Mary Mckinsey Unteaching The Five Paragraph Analysis

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

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.

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.

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. **

As the semester approaches a conclusion, I have discovered for myself that I happen to exhibit not simply on how I have endured this semester, but then again also what I have gained in knowledge of. In the past four months, I would consider that I obtain an accomplishment of achievement in improving my writing techniques. The most important principle that I have discovered so far ensues on how to become an improved writer. With each writing assignment, I learned additional methods and skills, which tweaked my capabilities to develop my thoughts in detail on paper, to write clearly, and to organize my essays efficiently. In previous years, I would frequently catch myself irritated believing I had terrible writer’s block standing in my path of writing an organized essay. This created a feeling as if I could not distinguish how to write properly and the reasoning behind my hatred for writing. During high school, I learned the Modern Language Association (MLA) formats for bibliographies and parenthetical citations, consequently at the beginning of the fall semester, I knew only this format. I was able to learned the correct format for the American Psychological Association (APA) style when doing each assignment at hand.

I entered my first-year college composition course believing I was equipped with the knowledge, skill, and ability to write an efficiently researched and well-organized essay. In high school, I learned how to create the traditional five-paragraph paper with its introduction of a thesis, explanation of that claim through three sections riddled with supporting quotes, and conclusion that restated the author’s substantiated statement. This was the prescribed formula I had learned and grown accustomed to using for book reports, compare-and-contrast papers, and research essays and, from my bestowment of high grades and praise, I’d never thought to question or deviate from its pattern. When I attended my first college writing class, I thought

In this journal, written by Elizabeth Wardle, she discusses the bridge between high school level writing and collegiate writing. Although some students come to college well prepared in their writing ability, others fall short of the expectation and often focus too much on the structural nature of writing, rather than the writing itself. Wardle elaborates on the ideas that high school educators typically desire for the students to focus on the information in said paper, in lieu of discovering a wider variety of techniques and genres. A high school student writes a paper to put his/her thoughts onto one cohesive document. It is a rarity to find one student who writes for the art of writing. Wardle does an excellent job

Writing a college-level essay can be tricky, especially if there is lack of inspiration or the ideas aren’t organized well enough to articulate into a draft. However, in the case of higher-level education; students are encouraged to stimulate their learning through writing, in order to acquire an analytical and understanding capacity to be successful in college. Coupled with planning, research, and hard work; writing essays for college becomes an easier task in a short time, resulting in the improvement of critical thoughts. In the article, Using Writing to Promote Reading to Learn in College, Hayes Christopher G, states that, “the written text allows both reader and writer to examine thoughts captured in time and recorded in words, thereby encouraging more complex thinking because constraints imposed by memory have been abolished by the written record” (Hayes 4). After all, more than any other invention, writing has transformed the human consciousness. This mastery gives society the ability to improve every day, by enhancing their personalities, considering that having a good use of language and information, will result in achieving great success. In the article: Reconsidering English Teaching for Improving Non-English Majors’ English writing Ability, Yuru Shen declares how, “it is self-evident that grammar plays a very important role in language learning, including English learning” (Shen 74).With this in mind, understanding that college level composition is important will

Even though Lomott help with the complications of the first draft, I have another issue I have to over come. When I was in high school, my teachers always had the students write five paragraph essays. The first paragraph essay routine did not bother me until I got into college where essays were way longer than five paragraphs. When I attended Summer Bridge, a college program during the summer, I was told our essays had to be three pages long. I was terrified because I knew that I was use to writing five paragraph essays and sometimes five paragraphs only made two pages and sometimes, if lucky, two pages and a half. In the article, “Unteaching the Five-Paragraph Essay,” by Marie Foley, she believes that the five paragraph strategy restricts the students from their ideas and

Over the first and second quarters of Dual Enrollment English at Brooke Point High School, I have grown immensely as a writer. I learned a great deal about how to write a paper, as well as, about myself. In the beginning of this course, I felt as if my assignments were going to overwhelm me; I also felt apathetic about completing them. This led me to create my own personal agenda as to how I would complete my assignments. My plan was to overcome my weaknesses and enhance my strengths within the construction my essays, depth of paragraphs and overall assignments.

My past writing experience has ranged from writing one paragraph free flowing writing, to having a prompt to write about and typing about 4 or 5 pages. In high school, I do not think I have typed more than 5 pages on one topic. When I first started to learn to write, my teachers mainly looked at my grammer or just simple spelling errors or other simple mistakes. However, as I've progressed through school my teachers started to look at paragraph structure, thesis statement, conclusion, citations along with other improtant details that I will be using when I write papers. I did not take compostion in high school as I just took English I, English II, English III, and English IV.

In Elizabeth Wardle’s journal, she discuses the differences between college writing and high school writing. Wardle often found that college students refer to their concepts that were taught in high school. As some students come to college well prepared in writing, other students fall short and don’t quite understand the concept of good writing. Wardle stated that many high school teachers focused on the technique and rules of writing, rather than using your knowledge and simply writing what you know. College students need to focus on their writing rather than the rules of it.

In regards to writing, I have always struggled to meet all of the requirements for a perfect paper that includes a well-organized text filled with rich analytical sentences. In the beginning of the semester I constantly worried about the structure of my writing and its overall material. In high school it was important for me to complete my essays by answering the questions that I was given, but in college, students go more into depth. College students are required to focus on grammar, and well-structured ideas that flow along with rich analytical content. After I was given my first assignment I was pressured to improve my overall work by focusing on structure and developing analytical content. Assignments such as the weekly readings and writing assignments helped me improve my overall work. Through the narrative essay, artist research essay and Storify project I focused on many aspects that improved my writing. For all of my assignments, it was useful to use techniques, such as, reading out loud to revise the structure of my work and going into depth with description.

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 problems with the 5-paragraph writing is the same problems that the author was praising. The problems with this writing is that firstly, the three subtopics do give you a limited way of thinking. You can only give three points, it makes your mind not willing to go in depth about the topic at hand, it doesn't let your brain wander. Then if you want to write more about one of the subpoints, you can’t because you're only allowing yourself 5 paragraphs to write everything. Another thing that the author mentioned was that he writes this way for all his essays, yet gets good grades on it. That might be true, but you’re never going to grow as a writer, your writing is mediocre. You’re brain is trained on only having 5 paragraphs, that makes your