A Possible Topic of Interest
I was interested in what everyone teaches in their tutorials as far as structure is concerned. I was never taught the five-paragraph essay, the three-paragraph essay, or any other prefabricated structure—I had never heard of them before until my freshman year of college. Naturally, never being taught it myself, or finding any use for it, I never have taught any student the five-paragraph essay, made reference to it, or used it as an example. Do any of you teach your students this (or any variation), and if so, what do you find useful about it?
When I first heard of the five-paragraph essay I took it as a joke. I literally thought the teacher telling me this was trying her damnedest to wittily trick me into believing the five-paragraph essay was a standard of compositional pedagogy, hoping to then reveal to my ignorant, credulous mind that the exact opposite, in fact, was true—she had in mind, I believed, an exercise in dissolving my perspectives of good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable writing, thus leading to my understanding of the infinitely varied, complex arena of writing. I was wrong. Instead she was quite serious, and I could not understand why anyone would teach it or find it useful in their own writing.
It is my contention, and it is hardly an original one, that the five-paragraph essay is not useful in the real world of writing. If there is an example of an essayist, successfully published, who writes in such a format, I’d love to read her. I am not closed to the idea of there being a place or an usefulness for such a prescribed format, I’ve just never experienced it.
An example that comes to mind of the usefulness of the five-paragraph essay—to form a falsefiability principle—interestingly emanates from the forms complete lack of pragmatic application. The example that could be used to prove the usefulness of the five-paragraph essay would be to demonstrate how the form, it its lack of real world application, builds the foundation for skills that any good writer needs.
To draw a parallel: anyone who has learned to play basketball has been taught several drills that do not directly apply to a real game. Such a drill is the practice of looping the ball (not dribbling) around your head, shoulders, waist and legs while running. This not only does not apply to a real game, but is also a non-dribbling exorcise, clearly breaking the fundamental rules of the game—traveling. There are several such drills. These drills are intended to build the players foundation that the practical experience and knowledge of basketball will rest upon. Such drills are present, as far as I can tell, in every skill that is taught (i.e. playing a musical instrument; learning to snowboard, ski, surf, skydive; fixing cars, computers; learning a new language).
There are several skills that are standards of composition pedagogy that do not apply directly to real world writing but which are able to demonstrate their usefulness in indirect foundation building. For example: a student is given sentences from great works of fiction and non-fiction that are stripped of their punctuation. The student is then supposed to punctuate the sentence in a way/s that seems best to them. They are then to compare their structure with that of the authors. This allows the student to practice basic rules of punctuation, but most importantly, it also allows the student to realize there is no one way to punctuate a sentence, and that each punctuation mark has several applications, the rules of which are confusingly protean. But there is no direct real world application for such an exercise. No one in any job that I know of is going to ask me to perform the above exorcise for a job related project.
However, just because there are exorcises which exist that contribute indirectly to writing as it is applied in real life, does not mean that all non-practical methods somehow build that needed foundation. The burden of proof is on the five-paragraph essay. Is it simply not useful in any way, or is it indirectly useful? I cannot come up with any plausible proof, such as the one given above, that could apply to the five-paragraph essay, convincing me of its non-relevance in the arena of writing; although, I am not closed to an opposing idea, and anyone who has insight into the usefulness of the five-paragraph essay is welcome to make me look foolish.
When I first heard of the five-paragraph essay I took it as a joke. I literally thought the teacher telling me this was trying her damnedest to wittily trick me into believing the five-paragraph essay was a standard of compositional pedagogy, hoping to then reveal to my ignorant, credulous mind that the exact opposite, in fact, was true—she had in mind, I believed, an exercise in dissolving my perspectives of good and bad, acceptable and unacceptable writing, thus leading to my understanding of the infinitely varied, complex arena of writing. I was wrong. Instead she was quite serious, and I could not understand why anyone would teach it or find it useful in their own writing.
It is my contention, and it is hardly an original one, that the five-paragraph essay is not useful in the real world of writing. If there is an example of an essayist, successfully published, who writes in such a format, I’d love to read her. I am not closed to the idea of there being a place or an usefulness for such a prescribed format, I’ve just never experienced it.
An example that comes to mind of the usefulness of the five-paragraph essay—to form a falsefiability principle—interestingly emanates from the forms complete lack of pragmatic application. The example that could be used to prove the usefulness of the five-paragraph essay would be to demonstrate how the form, it its lack of real world application, builds the foundation for skills that any good writer needs.
To draw a parallel: anyone who has learned to play basketball has been taught several drills that do not directly apply to a real game. Such a drill is the practice of looping the ball (not dribbling) around your head, shoulders, waist and legs while running. This not only does not apply to a real game, but is also a non-dribbling exorcise, clearly breaking the fundamental rules of the game—traveling. There are several such drills. These drills are intended to build the players foundation that the practical experience and knowledge of basketball will rest upon. Such drills are present, as far as I can tell, in every skill that is taught (i.e. playing a musical instrument; learning to snowboard, ski, surf, skydive; fixing cars, computers; learning a new language).
There are several skills that are standards of composition pedagogy that do not apply directly to real world writing but which are able to demonstrate their usefulness in indirect foundation building. For example: a student is given sentences from great works of fiction and non-fiction that are stripped of their punctuation. The student is then supposed to punctuate the sentence in a way/s that seems best to them. They are then to compare their structure with that of the authors. This allows the student to practice basic rules of punctuation, but most importantly, it also allows the student to realize there is no one way to punctuate a sentence, and that each punctuation mark has several applications, the rules of which are confusingly protean. But there is no direct real world application for such an exercise. No one in any job that I know of is going to ask me to perform the above exorcise for a job related project.
However, just because there are exorcises which exist that contribute indirectly to writing as it is applied in real life, does not mean that all non-practical methods somehow build that needed foundation. The burden of proof is on the five-paragraph essay. Is it simply not useful in any way, or is it indirectly useful? I cannot come up with any plausible proof, such as the one given above, that could apply to the five-paragraph essay, convincing me of its non-relevance in the arena of writing; although, I am not closed to an opposing idea, and anyone who has insight into the usefulness of the five-paragraph essay is welcome to make me look foolish.
posted by Anonymous at 10:06 PM
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