The Five Paragraph Essay and My Own Writing Style

Like transforming from a caterpillar to a butterfly, my writing style transformed from something mediocre to something quite exceptional. In high school, even when I took advanced placement English and Literature courses, I was never good at writing. My writing would lack structure, reasoning, syntax, and a well-defined thesis statement. My inadequate grades on writing assignments lowered my self-esteem, so I assumed I would never enjoy writing papers because I believed I could never improve. However, since attending a university my writing style has improved far beyond my expectation. My EN 101 course enhanced my understanding of the different ways I could approach my writing. Also, it enhanced my comprehension of outlines to complete assignments. Investing quality time into my writing made a substantial difference because I became a stronger writer. Through the late nights, constant revisions, and agonizing head traumas, I learned that my writing is truly spectacular whenever I incorporate well-defined thesis statements, provide sufficient supporting evidence, and maintain a clear focus in my assignments.

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.

Simply spoken, the aging youth are facing a very large dilemma when it comes to making the transition from high school to college level courses. As many have been taught in the past, just as many will be taught in the future, the commonly known 5-paragraph essay is quickly becoming an eyesore in the writer’s community. John Warner published an article in which he deploys a full on assault to persuade others to do away with this type of essay format all together. In his article “Kill the 5-paragraph Essay” Warner establishes his credibility, paints an imaginary picture of the 5-paragraph essay and uses logical and emotional

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 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

During my time spent in the English 110 I endured a writing style of APA that was barely introduced to me in high school. The most beneficial things I learned throughout my research process this year is the use of the writing center and librarians , the online databases, and the moodle forum post allowed me not only to succeed in English 110, but will give me beneficial techniques to use in future papers I will have to write.

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.

Writing a paper on the writing process is pretty hard. The writing process is different from one person to another. You come across questions like, 'What exactly is the writing process?'; and 'Must you follow one persons writing process if yours is different?'; This is where I came across the answer to my questions, write however you wish to write. If one person likes free write first and another person likes to write a draft first, let them do how they please.

Writing was never a known weakness of mine. However, I could never confidently call it a strength. Throughout the course of this semester, my writing style has evolved and I have rid my writing of many habitual mistakes. I have learned to appreciate writing much more, and enjoy the moments where my mind meets words on a paper. Creativity has always been one of my strong suits, but through this course I catered my creativity to compose a variety of essays and speeches. Likewise, public speaking is something that I did not struggle with in the past, yet the structure of the class required a video speeches which was fairly new to me. All in all, I have been able to identify and modify gaps in my composition of writing and speech as a result of this course.

My past writing life has allowed me to learn and grow and develop my voice. The more I write, the more I understand what my voice is and how to use it. Trying to restrict myself to the five-paragraph essay structure inhibits my voice and makes it increasingly more difficult to showcase who I am as a writer in the world. When I remove that structure, I believe my voice can be heard loud and clear. When I write, I can explain my thoughts and ideas succinctly, and I believe that allows me to accomplish what I am trying to do more quickly. I am better at communicating through writing, which has been and will hopefully continue to be a great asset for me as I go through life.

I have wrote many different kind of essay and paper. From a point of view of three person, first person, what you think this person is telling you, to writing how you feel, what changed your life to where do you see yourself in the next 10 years. I enjoyed this writing class and I know my teacher has enjoy my present. The only bad thing I can say is I HATE writing annotated bibliography and anything that have something to do with it,

Over the course of my studies at university, I have grown and learned more about academic writing and numerous writing styles. I believe there is so much room for me to master my writing skills to succeed and complete my degree and improve my academic writing and personal skills through more practice. However, I have become concerned with my first attempt submitting my piece of paper through the online test in the Writers’ Diet diagnostic tool and was labelled ‘flabby’ in my writing. Analysing my errors and referring to the textbook ’Communication Toolkit’ by Grellier and Goerke (2014), also submitting my piece of writing to Grammarly and paper rater I was able to measure my weakness in the area of sentence structure, punctuation and grammar.

There are many writing styles that many people pick up as they go through there many years of schooling. Each person picks up the same type of writing styles but as years go by people seem to pick up there own little types of writing style that separates them from everyone else. As I have gone through many years of English classes I have acquired more and more skills and many more are sure to come as I continue my education. My writing skills have only gotten better from the time of ninth grade English class until today. Since my days back in junior high school I was only taught the basic skills to write papers and since then they have grown to make me a decent writer. I have many strengths and also

1. David’s primary purpose in sending a message is to inform the reader that the car company will not honour the customer’s claim. The writer’s priority is to inform the reader that the company would like to honour the claim, but point out that it could not happen because the warranty is expired.

My writing skills are decent, if I take the time to fully process my thoughts. When it is a timed assignment or test, my skills go right out the window, I concentrate more on answering the prompt rather than the grammar, punctuation, or structure. It’s like a jumbled mess of writing filled with lots of errors. When I’m writing my main goals are to answer the prompt, have good structure, and no grammatical or punctuation errors. These goals sometimes get in the way of me expressing myself freely; if a sentence doesn’t flow right with rest of the paragraph, I will re-examine my paragraph or paper to see if I can conjure up a sentence to finish out my paragraph before moving on to the next paragraph. Another example is if I feel like I don’t