• Home Page
  • Analysis Of Unteaching The Five-Paragraph Essay

Analysis Of Unteaching The Five-Paragraph Essay

Decent Essays
Show More
In the article “Unteaching the Five-Paragraph Essay”, Foley , argues that the five-paragraph formula discourages students from discovering new ideas, and also prevents them from thinking creatively. The five-paragraph formula continues to be taught in high schools is because of teacher survival. According to the author the five-paragraph formula distorts the mindset of the students as well as counters basic goals of writing. Foley argues that "as soon as students meet their quota of three body paragraph, they are free to stop thinking about their topic."
Because the formula of the five-paragraph essay indicates to students that they need only to develop three points that support a thesis, neglecting the connecting relationships between these

Related Documents

  • Superior Essays

    The Old Order Amish Andrea Fishm An Analysis
    • 1032 Words
    • 5 Pages

    The Old Order Amish Andrea Fishm An Analysis

    Another staple in mainstream education, Fishman dislikes the third-person formal essay describing it as “the ominous five-paragraph theme” (Fishman 246). One of Fishman's main concern is the situation that could potentially arise when the home view of literacy does not match the view in the school setting. She writes about the issues of a child conforming to the schools view of literacy. She describes conforming to the schools view as “a demand that seems unfair, uncalled for, and unnecessary, not to mention counterproductive and destructive” (Fishman 247). The passionate and harsh tone itself is potentially distracting; however, it is not nearly as distracting as when she contradicts the statement four paragraphs…

    • 1032 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Superior Essays
    Read More
  • Superior Essays

    Summary Of The Sat's Essay Section By Matthew Malady
    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Summary Of The Sat's Essay Section By Matthew Malady

    In the article, “We Are Teaching High School Students to Write Terribly The many problems of the SAT’s essay section” by Matthew J.X. Malady, argues that the SAT’s writing assessment is having a detrimental effect on students’ writing performance. Malady introduces the writing assessment of the SAT in his introductory. Malady provides the reader with the issues students are experiencing when they are writing their essay. In addition, he provides arguments to why the writing assessment is “unnecessary”.…

    • 495 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Superior Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    In Modest Proposal Rhetorical Analysis
    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages

    In Modest Proposal Rhetorical Analysis

    Restrictions of Essay Writing in a Curriculum: An Evaluative Essay on Fred Stenson’s “In Search of a Modest Proposal Fred Stenson’s essay “In Search of a Modest Proposal” (Essay Writing for Canadian Students with Readings, 340) expresses his disapproval of essay writing in the grade nine curriculum. Stenson feels that essay writing should be a creative process towards student’s personal opinions, but the curriculum sets guidelines that the students must follow which prevents this. His reference to what his daughter has been taught in her English class is the basic premise of the essay as it is used to not only develop the essay but also the thesis which is not clearly stated. Stenson’s use of emotional appeal is for readers to sympathize…

    • 889 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Nitish Baskar's Expository Essay Analysis
    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Nitish Baskar's Expository Essay Analysis

    As a 7th grader at Fowler Middle School’s state of the art Gifted and Talented program, Nitish Baskar has recently written an analytical CBAP over a revolutionary invention. After a couple of weeks, he revisited this CBAP along with his classmates and looked to find improvements that will help them with the writing STAAR. To enhance their understanding of expository passages, they were assigned writing stations which focused on ideas, organization, development of ideas, word choice/conventions, and sentence fluency. After thorough realization and days of working, Nitish Baskar’s understanding of expository essays expanded and he realized that focusing on one controlling idea, adding more sentence variations, and developing commentary to back up evidence is crucial to sounding more professional and responding to the prompt strongly.…

    • 582 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Decent Essays

    Unteaching The Five Paragraph Analysis
    • 315 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Unteaching The Five Paragraph Analysis

    In the paper, “Unteaching the Five-Paragraph Essay”, by Marie Foley, it talked about how the five-paragraph essay has changed the minds high school and beginning college students of how useful it it. This paper also talked about relating the five-paragraph essay to a dinosaur. It was saying that the introduction paragraph is the teaching portion/not the “biting” portion. The body paragraphs are the “bulk” of the essay, and the conclusion paragraph is the “tail” of the dinosaur. The paper was also compared to a journey.…

    • 315 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Decent Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Observation Report: The Cask Of Amontillado
    • 775 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Observation Report: The Cask Of Amontillado

    Observation Report: Writing Assignment The writing assignment that I observed was a literary analysis that describes the theme of “The Cask of Amontillado” through his display of the main character’s motives. The students were instructed to provide specific examples from the text, as well as clear reasoning that explains and connects their evidence to their response. The day that I was there to observe the class the mentor teacher was finishing the unit by having the students write a five paragraph essay using a worksheet packet that they had been working on for the past several days.…

    • 775 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Summary Of Linda Brodkey's Writing On The Bias
    • 1084 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Summary Of Linda Brodkey's Writing On The Bias

    School writing has no substance. “Yet when I look back I see only a young girl intent on getting it right, eager to produce flawless prose, and not a trace of the woman who years later would write that school writing is to writing as catsup to tomatoes: as junk food to food” (Brodkey 528).…

    • 1084 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Difference Between Hmong And English
    • 1006 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Difference Between Hmong And English

    Meanwhile, watching for my subject- verb agreement and transitions to have a satisfying flow from one point to another point. Then from now on as it is getting nearer to the end of the school year, my flaws are slowly improving through many practices of level one or two writing paper. The progress of my writing skills I achieve in Advanced Placement Language Composition, demonstrate my improvements of my writing towards to building a stronger essay. The major important factors to building a spontaneous essay is by having a strong and clear thesis statement. One of the flaws that I have improve throughout the end of the year to build a stronger essay because without a strong claim my essay is basically useless.…

    • 1006 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Analysis Of Inventing The University By David Bartholomae
    • 1290 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Analysis Of Inventing The University By David Bartholomae

    David Bartholomae sought to explain the difficulties students had in adjusting to the writing style expected of them in your standard university. This urge led him to write an essay which he named “Inventing the University” In this radical essay he explains in great detail why students seem to have such difficulty in writing university discourse and some practices we could put into the current public school systems that would help alleviate some of the difficulty most college freshmen face. In this essay I will be covering some of the major points he hits upon throughout his essay. Bartholomae starts by explaining the experience of a freshmen first entering college.…

    • 1290 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Analysis Of From Silence To Words: Writing As Struggle
    • 705 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Analysis Of From Silence To Words: Writing As Struggle

    Whether one teacher loves topic sentences, or one teacher adores thesis statements, the bottom line for students is to get a passing grade. With this in mind each student blindly learns and conforms to the style of writing their teacher promotes. For instance, in the passage the author would read novels by Charles Dickens and many other American authors at home. When she was assigned an essay on an article she had read for school, she subconsciously wrote the essay to reflect the internal conflict of the article. This was unacceptable for the school she went to, because this took place during the Chinese revolution, the essay had to display the “Revolutionary Spirit”.…

    • 705 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Personal Narrative: Changing My Writing In My Classroom
    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Personal Narrative: Changing My Writing In My Classroom

    It was a cold, winter morning. The frigid air blew as I turned to pull the handle on the door to the main building of my small high school. After entering the doorway, I dragged my feet across the floor and trudged through the empty hallway. As I peeked through each of the door windows, I saw nothing but dark, empty classrooms. It was not until I looked up that I noticed one lit room at the end of the hall.…

    • 659 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    EOF Student Reflection
    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages

    EOF Student Reflection

    He showed me that with every argument comes a counter argument; adding a counter argument reinforced my argument greatly. Another technique I applied to my essays with Professor Castro’s instruction was planning. In high school, planning an essay seemed like a waste of time because the assignments were always just five paragraph, five sentence essays. Since we had to write these essays in such a short amount of time for tests, I was able to produce the work the night before. On the other hand, Professor Castro has shown the divergence between high school and college; planning and editing are two essential steps in writing.…

    • 831 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Allyn And Bacon Chapter 7 Summary
    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Allyn And Bacon Chapter 7 Summary

    Readers want to see how your research stimulates your own thinking” (162). Without learning how to write exploratively, students will not only score more poorly with professors, but also fail to use their essays to think through the problem. In the beginning of chapter 7, Allyn and Bacon goes over how to write and understand exploratory essays. First comes the generating of ideas, then posing the problem, formulating a starting point, research notes, shaping and…

    • 454 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    Reflective Essay: Entering High School English Class
    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Reflective Essay: Entering High School English Class

    Growing up with catholic education, I was primarily taught the importance of reading and writing. The generic hamburger 5-paragraph essay format was on our 10 commandments of writing and so was the idea of a minimum 6-8 sentences per paragraph. Entering high school English class, I found myself in a different situation than most typical high school students. My school offered International Baccalaureate English classes; these classes were structured differently than that of AP or Standard English. In this class, we were left to fend on our own.…

    • 1115 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More
  • Improved Essays

    The Importance Of Independent Thinkers In Education
    • 1117 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Importance Of Independent Thinkers In Education

    Education would not exist without teachers, nor would students gain knowledge without effective teachers. But what makes a good teacher? A good teacher is someone who motivates their students to do the best they can, and to be independent thinkers. A student who is an independent thinker not only acknowledges the teachers lessons, but finds additional information outside of class. Independent thinkers are defined as people who change the way they think, and question authorities.…

    • 1117 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Improved Essays
    Read More

Related Topics

Ready To Get Started?
Discover
Company
Follow
©2024 Cram.com
Privacy Policy |  About Ads |  Site Map |  Advertise  | 
  • Cookie Settings