Were you taught to write classic “five paragraph essay” or were you taught to write your essays in some other fashion. Which do you prefer? Which is better?
Personally, in high school (10th grade mostly), they pounded the “five paragraph essay” into us and made us learn how to construct an excellent one. Then when I went to college, it was probably not even the second week, my english teacher says “you will not write a five paragraph essay in this class. That is garbage. I don’t know why they teach that in high school. That isn’t how real writers write.”
All through elementary and middle school it was 100% 5 paragraphs, but in High School they have discouraged it (especially in AP classes, but due to the 40 minute AP time limit on essays, they typically cannot be much longer than 5 or 6 paragraphs).
Grade school strictly enforced the 5 paragraph essay, often marking you off for doing it in any other format (if not automatically failing you). In high school I found that it was highly encouraged my freshman through junior year, and was sometimes required. My senior English teacher has told us the 5 paragraph essay can be used on occasion for some things, but that we need to learn to expand beyond these because, as Sanddrag said, they are usually “garbage”.
I don’t even recall the five paragraph essay thing. Perhaps they did drill it into our skulls in middle school, but in high school, nope. I don’t even remember that, haha. But I write how I write, and apparently that does me fine. =]
We were definently given the drill in middle school, but not as a rule in High school- especially not in honors classes.
I believe that the entire concept is to introduce and familarize students with a well structured, organized essay setup. Not to be used forever as a fit all solution, but just as a training example/template to squeeze and twist until it fits your needs. Perhaps that’s the bit of explanation not taught in high school, and students are getting the wrong impression as they move into higher education? I’d imagine, if professors are already familiar and warn their classes not to attempt one.
I think it is really encouraged, but I’ve never used that format. I always take more than five paragraphs to say what I’m going to say. Really, the five-paragraph format limits what the writer can say and encourages them to write towards a word or sentence goal, not to get their message across. People should be able to say what they are going to say in whatever format they choose, as long as it complies with MLA standars, if that’s the format that the school uses (most do, I think).
Sometimes a writer needs to go into such detail that one paragraph per point is not enough. In order to give proper examples, you really need to have two or even three paragraphs per subject.
On the other end of the spectrum, an essay does not always warrant five paragraphs. Four or even three may be appropriate, depending on the question posed for the essay. It is often painful to read a wordy five paragraph essay that is saying something that could be said in three.
Sorry I got so wordy there. This sort of thing bugs me. :o
I don’t recall when or how strictly, but I was taught to use the 5 paragraph format at some point. I rarely use it rigidly any more. I usually start out with the format, but end up making up my own format as the paper develops. This is mostly dependent on the subject, of course. For one thing, engineering reports have a fairly defined format. Also, my philosophy class called for essays with a more sophistocated format.
I never even heard of a five-paragraph essay until after I became a homeschool mom. Even though I’m the English major, I first heard of this format from my friend the psychology major who now teaches writing classes.
How the emphases change in education! When I was in high school, “creative writing” was the way to go. I think this resulted from 1960s ideology: “Let it all hang out.”
Although essay writing can be tedious, kids graduating from high school today have a better chance than I did of knowing how to write something that demonstrates structured thinking. Developing your thoughts, supporting your statements, and communicating your ideas to your readers are very difficult skills to master, even for students who love to write. Most students, therefore, need plenty of practice in these areas.
Here’s how to tighten the academic thumbscrews: My son’s current English teacher has forbidden students to use first person, second person, or contractions in their essays for the rest of the school year. I think that’s a much stricter standard than is actually being followed in most professional writing these days.
With the exception of the no contractions rule, that’s pretty much how my HS was. Gosh, I’m thinking reading a paper/book/etc without contractions would be quite tiresome.
Then again, starting in my sophomore year I stopped listening to them. I wrote how I wanted to write, and how I could best get across my ideas on paper. I thought the five-paragraph essay was too overused and trite, as well as too restrictive, and overall a bad influence on my writing, so I ditched it. It may have been great in elementary or middle school, but I hated in in high school.
My English teacher did not mind the change; actually my grades went up (and have stayed there) after I stopped following the five-paragraph model. I guess my new style of writing works, because I scored a 710 on the writing section of my last SAT.
That’s how it has been for me since 8th grade. We could not use pronouns, contractions, and were discouraged from writing dialogue until we were properly taught how to use it.
We’ve been taught the “five paragraph” essay for a long time, probably since about 6th or 7th grade. Now that we’re in high school, we do about one or two Writing On Demands. Our English tests usually include a writing portion at the end where we have to write a 5 paragraph essay on the book we just read.
I am very familiar with the 5- paragraph essay, but I’m starting to get away from it now. I still do it a lot for my English class, but not 100% of the time.
Mom, I think that you forgot that the pronouns–except for “one”–are forbidden also.
I was taught the 5 Paragraph Essay in middleschool, and used it freshmen year. Then began to stray away from it sophomore year. Teachers don’t really require it anymore, heck SAT doesn’t really require it either. A well written 4 paragraph essay should get you a pretty decent score. The only thing that’s good about the 5 Paragraph Essay is that it teaches you to organize your thoughts. 1 Introduction, 3 body for support, and Conclusion. My last term paper, the requirement was to have 6 body paragraphs. My essays nowadays have some sort of an introduction, just something to open up, and then anywhere from 2 to 10 body paragraphs with examples and whatnot, and then just a conclusion or some sort.
I considered writing this post in the form of a 5-paragraph essay. I decided that that was a waste of my time. Why? Because strict adherence to some arbitrary stylistic convention doesn’t always serve a useful purpose. (For example, can you spot the telltale signs of informal writing in the previous few sentences?)
Even when writing an essay, there are other ways to go about it. Your primary objective, as an essayist, is to convey an opinion regarding a topic, in a format that is appropriate to the audience. If this objective is served by making like Shakespeare, and busting out a sonnet, then why not? Similarly, there are (potentially) occasions where the driest, most sedate writing style is appropriate. But the key is not to teach writing in a formulaic way, but to teach an understanding of what it takes to engage your audience with the written word.
Seriously? He/she seems to have completely misunderstood the necessity of making this stuff readable. Using third person to the exclusion of all else is like playing tennis with your feet cuffed together; you can still hit a decent opening serve, but you fall flat on your face when you try to do anything creative. Actually, perhaps worse still, it makes you sound like Mr. Data—but that was for intentional comic effect, rather than an actual attempt to sound erudite.
Although there are numerous examples of good essays which make liberal use of personal pronouns, I’ll point instead to something with which everyone ought to be at least a little familar. Consider any one of Bill Clinton’s speeches. Though he might not be universally adored from a political perspective, he’s widely considered one of the best public speakers of our generation. And what does he do to great effect? He interjects personal anecdotes to illustrate points. He uses familiar situations as analogues for whatever topic he’s actually supposed to be discussing. There’s no absolute reason why that’s inadmissible in an essay—all sorts of great writers do it. The key is, as always, to do it in a sensible way.
I fail to see how you’re supposed to learn just what this “sensible way” is, if you’re not allowed to attempt to use it. (And the key word is “attempt”, because sometimes it goes badly.) In the interests of disclosure, I was once (in grade 8) taught the 5-paragraph essay as well. It took one or two assignments to get the hang of it—I’d been writing much as I do here, until that point. But all that it was good for was cementing the idea that you’re supposed to keep referring and relating to your overarching theme, throughout the piece. It should quickly become apparent that the essence of the essay is not the rigid format, but rather that you’re always striving to get the point across to the audience. If you spend an extra sentence or two somewhere, elaborating on a salient point, what’s the harm? You make the essay better, and you’re reprimanded, not rewarded, because of some alleged violation of “the rules”? What kind of FUBAR pedagogy is that?
I’m not sure of the proportion of malice and stupidity that causes the 5-paragraph essay to be the format of choice for some high school classes. But I’m actually rather relieved that many have replied that they’re not forced to waste perfectly good words on essays that are inappropriately structured for the intended purpose. Write creatively, and treat it as a learning experience. Get a feel for what makes sense in a given context, and figure out how to write that way. That’s what education is for.
In all my honors level english classes, they stressed the basic format of thesis statment/outline, then your supporting paragraphs, and closing with a conclusion. Basically, a no less than 5 paragraph essay. In my college class, we go by word counts, but use the same format. So I’ll find myself writing 5 paragraph essays for 500 words and 7-8, or more for 1000 words plus.
In both classes, we are encouraged to follow the ‘rules’ for use of numbers, remove all contractions, and to follow those other basic grammatical rules. However, only in my honors level classes was the usage of “you” forbidden. In college, we are allowed to use it without penalty. However, “I” is forbidden unless the essay warrants it, such as an essay about yourself.
At the Run, we were taught the 5 paragraph thing up to about last year, and then we just practiced strong thesis writing, and in my AP class we’re being stressed the importance of answering the AP essay question correctly and completely.
Personally, I hated with a passion the 5 paragraph essay, I prefer to be more liberal in writing a thesis paper, while still conservative by getting to the point.
