I am Kyle's self-indulgence

I had that 5-paragraph essay so burned into my brain by teachers throughout my educational career that I had difficulty when a teacher disallowed the format. I can understand introducing students to academic writing through the 5 paragraph model so that students begin to learn how to conduct critical analysis, but teachers need to use it to gradually bring students into more complex methods of writing academic essays. I just wonder if most teachers know or understand what a disservice they do to their students by continuing to rely upon the 5-paragraph model.

The interesting thing is, most teachers who teach the 5pe model will say, "It's a good jumping off point, a good basic model for students to begin with," yet so many students never really shake it, and it's hard to find high school teachers who do teach students to "go beyond" the format. Even when I assign 1500 word essays to juniors and seniors and encourage my students to develop as many paragraphs as they need, many still wind up with 5 paragraphs because that's what they are so used to doing. The main problem as I see it is that when students are taught a formula for how to write, they learn that essays are a series of hoops to jump through, and not actually intended for communication. They don't learn to think about how to best get their point across; they learn to focus on "how can I fit my ideas into three main points." Since 5 paragraphs--3 main points--is a pretty short formula, they get in the habit of cutting short their thought process. So I really don't think the 5pe is a good introduction to academic writing. We should teach that essays need to be focused, paragraphs need to be focused, paragraphs need to be arranged in a logical way, but the length and format will always depend on the situation. Better to teach kids to read the situation.

I found your article to be very informative and interesting. I don't think any teacher of English would disagree that formulaic writing is seldom a joy to read; however, you would be hard pressed to find any great artisan who did not have to learn, and adhere to certain formulas before they could create and / or perform their master pieces. Whether it be practicing scales, or learning to weld a true bead, or god forbid learning to state what you believe in logical and understandable format. Although I can understand your impatience with college level writers who refuse to move past there rote adherence to "Mary had a little lamb", I think you do a disservice to those English teachers who must start the children from scratch and give them something that will support them as they begin the process of expressing themselves in a way that can be readily understood by the reader. Writing is one part formula, one part art, and the development of art is a murky proposition at best.

Okay. I agree that teaching the five-paragraph essay form of writing is probably not the best way to go.

Are there any alternative methods you would suggest, or any resources you recommend to spice up my students' writing?

I homeschool, so I have no interest in NCLB, as we do not participate in or benefit from state testing.

Good question. I'm glad you asked.

If it's resources you're wanting, Heinemann publishes some excellent books on writing. There are two that I can recommend. Blending Genre, Altering Style is about writing multi-genre papers and brings more of a creative approach to writing, while Breaking the Rules deals with grammar usage in terms of people's real-world writing.

The latter book has some interesting activities I use in the classroom, including an activity that teaches the function of paragraphs in writing. You don't really need to the book to do this. Basically, you take an essay (ideally one that's relatively short) and rewrite it without any paragraph breaks. Pass it out to your students and have them mark where they would put paragraph breaks, then compare and discuss. Whereas the five-paragraph essay approach teaches that there is a formula to follow in writing, this activity demonstrates that breaking writing up into paragraphs is merely a tool, like punctuation, that helps the reader to understand what you're saying. What's great about doing this with a classroom full of students is that very rarely do two students put all their paragraph breaks in the same places. It shows that creating paragraphs is subjective, and depends entirely on where the writer sees the need for them. I think it makes the idea of writing an essay seem like more of an art than a set of steps and rules to follow.

Aside from that, I think the most important principle to keep in mind is that good readers make good writers. Try to expose your students to as many great examples of writing as possible, and they'll pick up on things that work.

Actually, I take that back. The idea that good readers make good writers is the second most important principle.

The most important principle I have learned is this: people write best when they're writing about things they're passionate about. Sometimes the best thing I can do for my students is to let them pick what they want to write about, then step back.

The five paragraph essay format is an excellent way for a non-writer to get started on a writing task; it is an excellent way for a person who is stuck to get unstuck. It is a tool and nothing else, and like any tool, what is constructed using it is totally dependent on the person wielding it. As a tool I find it is extremely useful in organizing one's thoughts, particularly before speaking in a formal setting. Can a tool turn into a crutch? Sure. But when a crutch is needed, it's good to have a sturdy one at hand. I believe this format fills the bill and only wish I had discovered it a long time ago. It would have saved me a lot of rhetorical "rassling" over the years.

I can respect that attitude.

The problem I've seen with students, though, is that they don't move on to other kinds of writing because they've only been allowed to write one way. It's painful to see them wrangle their ideas to fit the five-paragraph formula when they would be much better suited to another format.

But as you say, I have realized the uses of a prescriptive formula for students with no writing experience, as long as the teacher also invites students to write in other styles.

I agree with Ellen on how the prospect of a Five Paragraph Essay and how it causes the student to stop their ideas short to fit the required amount of paragraphs. This later makes the student gain a new habit of cutting their ideas short which does not allow for a very good grade in the future. Also Maria’s statement, “Okay. I agree that teaching the five-paragraph essay form of writing is probably not the best way to go,” shows that some people think that just teaching it is not the best thing to do. This relates back to where Ellen stated that setting a specific boundary cuts off an important flow of ideas.

What grade are students suppose to start learning about writing 5 paragraph essays?

Anyone who teaches only or mostly the Five-Paragraph Structure is not a great educator. It should be only be part of a much larger repertoire of multiple-paragraph composition writing. A student writer must find adequate efficacy in obtaining success in making the very purpose or rationale of the writing to be realized by its audience. Or simply find adequate degree of happiness in the pure sense of the joy of writing. Bottom line: The student writer must be immersed in writing...all formats of writing! It is through this immersion, that students may find that style that may define them as writers.

People are mistaken who believe the high Rockies are hard to climb. To the traveler who has passed through the plains of Kansas and eastern Colorado, the high Rockies might seem like a beautiful but forbidding wilderness, approachable by only the toughest mountaineers. It is true that the 53 peaks in the Rockies that soar over 14,000 feet in elevation should only be attempted by seasoned climbers. However, the peaks under 14,000 feet, the fourteeners, can be easily climbed by the average person. Actually, climbing Colorado's fourteeners is hardly a rugged experience because most of them take only a day to climb, involve no more than hiking and simple scrambling, and are conquered by many people each year.

Surprisingly, unlike expeditions to Mt. McKinley or Mt. Everest, a climb up one of Colorado's 14,000 foot peaks rarely takes more than a day. Pike's Peak, with the state's greatest base-to-summit elevation gain, is admittedly a strenuous climb, yet a retired college professor in his middle seventies makes the hike every day in the summer. A friend of mine, Carson Black, in a day, once climbed four fourteeners, three of which--Crestone Peak, Crestone Needle, and Kit Carson Peak--are the most challenging in the state. Even more revealing is the Bicentennial celebration by the Colorado Mountain Club. It planned to have members on the summit of every fourteener in the state on July 4, 1976. Only a handful of ascents took more than a day.

Colorado's 14,000-foot peaks are also fairly easy to climb because they require no special climbing techniques. The "knife-edge traverse" on Capitol Peak is probably the most infamous challenge, yet most hikers who carry ropes don't use them when they see the ridge is not very intimidating. The highest peak in the state, Mt. Elbert, is so simple to climb that a jeep made it in 1949, and one man "rode a 24-year-old bicycle to the summit in 1951" (Perry Eberhart and Philip Schmuck, The Fourteeners, p. 38). I personally saw two motorcycles on the 14,000-foot ridge between Mt. Democrat and Mt. Lincoln.

Another indication that climbing Colorado's highest peaks is not very difficult is the sheer number of people who succeed each summer. After descending from Torrey's Peak one weekend in August, I counted over seventy cars in the parking lot. On a week the previous August, I passed fifty people in various stages of climbing Mt. Elbert. Even years ago--in 1968--4226 people climbed Longs Peak (Paul W. Nesbit, Longs Peak, p. 68). Its parking lot today, to accommodate the number of climbers, is about a quarter-mile long.

If I've shattered your belief that Colorado's peaks are the domain of only bears and mountain men who look like bears, consider how Zebulon Pike might feel about Pikes Peak today. In 1806, he "predicted that the mountain would never be climbed" (Eberhart and Schmuck, p. 6). Now, via the cog railway or the toll highway, he could reach the summit without moving his legs.

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