5 Paragraph Essay on Technology
By the time my students wrote their third essay in this form, I could, for the first time, actually see their thinking on the page in a literary analysis. The funny thing about the 5-paragraph essay is that it’s actually not set up to be an argument (or, I might argue, for deep thinking). For years, I told students to make sure that their thesis statements were “arguable,” but what did that even mean?
Below are a few of the resources I used to help teach the difference between the 5-part, classical arrangement model and the traditional 5-paragraph essay:
More often, students’ thesis statements were expository in nature, and then students spent three paragraphs telling me how they were right this way, this way, and finally, this way. Making a statement and then explaining in three different ways how that statement is true is somewhat dishonest as far as argument is concerned. What true argument does, and does well, is consider multiple views, weighs and wonders, looks at things by stepping back and zooming in. For me, the most powerful part of my students’ essays was the refutation. Unless students could honestly articulate and explain how other points-of-view were valid, their arguments weren’t really arguments.
5 Paragraph Essay on What Makes A Good Friend
So I took Salazar’s advice and stopped teaching the 5-paragraph essay for literary analysis (and in general). Instead, last year, my students wrote three 5-part essays for the following texts: Much Ado About Nothing, Lord of the Flies, and Things Fall Apart. The result? Well, they were about as good as I expected them to be, especially at first—which is to say, they were not very good at all. I could tell that students were confused. I couldn’t blame them, though. After all, it was my first time teaching this new form, and my own inexperience was clearly reflected in their writing.
To test this hypothesis, I sat down in front of ChatGPT and gave it a classic freshman-year English prompt: "Please write me an approximately 500-word, five-paragraph essay discussing the role of Newspeak in controlling the people of Oceania in George Orwell's novel, 1984. Please use MLA formatting and include 1–2 quotes per paragraph."
Students—especially my 9th graders—still need a framework for organizing their ideas. So last year I taught them the Aristotelian structure, which is the classical arrangment of argument. My 9th graders came in from middle school with an understanding of the 5-paragraph essay; my job was to move them beyond it.
While the classical arrangement worked well last year, I’m so excited to add in real-world text structure models for my students. At another NCTE panel—a tribute to the work of Tom Newkirk—retired teacher and author shared how she was inspired by Newkirk’s challenge to find “teachable alternatives” to the 5-paragraph essay.
5 Paragraph Essay on Climate Change
The five-paragraph essay is a mainstay of high school writing instruction, designed to teach students how to compose a simple thesis and defend it in a methodical, easily graded package. It's literature analysis at its most basic, and most rigid, level.
Here are some common and trending topics for 5-paragraph essays:
A typical five-paragraph essay asks students to pick a simple thesis, usually from a list of prompts, and compose a short introductory paragraph, followed by three paragraphs each laying out a different piece of supporting evidence, followed by a final paragraph—usually beginning, "In conclusion…."
How to Write an Essay Outline in 5 Simple Steps
While at Bow Valley College, most essays will need you to have a thesis. To write an effective thesis, you must have a written statement about your opinion on a topic. This statement is referred as the “thesis statement” and must be in the introductory paragraph. A strong thesis statement is,
Learn How to Write an Essay Hook, With Examples
The five-paragraph essay is the basic essay format that you will write. It has five different paragraphs, these include the introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The introduction holds the your argument, known as the thesis, and gives a brief explanation of the topic. The body paragraphs are where you present evidence to support your argument. Finally, the conclusion is a summary of your arguments, but most importantly relating the arguments back to the thesis. Here is a deeper explanation of each section,
How to Write a Topic Sentence: Purpose, Tips & Examples
Students should instead be asked to write other forms, such as journal entries, blog posts, reviews of goods or services, multi-paragraph research papers, and freeform expository writing around a central theme. Although five-paragraph essays are the golden rule when writing for standardized tests, experimentation with expression should be encouraged throughout primary schooling to bolster students' abilities to utilize the English language fully.
Tips On How to Make an Essay Longer: 15 Easy Ways
The conclusion is more than a summary and restatement of your thesis. It should stress the importance of the thesis statement and provide a clear understanding of your position on the topic. It should demonstrate the connections between the essay and real life. It should answer the overall question of “so what? Why does the thesis matter? Why should the reader care?” Finally, the conclusion shows the reader how the body paragraphs fit together.