“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,
According to Runciman, there are many plausible reasons that students and other people don’t enjoy writing. Evidence, assumptions, and language and tone are the basis for which Runciman makes his argument. Overall, this argument is effective because reliable and well known sources are used in a logical fashion. Also, the assumptions made about the audience are accurate and believable. Runciman used his assumptions wisely when writing his claim and in turn created a compelling, attention capturing argument. The article was written so that students and teachers at any level could understand and easily read it. This argument is interesting, captivating, relevant through its age, and can relate to students and teachers at almost every academic level.
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.
In her article, “Lecture Me. Really”, Molly Worthen addresses the issue college students know all too well: how to lecture properly. Published in the New York Times, Worthen writes a passionate article about lecturing but from the perspective of a professor. Worthen presents the idea that lecturing, although some may think ineffective in the classroom, is a way to truly challenge and engage students into critically thinking. Worth dictates this idea with an excellent build up logical argument but lacks the proper evidence to support her claims creating a faulty argument.
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
Based on my high school experience, my view of writing has always been that the five-paragraph essay will be able to carry me through my life, and therefore, I would not have to learn another essay writing style but master this one. But in the essay “Breaking the Five-Paragraph-Theme Barrier” by Thomas Nunnally, we are told that “Students need to understand that they practice on the FPT to learn the principles of effective composition, principles that can be applied to any writing task, not to master a single format that will answer all their writing needs.” (70-71). In other words, Nunnally is saying that the five-paragraph theme (FPT) is supposed to be a guideline to determine ideas and a general concept of an essay but not be the only way of writing. I agree that the FPT is a good starting point in essay writing, a point that needs emphasizing since so many people believe that they cannot stray from this template, as I once did. In this essay, I will summarize the main ideas of Nunnally’s essay, and my response
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
All through our academic years we were taught how to write. Starting with elementary, when the form of writing was first introduced, it consisted of compositions with simple prompts about our weekends. Now, that there was an idea of how to write, middle school English teachers began teaching students a writing format. This format is commonly known as the five-paragraph essay, which entailed an introduction, three supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The five-paragraph essay began being strongly implemented in high school and it leads to many debates whether or not it benefited students proceeding into college. I believe the five-paragraph format was helpful for high school students starting out, but is not as beneficial to freshman
On August 19, 1992 in Houston, Texas, Mary Fisher, the HIV-positive daughter of prominent Republican fundraiser Max Fisher, gives her keynote speech “A Whisper of Aids” to the Republican National Convention (1). Fisher’s purpose is “to lift the shroud of silence which has been draped over the issue of HIV/AIDS” epidemic (1). Fisher succeeds in her overall persuasiveness by effectively using ethos, logos, and pathos throughout her address to the conservative Republican Party to advocate for awareness, education, and the prevention of HIV/AIDS.
A Critical Review of "Helping Students Meet the Challenges of Academic Writing", by Fernsten, Linda A.; Reda, Mary
I used to hate writing a lot. Especially when I was in Academic English classes. I don’t like how they forced us to use the five paragraph essay. Therefore, when you told us we should ditch the five-paragraph format in the beginning, I was like “I knew that’s not right!” At first I don’t understand some of the assignments that you gave to us. However, soon I realized that they all built up towards the final critical essay.
I never really liked my parents. I found out in high school that if you disagree with anyone, expect detention. Now I found myself in a new setting. I was surrounded by people yearning to write, straining to listen, dying to learn. I was in expository writing 220. I looked around and noticed that everyone seemed to be sitting in the proper first day arrangement, guys on one side, girls on the other. One person refused to be like the others in the group. He crouched down on the table. I would later get to know him as Dave, the writing center guy. As I started to get comfortable a man walked in. He was slender in build and walked with authority but looked more like one of us than one of them. He walked in crumbling tennis shoes and matched awkwardly, like people used to in the seventies. Things would be a little different then I was a custom to, it turned out he was the professor. Weeks passed. He taught us how to catch errors and how not to write. He taught us that theme writing was bad, real bad. He taught us how to use our voice and how it important it was to get the feeling out of a paper. Then he told us to write. I looked around the room. I watched people with confused eyes, flaring nostrils, pulsating ears. "How do we stray away from theme writing when that's all we done our whole lives?" Nobody asked the question, "why have we done that our entire life?" I can tell you why. It's a simple way of writing and except in this classroom, it's excepted college wide as an excellent way to set up a paper. So is our professor a little confused? Theme writing and simple five paragraph papers are exactly were it's at.
Walking into this class this year I was so small minded in the art of writing. Thinking that I already knew everything about it, I soon realized that creative writing wasn’t a joke. To me writing was putting pencil to a paper and making the words go to together, but Mr. Sullivan showed us that there is much more to writing than just a piece of wood and a piece of paper. He showed us that there are five steps to a perfect story.
As I bring my third term at Southern New Hampshire University to a close, I have come to realize that writing is akin to working a jigsaw puzzle. When first viewed, there are pieces everywhere; some are upside down or sideways and there is no structure yet. I usually have a vague sense of what the picture appears like in my head; nevertheless, I occasionally remain unsure how to fit the pieces together. Personally, the remarkable areas of learning in this course were the organizational tools, thesis statements, narrative storytelling, and persuasive essays because each taught me the necessary mechanics and tools to complete this composition puzzle in a way that pulls these fundamentals together in a cohesive, easily understood manner.
“For many students essay-writing is the bane of their lives. They question the usefulness of essays, make heavy weather of writing them, and generally try to put them off for as long as they can get away with it”(Rowntree,D. 1974, p.65).
I 'd like to say that my style as a writer has come a long way. However I would not argue I still may have much farther to go as well. My Sophomore year of high school was the golden year for five paragraph essays, what I mean is I was constantly writing essays in a five paragraph format, and looking back on I see that as a blessing as well as a curse. It was a gift because to write a five paragraph essay became extremely easy for me. Yet, it was a cure because to write in any other form became much more difficult. So, it comes as no surprise that my two rhetorical analysis papers were originally written in five paragraph essay form. Also, I was never a fan of revising, so when it came to making changes I either did the bare minimum or made no changes at all. However, this time around I made very drastic changes to both Paper one and Paper two. Within this reflection I would like to discuss how this literary condition limited my writing for both my first and second papers. I would also like to discuss the changes I made to both papers to break free from the chains of 5 paragraphs.