Response 2: The 5 Paragraph Essay and the Art of Writing

I suppose I should start this week’s reflection on my feelings toward the 5 paragraph essay, as many of the readings were discussing this format. In reflecting on my past experiences with the format, I am amazed that other people had not even heard about this type of essay. My entire junior high and high school experience were dedicated to writing this way. We were given precise formats. The first paragraph started with an attention getter (a quote or personal memory), then 2-3 explanatory sentences that connect the AGD to the thesis. Following the thesis was the plan of coherence or the POC where the three parts of the essay were mentioned. There was then a paragraph for each section of the essay and a final conclusion paragraph that was basically just the introductory paragraph in reverse. It always ended with a revisit of the same quote or personal memory. I learned this format so well, that writing an essay always felt like literally just filling in a template. When I took my writing test in 10^th grade, it took me no more than 10 minutes, as I did not even have to think when I was writing. I knew exactly what I was doing.

Now, my first instinct was to say that this was an absolutely ridiculous, ineffective, and anti-creative/critical thinking approach to essay writing. I remember the first literature class I took in English. I was completely taken aback on my first paper grade when I had followed these guidelines. It took me a long time how to figure out how to move beyond this format. Yet, eventually, I did learn. It only took me a few sessions with my TA to learn how to write an essay for that class. Which gets me to thinking, did my essay writing in class impede or help my ability to write and collect my ideas into coherent thoughts and argumentations? While I always thought that it hindered my ability, I am beginning to realize that I did learn invaluable skills through the organization of the 5 paragraph essay. I learned how to structure arguments and how to add clarity and precision in my words. I learned the basic components of an essay in an easy-to-follow format. For that reason, I think the precise structure of the 5 paragraph essay is needed, at least when writers are first starting. It gives writers something to fall back on that is not too daunting for them as they are learning new ideas. Once that format is perfected, it is time to open up the box of possibilities and branch out to different types of writing.

I have a few other notes for the week, most of the them being from the Romano book. In this book, I liked the discussion that it had about the importance of free writing. I already commented on this a bit, but I want to reemphasize my newly realized value of free writing in class. In life, we always seem to be writing for a purpose. We are either writing for a transaction or to be creative. However, we never write for ourselves. Writing is really a way to organize and gather thoughts. We can learn so much about ourselves and our beliefs when we take the time to write them down on paper. In our heads, ideas swarm around without meeting any true cognition. However, when we take the time to put them on paper, we become more aware of what we are actually thinking, as we take the time to really bring them to fruition. I want my students to take the time to write for the sake of writing. You never know what ideas may develop.

Finally, I also wanted to briefly note what Romano said about giving student poetry that they can enjoy and that makes them believe that they can actually write a piece of poetry themselves. I thought this was a simple but thought-provoking statement. When students are only reading canonical pieces with poems that they have to analyze and dissect in order to understand, poetry can become rather daunting and perhaps boring. I think that it is important to provide poetry that they can instantly connect with that makes them believe that they too can create a piece of poetry.  A work of art can be simple at the same time that it is beautiful, and I want to make sure that my students understand that. Too often we think something has to be difficult to understand to be good. Too often we lose sight of the purpose of art. We forget the aesthetic appeal that comes from personal response and connection.


For my resource for the week, I've included a site that looks at different tips for how to teach poetry. I think that this is one of the most daunting things for both teachers and students. This site includes fun activities to make poetry a bit more accessible, such as creating a poetry tree or cutting out words from magazines and forming them into poems.

10 Tips for Teaching Poetry

Week One Response

Reflection

The readings this week made me think a lot about the importance of writing in the classroom and the amount of time that has to be dedicated to it. I think that we all realize that as teachers we are going to have units that deal with writing a 5 paragraph essay, developing arguments, etc. However, most of these articles and chapters have discussed the need to have constant and dedicated time for students to write each week. In the Atwell chapter, he suggested dedicating 3 days per week on the sole act of writing. The entire classroom was set up in a way to accommodate this writing process and he found time to meet with the students on a daily basis. When reading this, I thought that it sounded wonderful. I would love to have the time and space for that in my classroom. But how realistic is that?

I do think that more emphasis needs to be given to the writing process in the classroom. Students need to be able to explore their own personal interests and genres, as they are given more freedom and time to write what they want to write. For this reason, I think that I am going to steal an idea that was discussed in the Dornan book about dedicating the beginning of class to writing in a journal. I think that this is a great way to give structure and flexibility to the classroom.  The journal can adapt to the needs of the day or lesson. Sometimes students can write about whatever they want, sometimes I can give them a prompt, sometimes they can even use the journal to do grammar work or respond to a mini lesson that I give in the beginning of class. My cooperating teacher plays with this idea a bit as she frequently gives the students little writing prompts to respond to. She has the students write their grammar notes and responses all in one daily journal that they turn in several times a semester.

When doing this journal, I also think that it is important to respond to the students. I would often have them fold down pages that they especially want me to read. I would also give them the option to mark pages that I should not read. I think that it is important to have this be an accessible form of communication. Sometimes, I might even have them write a letter to me that I will respond to. It may be a lot of work, but I think that it should be done a few times throughout a semester.

One other thing that I think was important from our readings is the idea of response. Obviously it would be fantastic to be able to individually talk with the students on a daily basis about their works. However, that may be a bit idealistic. While the Atwell chapter stated that students fail to even read the comments that are written on papers, I still do not know if I am going to abandon this process. Sometimes this is just the most efficient way to communicate with students. However, I do think that when the students are working on larger writing projects, it is important to dedicate class time to individual workshops. These readings for this week gave many pointers for this process as they talked about the need to look at the students, not the paper, ask the students questions so that they can discover their own issues and things to work for, and also to give the students many options when they are stuck about how to move forward, so that the writing is still their own. These one on one meetings are very important to give a feeling of ownership and reflection to the students so that they can truly revise their work effectively.

Resource for the Week


For the resource for the week, I chose to find a site that looked at the writing process, especially prewriting activities and peer workshops. I think that these are two of the hardest things to make work in a classroom. Often getting started is the greatest struggle. I found a great resource from the writer center website at the University of Minnesota. Attached is a site with more prewriting activities created by Todd Arnold. I found many of them to be innovative with rich possibilities!

10 Tips for Effective Freewriting