5-Paragraph Writing Flaws

In the article “Unteaching the Five Paragraph Essay”, Marie Foley intere that the five paragraph essay format is blameworthy of high school graduate unpreparedness for college coursework and the need of remedial classes. Foley stated that “Many college freshman enter composition course alienated from writing”(P.2) Foley also claim that “teaching the five paragraph formula this harms student in some fundamental ways….i'll-preparing them for academic and real world writing”(P.3) This paper is going to analyse Marie foley article by brake down the reason and problem behind the Five paragraph essay.

On February 22, 2016 author John Warner published an article on Just Visiting entitled “Kill the 5-Paragraph Essay.” Warner creatively talks about how rudimentary of a structure this type of essay holds. Writers are locked inside a cage of regulations and guidelines making them unable to write the essay as they please, but rather having to piece together regulated sentences and paragraphs because that’s what they have been told would score high on certain test questions. The article targets people of all kinds, but is more directed towards early college aged students. The purpose behind this article is to get them to expand their horizon, disregard all the regulations they have been previously taught and start to write in a much more open-minded sense.

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

Throughout White’s essay, it was apparent that the use of many strategies was used to persuade the reader. Among these strategies, I was able to conclude that his essay was intended to the mass majority of the population. White’s method, in his belief, is highly successful towards many teachers. He says, “ A lot of teachers actually like the five-paragraph theme as much as I do.” This statement shows us that White may have intended to stand with the bandwagon on this topic. Even though he believes that many teachers are fond of the five-paragraph theme, he also states, “I don’t know why some teachers seem to dislike it so much.” This shows us that he can present both sides of the argument, which can open many solutions to the reader.

Teaching the process of a five-paragraph essay seems to be a popular strategy when it comes to teaching new writers; however, not everyone agrees that five-paragraph essays are the best way to go about introducing the writing process. John Warner, author of “Kill the 5-Paragraph Essay” believes the process gives writers little freedom and is a “tool for the worst of teachers to hide amongst the good.” On the other hand, Kerri Smith, author of “In the Defense of the Five-Paragraph Essay” claims “students who know the five-paragraph essay intimately are more prepared to take on the challenge of college-level writing.” Both first-year composition professors make great arguments; however, Warner’s article seems to argue his point effectively.

Although I was a junior and only two-years away from being an independent college student, I was still attached and only aware of how to write using the five paragraph essay guidelines. Immediately when assigned my first six page research paper, thoughts of how this would even be possible when I have not written more than five paragraph? Because I had only written based on structure my entire life, I began researching different structures on how I could write this six page paper, completely being blinded by the fact that a structure was not necessary. The required length of the paper was not the only difficult factor of the assignment.

In the article “Unteaching the five-paragraph Essay”, Foley Marie, disputes that the five-paragraph formula does not allow students to think in a critical way and prevents them from discovering new information. According to Foley “the prefabricated structure invites students to fill the five sots with what they already know, thus often depriving them of the pleasure of discovering new ideas”. The reason why the five-paragraph formula continues to be taught to students because its easier for teachers to teach it the class rather then teaching individually. Although students feel nervous when writing, they hardly create something theirs. The author believes the formula its useful for beginner students writers “it helps them to overcome writers

“What format did you use when writing an assignment for your writing classes in college?”, I asked. I was surprised to find that Mr. Demas followed a format that's considered a myth in “Five Myths about Writing” in the book Conversations About Writing. He claims himself to be a “big five paragraph essay guy”; intro, three paragraphs for the body, and conclusion. Even in his more in depth writing that had to be more than five paragraphs, he states, he follows the same format only having a couple of paragraphs explaining each point. “It was basically a three point justification of my thesis”. Mr. Demas also includes outlining has helped a lot and he spends most of his time outlining. “If I can get a good outline done, the paper just wrote itself

The five-paragraph formula is a destructive formula that cuts the blood flow of creativity from students. As Campbell essentially argues in his paper, “Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay.” Campbell’s main idea that he reiterates and stresses over and over again; is that the five-paragraph formula doesn’t properly allow students to express themselves with their own unique voice through writing. The alternatives to the five-paragraph formula are better suited for students as they allow students to use as he stated, “their authentic, authoritative voices."

The III Effect of the Five Paragraph Theme article by Kimberly Wesley is more about persuading students to write other types of essays rather than just the common five paragraph essay that’s been taught for countless years. In my opinion, I prefer not to write my essays in the five paragraph theme because it isn’t remarkably conducive to not only high school students like me, but as well as other writers. As of my own experience in writing throughout my school years, there’s no doubt in confessing that I have had more than three main ideas for a certain essay, while on the other hand, there have been essays where I would struggle to come up with even two ideas! According to a college student (my sister), I have been told that the FPT is not

After a while, it is hard to find mistakes in your own writing. You can get tired and make careless mistakes. Soon you may forgot to do everthing correct and that is why you are using this website to help you catch some of your errors. We will keep track of the spelling and grammar mistakes in a a log and then make a note of then when we are conferencing.

A person's strength was always his weakness and vice versa. When it comes to reading and writing, I have many strengths and weaknesses. My past writing and reading experiences have made me into the writer/reader that I today. Strengths help me excel in my read/write, but the weaknesses do bring me in a stump at times. When writing an essay, you can have a very high vocabulary, but not have the best of grammar. The good thing about weaknesses is that they can be worked on to be made into a strength. Many people achieve this by setting goals and making the new one harder and harder. Without strengths or weaknesses or even goals, how would people learn from their mistakes, become better at what they're not or achieve their aims?

As a writer you make mistakes with your work, but you can also fix things, so the next time you won 't make those mistakes again. In the area of writing I feel like I can use some more improvement with my punctuation and where I place them. When an assignment does come up and after I write it each time I learn something new. Not only writing in this class can be easy at times it can also be challenging, which I love about these assignments. I enjoy writing because at times I do get challenged, but I enjoy that challenge that Mr.Perry gives me, because it helps me improve as a writer.Overall as a writer in the beginning I felt like I was not a great but now as the semester is starting to end I feel more confidant and I feel I can write

Over this semester I feel that I’ve not only developed into a better writer but also have grasped a better understanding of the writing process, which is arguably most important; having a solid foundation for my writing technique is the key to writing well. Throughout middle school and high school, I have always been told to use the "five paragraph format" when writing essays, but now that I’m in college, I understand that I have been limiting my creativity and not expressing my opinions and ideas to their fullest extent. To be a good writer I must put time and effort into my topic and fully understand the main idea to write a satisfactory essay. So far, I feel as if I’m doing alright. `When I first begin the writing process I always start by typing out the full story. Personally, I can’t sit down and plan what I’m going to write about; formal drafting makes me feel as if I have writers' block. Over the years I have taken bits and pieces of advice about my writing and incorporated those snippets of guidance and suggestions into what my writing style is today. I don’t think I’m bad writer but I could work on developing more of my essays into “A cakes.”

After carefully looking over my past papers I have come up with my strengths and more importantly, my weaknesses. My strengths are constant: picking strong words, having an in-depth thesis, and having a great thesis. My weaknesses, however, change with each paper, but generally include not enough explanations, too much passive voice, not enough words per sentence, and being redundant. On average, I have four items that I did not explain well enough. I believe that I do not explain somethings enough, because either I foolishly think that the average person would know that information or am so focused on were the paper is going that I forget to explain enough. For my passive use, I found that my average percent