Three reasons why the five-paragraph theme is a bad thing
There’s been a small flurry of interesting posts about the infamous five-paragraph essay recently. Body and Soul links to a New York Times article about the low standards in Texas high schools, which begins with an anecdote about a Texas high-schooler who was "trained to write five-paragraph ‘persuasive essays’ for the state exam" and was "stumped by her first writing assignment" in college. Calpundit replies with a parody of the five-paragraph form ("In conclusion, Texas schools are bad. They have lots of dropouts, low test scores, and five paragraph essays. Texas schools are bad."). Pennywit makes a case for why it’s not such a bad way to write an essay, if the student learns to use it flexibly, to which Calpundit replies. If you’re interested in writing pedagogy, go read them all — and don’t miss the comment threads.
If I had to state, five-paragraph-essay-style, my three "supporting reasons" for why I hate the five-paragraph form with a passion — even though I do think students need some kind of structure when they’re just learning to put together an essay — I would say this:
1. It’s supposed to be a tool for beginning writers to master and then move on. But it’s often very difficult for my college composition students to break out of the five-paragraph mode. They listen to my impassioned defense of less rigid formats and try to write essays that break the mold, but it’s as if it’s imprinted on their brains and they write in that format even when they’re trying not to. Some of them do manage to move on, but others get stuck.
2. It discourages students from making strong connections between the ideas presented in the body of the paper. In theory, you could use the five-paragraph template to come up with an essay whose body paragraphs go like this: "Let’s take Point A as a premise (and here’s why A is a reasonable starting point). Now, if we examine the assumptions behind A, we can see that B follows from it. However, we may not realize that we should also consider C (but here’s why we should)." But almost invariably, what students learn to write is some version of "We can see [thesis] through Example A, Example B, Example C," with the paragraphs about A, B, and C connected to each other with a string of "Also"s or "Moreover"s. What it generates is more a list than an essay.
3. It encourages students to write the dullest, most formulaic introductions and conclusions ever. Lots of them recognize how dreary it is to write a conclusion that restates everything that’s been said in the introduction, and lots of them worry about it, but since they’ve been taught over and over again to begin their last paragraphs with "In conclusion, this essay has shown that [insert slightly reshuffled sentences from introduction]," they’re not sure what else to do.
My officemate recently received a new composition reader that included a completely hilarious poem about the five-paragraph essay. I’ll post it if I can find the book.
(Update: Mike points out two more recent posts by John Jocalo, and his own in response. Thanks!)
Bravo, bravo, bravo! Way back when I was teaching writing, I simply crossed out about half of the opening paragraphs of papers with a big X, noting “your paper really starts here” beside the second paragraph. Hellishly boring first paragraphs. “Tell them what you’re going to tell them,” indeed. In practice that seems to mean “go limp and make feeble gestures for a paragraph, while your reader goes to sleep.” Fortunately most of my students were writing in such a hurry that the concluding paragraphs, though equally dull, were mercifully short. Lots and lots of interesting lively writing sandwiched between stale, stale, stiff, general, formulaic beginnings and conclusions. The five paragraph essay can’t die soon enough for me.
In an article in the latest Research in the Teaching of English, it’s referred to as the “McEssay” 😉
Talk about synchronicity. You might also check out what John and I have had to say about the article and the theme itself, including some additional links and some historical background.
Mike, thanks for the links — I knew there were a few more posts that I hadn’t linked to. That’s an interesting connection you make between five-part forensic oration and the five-paragraph essay, by the way.
Fancy meeting y’all here. The five-paragraph paper seems like Jason or one of those other horror flick demons that simply never dies no matter what is done to it. Mike’s historical comments suggest that a five part structure (and a 3-part “proof”) go back to the earliest days of rhetoric.
But I’ve been intrigued for some time about its staying power in American schools and colleges. I’ve been in several listserv discussions on the 5 P template with other professionals, but this eruption of more general discussants was fascinating. The discussion always seems to surface someone amazed that the form still exists, someone who finds it inherently valuable (with usually an unstated implication “for the hoi polloi”), and someone who has tried to beat it out of students as though it were kudzu or crabgrass, with predictable results.
Jeanne Gunner, editor of the NCTE journal College English, told me a chemistry colleague suggested to her the solution to student writing problems (Jeanne was writing program dir ector) and described the 5 paragraph essay without calling it that.`‹
Just a nitpick… you mention the bad conclusions that five paragraph essays encourage, but I’ve *never* seen an effective strategy for writing a conclusion.
It’s not just the five-paragraph-mavens, it’s everyone. People can recognize a good conclusion, but they can’t synthesize it. The teachers teach enough to say that it should tie everything together as well as give a focus to the paper, but how does one do that in an expository essay, for example?
In a narrative essay, it can just stop at the punchline or how it changed the individual. In a persuasive essay it can goad the reader to action or a shift in additude.
However, most academic writing is expository. What is the purpose of the conclusion? The only answer I’ve found is that the purpose is to give one final attempt to show the teacher that the important parts were indeed comprehended. This leads to a naturally formulaic conclusion.
The best use of a conclusion is to see how bored the author was in writing the paper.
Five-paragraph essays? Seldom seen outside of
academic circles. In business? Not likely. Business letters tend to be more 3 paragraphs in length. The 3 paragraph structure with just a sentence or two of introduction and conclusion attached to the first and last paragraphs seems the best way to nnswer essay questions on tests.
The question itself usually functions as the introduction.
For example, an American History professor’s essay question might be “Discuss the principal causes of the American Civil War, making certain that you consider a, b, c, etc.
A three paragraph response to the question might begin “The principal causes of the American Civil War were the issue of states’ rights, the issue of clavery, and the economic differences between the North and South” and proceed with a body paragraph about each of the 3 causes.
If a student had to answer 3 essay questions during an hour and twenty minute class, would he be able to write 3 five-paragraph essays in that length of time. Not likely
Sorry to go on, but I’d like to chime in on writing conclusions. Teachers tell their students what to do when writing a conclusion, but don’t teach them strategies–the how of writing conclusions. The same is true of our writing textbooks. The section on conclusions is usually one of the shortest in the book. One of the best things I’ve seen on techniques for writing conclusions was an article in Writer’s Digest about 15(?) ways to end your article effectively.
Sorry I don’t remember the month and year.
I am an ESL teacher in a Chinese university.It seem to me that all the posts here are quite illuminating,but I also feel a bit puzzled.Is this ‘five-paragraph essay’ teaching still very popular in North-America? because I do find a lot of writing websites still introducing this method.In my opinion,this is an effective way to start writing for a beginer,as long as not let the students slip into the ‘format trap’.
Here,I sincerely want some answers to the following issues from you professionals:
*the history of five-pararaph essay teaching
*the current situation of five-paragrah teaching
true, true. it is formulaic, etc.
however, i still think it is a great and effective stepping stone for would-be writers.
Well of course, it’s formulaic, but for most students who can barely write their names in the top corner of a paper, it’s one way to get them organized and focused on their writing. Normally, I see something akin to the “shotgun” approach where all kinds of stuff is blasted onto the page in the frantic hope that something will stick. Little of it tends to be relevent to the topic, a lot of it is badly written and the student is left frustrated and confused by the abysmal grade that s/he just received. It’s difficult enough to write if you have a strong linguistic competence; it’s absolutely daunting to those esl students who have a fragile confidence in their language abilities. The five paragraph essay is merely the next step in a series of many.