Breaking Routines in Writing Essay

Unteaching The Five- Paragraph essay by Marie Foley is a light hearted but argumentive piece focusing on the way most school aged children are taught to write. Foley's main point comes down to the very first words in the essay; “The five-paragraph formula confuses and alienates students and undermines our most basic goals as writing instructors." Foley believes that by teaching children to write in a formulated manner we are not letting them explore and learn through their own writing. We are instead giving them the freedom to discontinue the thought process once they feel that the essay they have produced meets the formula standards they have been kept to, and refuse to part with.

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.

Foley contends that in addition to blocking discovery, the Five-Paragraph Essay formula squelches the student's authenticity. Foley states, "filling the structure with the requisite 500 words, they go through the motions of writing, but they seldom create something authentically theirs," (232). Foley knew that students feel much more at liberty to freely express themselves in their personal journals and in their letters to friends, but take on a different identity for the essay. The students' character, personality, and convictions are locked away until given the opportunity to free write.

When I think back to the time right before we started writing our essay I realize that in order to come up with any ideas for the paper we had to chew on one thought for over ten minutes. For example when I read the sentence that we wrote about fast-paced live of professionals that reside in the city, I remember that just that one sentence took us about fifteen minutes to finally use it on our paper. It seems like we should have done some free-writing before we started this assignment. When we started to write this essay we didn’t have a clear visual on our thesis. We had lots of information that was scattered and had no connection between the Robot, the Jeep and the advertisement that was being talked about. In this essay I included lots

I began writing with basic vocabulary and barely any sentence variety. As the year progressed, I learned to advance my vocabulary and word choice in addition to incorporating a diversity of sentence structure. Nearing the end of the school year, I acknowledge that I have grown and learned more about writing. I anticipate that I will receive even more arduous writing assignments that require more research and time. Although it will be challenging, I feel confident that I will do well because I feel well prepared from all I’ve done this year. As I grow older, I will have to continue to write. I know I can take the knowledge I’ve learned this year and apply it to future papers for years to

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.

The movie “Breaking Away” presents the story of a young man from working class origins who seeks to better himself by creating a persona through which he almost, but not quite, wins the girl. The rivalry between the townies and the college students sets the scene for the story of four friends who learn to accept themselves as they "break away" from childhood and from their underdog self-images.

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.

Throughout my time writing at the City College of New York, I experienced a slow and dramatic transition to my first semester of this college course. During that time, I've learned from several feedback and lessons from certain peers and my professor. Because of the strict comments written in my drafts by my professor, a few helpful suggestions to include in my writing, and a few miserably failures, I was able to see how my writing and habits have changed during the duration of this course. Back in high school, I was always comfortable writing only five paragraph essays (Introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion), but I've never expected to write something more complex. Here, I was encouraged to include as much detail as I can instead of writing something vague

All throughout my years of schooling, I’ve had just about, one paper that was about one page long, due every year. My papers never had to be more than one page in length. Therefore, I did not have to do much writing or do many essays. Surely not enough to remember any of the assignments. Writing has never been something I enjoyed doing, so I never bothered to many any memories of my writing experiences. I did not think it was necessary to remember any of them since I only had to do them to get a grade. The only writing experience I remember was the first assignment I had in this English 100 class about a writing experience. All week long, I sat there thinking about what to write about, but nothing came to mind as a topic. Then, one thing came to mind, but it was so very vague, I could not write the length that was needed for the assignment. I could only think of a few sentences to write for it. After sitting for a few moments longer, I thought, how about I write about how difficult it was for me to write this essay before it was due.

A typical high-school student struggles in learning new concepts, in AP Language & Composition many students learn new challenging concepts which make the class difficult.

When tragic, major events happen in the United States, you can always expect an argument or something to unfold about how to prevent something similar from happening again. On October 1st, a man named Stephan Paddock, shot and killed 59 people including himself, while injuring an additional 546. This shooting is now considered the deadliest attack in United States history, so of course you can expect an ongoing political conversation on how to prevent attacks like this. During the attack, Paddock used what is called a “bump stock,” on many of his guns, making his guns’ rapid fire, like an automatic gun, which is what made it so easy for him to open fire and attack so many. After the tragic event, a gun control organization looked into the

In “Breaking the Five-Paragraph-Theme Barrier” professor Thomas Nunnally describes his experience teaching the popular writing tool. The five-paragraph theme requires an introductory paragraph, three middle paragraphs that each have their own ideas, and a concluding paragraph. Nunnally believes that this writing model should only be used as a writing tool and not the backbone to all essays (Nunnally). I agree with Nunnally’s stance, but also think that by the age of sixteen, students should no longer be given the opportunity to rely on the model for writing opportunities. **

Writing has always been something I dread. It’s weird because I love talking and telling stories, but the moment I have to write it all down on paper, I become frantic. It’s almost as if a horse race just begun in my mind, with hundreds of horses, or words, running through my mind, unable to place them in chronological order. Because I struggle to form satisfying sentence structure, it takes me hours, sometimes even days, to write one paper. It’s not that I think I’m a “bad writer,” I just get discouraged easily. Needless to say, I don’t think highly of my writing skills. When I was little I loved to both read and write. I read just about any book I could get my hands on, and my journal was my go to for my daily adventures. Although it’s

Since the beginning of the semester, my writing has changed and evolved to accommodate and sustain longer essays. With longer essays, there is more room for in-depth analysis. Further analyzing a topic has led me to findings that I did not know existed. As I continue to write, I uncover addition and superior methods to approach my writing to the benefit of me and therefore, my audience. Throughout the semester, I have incorporated techniques to further my narrative throughout my writing.