Monday, May 31, 2021

Teaching the five paragraph essay

Teaching the five paragraph essay

teaching the five paragraph essay

For me, teaching the five-paragraph essay is mostly about teaching fantastic paragraph form and logical construction. Please note, other paragraph lengths are also of value. For instance, four paragraphs is the best length for teaching beginning writers and struggling writers the two-sided thought patterns: cause-effect, compare-contrast, pro-con etc. Always remember, five is just number, and so Feb 12,  · The five-paragraph essay is attractive, of course: It is fairly easy to teach, learn, and assess. But it does not prepare learners—whether they are school-aged children of immigrants, students in foreign language classes, or undergraduates in English-medium programs—for success Feb 22,  · The 5-paragraph essay is indeed a genre, but one that is entirely uncoupled from anything resembling meaningful work when it comes to developing a fully mature writing process. If writing is like exercise, the 5-paragraph essay is more Ab Belt than sit-up



How to Teach the 5-Paragraph Essay in Your Homeschool | WriteShop



People have strong feelings about the five-paragraph essay. For the past several decades, educators have debated the benefits and consequences of teaching the five-paragraph essay. I recently came across these comments on another website:. She would have crying fits each and every time. I understand when people get emotional over controversial topics—global warming, budget cuts, tax increases—but I was not aware that the five-paragraph essay fell into this category.


What exactly is going on here? Nothing more! I thought that was strange advice, as I had never worried about getting a passing grade on a writing assignment. Looking back, I can only assume that this science teacher had worried. But half way into the essay section of the test, those words of advice echoed in my mind, while I sat in frustration.


I was lost. Where am I headed? How am I going to finish this? What am I trying to say? Is that what I wanted for my future students? Real power and real confidence in writing comes from knowing what one is doing and knowing how one is doing it—and not just by being able to do it. Looking for the most generic definition of a five-paragraph essay I could find, I went to Wikipedia. Wikipedia describes the five-paragraph essay as this:.


The five-paragraph essay is a form of written argument. It is a common requisite in assignments in middle school, high school, and university and sometimes elementary school. The format requires an essay to have five paragraphs: one introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs with support and development, and one concluding paragraph.


Because of this structure, it is also known as a hamburger essay or a three tier essay… The five-paragraph essay format is also applied to speech making, with some college classes teaching the five-paragraph format, along with an organized system of outlining and pre-writing the speech. After reading that definition above, do you think people should be upset over the five-paragraph essay?


But before you answer that question, please ask yourself these four questions:. Are you against paragraph form? Are you against beginnings, middles and endings? Are you against introductions, bodies, and conclusions? Are you in favor of rambling and pointless essays? Put simply, the five-paragraph essay should not be viewed as an end—because in reality—it is a means to an end.


Teaching the five-paragraph essay teaches young students a variety teaching the five paragraph essay important skills.


Here are a few facts:. Students must write in paragraph form. Students must have a beginning, middle and ending. A beginning, middle and ending is essentially the same thing as an introduction, body, and conclusion.


Students must understand that they cannot ramble. Students must be headed in a purposeful direction in their writing—and they teaching the five paragraph essay get there. The five-paragraph essay is the easiest, fastest, and best way to teach all this. It teaches good thinking. The five-paragraph essay is a foundational essay. But a variety of questions remain:, teaching the five paragraph essay.


When should the five-paragraph essay be taught? How long or how often should students write in five-paragraph essay format? In what way should the five-paragraph essay be taught? The five-paragraph essay is an essay for beginners. All students past a certain age should be able to teaching the five paragraph essay a five-paragraph essay quickly and easily. What is that certain age? Personally, teaching the five paragraph essay, I think the five-paragraph essay should be mastered in elementary schoolbut only because it CAN be mastered in elementary school.


It definitely should not be an issue in high school for any student. Even struggling writers should be able to master the five-paragraph essay before leaving middle school. However, I do work with five-paragraphs quite often because five paragraphs just happen to be the very best length to work with.


Five paragraphs is the length that best helps students to develop the rhythm of beginning, middle, and ending in paragraphs, along with having a beginning, middle, teaching the five paragraph essay, and ending in the whole composition two levels of beginning, middle, and ending.


It is also the most flexible and teaching the five paragraph essay way to achieve this. For me, teaching the five-paragraph essay is mostly about teaching fantastic paragraph form and logical construction.


Please note, other paragraph lengths are also of value, teaching the five paragraph essay. For instance, four paragraphs is the best length for teaching beginning writers and struggling writers the two-sided thought patterns: cause-effect, compare-contrast, pro-con etc.


Always remember, five is just number, and so is four. Different numbers serve different purposes. Even though the five-paragraph essay is an essay for beginners, it is fine if there is still a strong emphasis put on it in high school and in college.


The five-paragraph should be used as a tool that helps students access a variety of different types of essays and a variety of the different organizational patterns found in writing. Put simply, the five-paragraph essay is a tool. It is not an end in itself.


The greatest benefit that comes from being able to write the five-paragraph essay is the awareness of five-paragraph essay thinking. Five-paragraph essay thinking provides value for a lifetime. The same thinking that creates five-paragraph essays can be used to write four paragraphs, seven paragraphs, or fifteen paragraphs, teaching the five paragraph essay. A word of warning: If teachers will only accept five paragraphs, nothing more or less, always and forever, their students will eventually feel as the people at the top of this page felt.


I do not recommend this. The five-paragraph essay is a teaching tool, not an end result. I recently spoke with the science teacher who advised me to write the five-paragraph essay on the CBEST test so many years before.


I asked him if he was still such a rabid fan of the five-paragraph essay. He was. He told me he uses it all the time to make the points he wants to make. With social media, everyone is an author. The science teacher posts comments on important issues, teaching the five paragraph essay, and also participates in several forums for several of his hobbies. He enjoys helping others and debating.


He explained that he is not particularly interested in writing, but that he has opinions and enjoys making points. The five-paragraph essay lets him do that quickly and effortlessly. The science teacher says that the five-paragraph essay was not drilled into him, and that he only really discovered its benefits in college. The science teacher showed me teaching the five paragraph essay number of his posts, and they would not have jumped out at me as being five-paragraph essays.


In fact, he wrote posts that were four, six, and eight paragraphs also. Apparently, the teacher likes five-paragraph thinking as much as he likes the five-paragraph essay. In short, he just likes to make points and provide proof that his points are valid.


He considers the five-paragraph essay to be the backbone of his writing. He says that people take his comments and opinions seriously, and that he is even a trusted authority in some places he posts. It seems that his readers focus on the points he makes and not the fact that he is using five-paragraph thinking. The first step in making a person love to write is to make the person a competent writer. That opens the door and the mind to more possibilities.


The five-paragraph essay is a teaching tool. Most criticism of the five-paragraph essay comes down to its overuse, along with a dogmatic approach to using it in the classroom.


Personally, I agree with much of that criticism. The five-paragraph essay is a means to an end, not teaching the five paragraph essay end in itself.


Discover the Fastest, Most Effective Way to Teach Students Organized Multi-Paragraph Essay Writing… Guaranteed! Should You Teach the Five-Paragraph Essay? What is a Five Paragraph Essay? Wikipedia describes the five-paragraph essay as this: The five-paragraph essay is a form of written argument.


Should You Be For or Against the Five Paragraph Essay? But before you answer that question, please ask yourself these four questions: 1. Here are a few facts: 1. A Foundational Essay for Beginning Writers The five-paragraph essay is a foundational essay, teaching the five paragraph essay. But a variety teaching the five paragraph essay questions remain: 1.




How to write a five paragraph essay?

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The Ultimate Guide to the 5-Paragraph Essay


teaching the five paragraph essay

Feb 12,  · The five-paragraph essay is attractive, of course: It is fairly easy to teach, learn, and assess. But it does not prepare learners—whether they are school-aged children of immigrants, students in foreign language classes, or undergraduates in English-medium programs—for success For me, teaching the five-paragraph essay is mostly about teaching fantastic paragraph form and logical construction. Please note, other paragraph lengths are also of value. For instance, four paragraphs is the best length for teaching beginning writers and struggling writers the two-sided thought patterns: cause-effect, compare-contrast, pro-con etc. Always remember, five is just number, and so Sep 16,  · Teach the 5-Paragraph Essay Format in Your Homeschool. Teaching your teens how to write a 5-paragraph essay is a homeschool necessity. Unlike narrative writing, this traditional essay has a stringent structure that includes an introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs, and a closing paragraph. Let’s look at each of blogger.comted Reading Time: 6 mins

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