Comments on: 5 step essay?

By: Queelsmup

Queelsmup — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 13:35:19 +0000

Cool post, maybe you dream fof writters? ___________________________________ Sry, hehe))

By: What I had to say... « It’s Your Pulse, Your Heartbeat, and Your Rhythm of Life

Tue, 17 Apr 2007 17:36:34 +0000

[...] Comment #7 to Jenny’s “5 step essay?” [...]

By: orra

orra — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 14:31:47 +0000

Jenny,

This blog entry reminds me of one of the MCTE sessions I attended this weekend at MSU. In the first session I went to, Prof. Dinan from CMU addresses some of the “orthodoxies” of current English instruction, one of them being the “five paragraph theme.” He gave us a scenario as an interviewing teacher where the principal said “Okay, in our school we heavily value and teach to the 5-paragraph theme. What are your thoughts are this practice?” Our goal was to understand how to BLEND how we feel as future teachers (“5-paragraph theme is horrible!”) with what the interviewer wants to hear (“yes, I will most definitely teach the 5-paragraph theme”).

Interestingly, Prof. Dinan said that a lot of middle and high schools that adhere strictly to this format think that they’re adequately preparing their students for college with this method. I remember being in high school and complaining about writing these stiff, “plug and chug” type essays. My teachers always reassured me that I was learning this method of writing because I was in a “college-prep” class, and this is how you have to write in college. WELL, as we all know, college writing is NOT just the 5-paragraph essay. However, I know I fall guilty to writing most of my analytical English papers in this style. Why? Because this is what I’ve been trained to do. This style gets me the grade, it’s what teachers/professors want. Introduction. No personal pronouns. Good use of quotes, with “framing” around them of course. Conclusion where you restate your thesis. This has been ingrained in my head as a sure-fire way to make the grade. But you’re absolutely right, with this method, I have no voice. My works sounds overly formal, wordy, technical.

Do five-paragraph essays “earn the grade”? Most of the time, yes. Do they really teach students to be writer? Probably not.

Ashley

By: My comments « Every Day is a Winding Road…

My comments « Every Day is a Winding Road… — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:28:18 +0000

[...] Comment 8 [...]

By: murphkel2003

murphkel2003 — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 00:04:05 +0000

SO as I read your blog I sit back and remember my elementary years of D.O.L. (Daily Oral Language), my middle school years of 5 paragraph essays, and my high school years of well….not much of anything. I took A.P. English but we read more than we wrote. I took a creative writing class in high school but feel that it mostly focused on poetry and shorty stories that were lame anyways. I don’t remember ever have any sort of grammar taught to me in high school. It is as if my school thinks that grammar should be taught in elementary school but anywhere after 6th grade it is all about writing essays…or just reading the classics. Why? I am sure I make mistakes with my grammar all of the time and I am an English Major!!!
Now—you talk about robotic paragraph producers being created because of this testing. I agree! We teach to the test and it leaves no room for anything different or unique! Testing just sucks. Period.

By: My Comments « Why Censor Books?

My Comments « Why Censor Books? — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 04:32:27 +0000

[...] Comment #3 [...]

By: Comments « tree house rock

Comments « tree house rock — Tue, 10 Apr 2007 18:29:45 +0000

[...] http://jennnny4.wordpress.com/2007/02/08/5-step-essay/#comments [...]

By: celticclarinet

celticclarinet — Tue, 27 Mar 2007 18:13:17 +0000

Standardized essays, in general, are a tricky thing to approach. They’re different than general standardized tests. Standardized tests are simple multiple choice questions, usually. But essays? Many students don’t receive the grading for such essays before going into the test and are heading into it blindly, which is far different from what we know in high school. Sure, most teachers say to write like one would for a paper for these essays, but every teacher expects (wow, I wrote that as excepts…speaking of language!) different things from students. How would students know exactly what to expect on an essay formated standardized test? I think, more recently, there have been grading scales and rubrics offered, but I remember that they weren’t so available in high school for me at least.

Timed testing is something different entirely, as well. A lot of this has to do with the question the student is asked and how quickly they can come up with a reason for believing what they believe about a certain subject. If a student can’t think through their ideas fully, there’s limited possibility for that student to be able to write coherently (possibly like this comment, as an example!) I’ve had both positive and negative feedback with timed essays. If I know my material, I can write well. If I’m completely surprised and stumped by a question, however, my words tend to be a bit more choppy and the paragraphs don’t flow as well as I’d like sometimes.

By: beyerk

beyerk — Tue, 27 Feb 2007 17:58:07 +0000

I agree that timed essay tests do have a limited ability to judge writing skills. However, they are useful in determining who has the necessary writing skills for the appropriate grade level and who does not. They put everyone on an equal playing field. I know that we have all had to write them, and have hated writing them, but they do identify problems in writing. If someone cannot write a simple five paragraph essay, there is an area that needs help.
I feel that grammar is a teaching necessity. This is something that is often ignored or just touched on in high schools, and there is so much that students leave not knowing. Testing students explicitly for grammar knowledge may be the only way to ensure that it is being adequately taught in schools.

By: nathan

nathan — Tue, 20 Feb 2007 00:30:21 +0000

I think it is fairly safe to say (with a risk of being cheeky) that timed essay exams are really good at measuring how well students can write a timed essay. To use that measure as an indicator of overall writing skill is just foolish. There are many other styles and genres of writing outside of this one form, which requires such economical use of time, that by default a simple, formulaic method of writing has to be adopted. I wonder if Tolkien or Tolstoy would have been very good at writing them?… I suppose that essay tests are a very basic measurement of wether or not a student can convey a complete thought/argument in written form. But at the same time, it’s too bad that a lot of teachers will spend a lot of time teaching students how to succeed on the essay portion of the F-cat, rather than developing other areas of writing skills like: personal essays, research papers, book reviews, short stories, poetry etc… Although, if the teacher was creative, I’m sure they could integrate essay-test preparation with some of their existing curriculum.
~nathan