Formulaic Approaches In Literacy Education

As students tote through grade school they are taught writing in a structured one-size-fits-all formula that claims to mold their writing into developed responses. One of the most common of these approaches is the five-paragraph essay. Despite the attempt to create a formula that promotes a positive understanding of academic writing, students and teachers express their discontent for the approach. Some believe that when students limit their own thinking by analyzing every writing composition as something which can break down into a formulaic approach, “this organizational structure overrides their invention and overall intellectual efforts because it invites discord and limits development.” However, while this presents a huge problem our educational …show more content…
The problem arises when such students who write their essays by following this formulaic model often see this organizational model as the only means they can compose and complete a paper. The implications of this issue is that in many cases, these students are only seeing writing composition with restrictive lens, and have yet to be challenged to see writing in a way without such filters. Students who are overly reliant on such an approach tend to not fully examine the connections between their ideas or the areas where they could extend their examples. They “can learn a formula for arranging sentences in paragraphs, but they are pretty much left to their own devices when it comes to identifying and utilizing strategies for inventing content” (Wiley, Mark). Teachers have not allowed students to evolve through these approaches, which is why the only real winners will be the students who always win …show more content…
They are right that compositional theorists and educational bureaucrats are blindly creating policies without fully seeing the implications of their actions, but you can not completely dismiss their efforts. Organizations like the College Board, the International Baccalaureate Organization, and the Cambridge Advanced International Certificate of Education (AICE) Program, influence the ways that curriculum is both currently developed and implemented at the high school level. The College Board in particular, which is known for administering the SAT test, a key component for college-bound high school students, has altered the test in recent years to encourage students to expand rather than divide their thoughts (Terrell, James). But rather acting alone, institutions, organizations, and the government must work together that way students are prepared for the higher education they