English Writing Class

    1049 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Big Short Essay

    576 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Big Short, a 2015 film directed by Adam McKay, follows three separate but parallel stories of the US mortgage housing crisis. The first story follows Michael Burry, a capital hedge fund manager, who accurately predicts the housing bubble and decides to short the housing market. The film begins by explaining what would eventually become one of the foundations of the US banking industry, the mortgage backed security, or MBS. A mortgage backed security is an asset backed security where the asset is a typical home mortgage. Mortgage backed securities were authorized in 1968, when President Lyndon Johnson authorized the Charter Act.

    Read More

  • The Big Short Essay

    647 Words  | 2 Pages

    ONE’S WEAKNESS COULD BE OTHER’S STRENGTH “The Big Short” is an adaptation of Michael Lewis’s best-seller of the same name. The movie narrates a handful of the main players in the creation of the credit-default swap (CDS) market who attempted to bet against the collateralized debt obligation (CDO) bubble and thus ended up obtaining a financial advantage from the global catastrophe of 2007–08. The movie primarily focuses on the eccentric nature of the type of person who bets against the market or goes against the grain. Adam McKay, the director of “The Big Short” realizes the fact that financial jargons and the chronology of the financial calamity is highly complex and intricate for conventional audience to grasp in a two-hour movie.

    Read More

  • Persuasive Essay Reflection

    905 Words  | 2 Pages

    Over the past semester, I have found the most challenging part of this course to simply be the transition from high school composition classes to college. Because writing expectations are so different in college than in high school, even with AP and Dual Enrollment “college level” classes, I first found myself being overwhelmed with the pressure to write the perfect first draft. The pressure came from knowing how much a final draft of a paper contributed to my grade. This left me sitting in front of my computer for hours at a time with thoughts of what I wanted to say racing through my head, but unable to deliver these thoughts into organized, structured sentences. I learned, through writing my persuasive essay, that instead of trying to write the paper start to finish and already in its perfect form, it is easier for me to look at the paper through its different components and focus on them individually, then work to best organize my ideas fluently.

    Read More

More about Summary of Unteaching the Five-paragraph Essay

Open Document