How Does Marie Foley Write Unteaching The Five Paragraph Essay

Essays -- they are a fact of life in college, whether your major is Ballroom Dance or English Literature. This is something that can be quite intimidating to students without a lot of writing experience. However, there is a tool that provides a framework for all of that writing. The classic five paragraph essay is the foundation that everything from exam answers to Doctoral dissertations are built upon. This form can make your college career just a bit less stressful. The useful and versatile five paragraph essay format can be broken down into three easy pieces: introduction, body, and closing. A great deal of life's events start with an introduction, and those that do not probably should have! An introduction is a clear and concise way of

In Marie Foley’s “Unteaching the Five Paragraph, Mary Kay Mulvaney’s “Difference Between College and High School Writing,” and “Understanding Writing Assignments: Tips and Techniques” by Dan Melzer, the authors all have a different opinion on various topics of writing. The topics includes the five paragraph structure, how to understand a writing assignment and the difference between the writing of college student and high school students. In my opinion everyone have their own opinions. My opinions on the three articles differ in various ways; there are some things that I agree with and few minor things that I disagree with.

One would think that high school English teachers prepare you for college English courses. However, Maria P. Rey disagrees with this in many ways. Rey announces early on in her letter that she wants high school teachers, "... to re-evaluate not only the method of teaching but more importantly the substance of what is taught."(Rey 2009) I agree with Rey in that teachers should reconsider the content of what is taught to students because my college experience has confirmed it. In college writing, I soon learned that I was not prepared for what was expected of me. On the other hand, the method of the five paragraph essay gave me a formula to begin my writing, but Rey contends that this method could keep writers "at a very elementary level of writing."(Rey

The simple setup of a five paragraph essay was taught to me early on, but in a very different light. My high school classes treated this setup as elementary. They instead believed quantity over quality, creating poorly written ten page essays about why Edgar Allen Poe made certain rooms in his stories were certain colors. Freshman Composition has instead showed me that writing can be very powerful without being lengthy and has helped me improve my paragraph structuring by allowing me to focus on the finer details, creating a greater essay in the

1. I will be the first to admit that I am NOT an accomplished writer nor will I ever be. I also have to say that I have learned a lot from my very short time in these classes that have guided me in preparing a better paper. In the past, I never even knew about the 5 paragraph essay format. I have always looked at thing that I have written and thought that I could have written it different. I didn't have to turn anything in, either for school or work purposes so there was absolutely no need to revise. I am not sure if Nancy Sommer's article changed much about what I have done in the past. I know that my College English Professor did. I took what has been taught to me and I incorporate it as much as I can into what I am doing. I read aloud to

The essay “A Way with Words” is mainly about how Sasha came to thoroughly enjoy reading and writing. In the essay, she talked about the how she spent her whole life dealing with words. To show her enthusiasm for words, she listed some unique and extraordinary time-bound examples, including how her parents helped broaden her vocabulary and speech skills by simplified everything, how she learned quickly for reading, how she have enjoyed going to the library when she was very young, how she felt greatly excited after the successful trial of solving the puzzle about a game show before the contestants and her family when she was 5 years old, how she was being recognized as a “Walking, Talking Dictionary” by her peers in elementary and middle school, her ability to write a 6,000 words paper which frightened both her fellow classmates and teachers in junior high

In short, this type of format is usually for only one idea then splits into three examples with one in each paragraph. This is a problem because it is just a basic structure to where a student cannot fully expand much on the concepts they are writing about. Personally, I have been taught to write with the five paragraph method ever since I entered the public education system from K-12. But, I was also taught a variety of other ways to write an essay over the years. In my opinion, teachers that just follow their teaching process, and it can improve through introducing other writing styles. Most teachers adopt and teach the five paragraph method because they may find this easier, or because this has been the writing style norm being taught for a long

The five-paragraph formula is a destructive formula that cuts the blood flow of creativity from students. As Campbell essentially argues in his paper, “Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay.” Campbell’s main idea that he reiterates and stresses over and over again; is that the five-paragraph formula doesn’t properly allow students to express themselves with their own unique voice through writing. The alternatives to the five-paragraph formula are better suited for students as they allow students to use as he stated, “their authentic, authoritative voices."

In the article “Unteaching the five-paragraph Essay”, Foley Marie, disputes that the five-paragraph formula does not allow students to think in a critical way and prevents them from discovering new information. According to Foley “the prefabricated structure invites students to fill the five sots with what they already know, thus often depriving them of the pleasure of discovering new ideas”. The reason why the five-paragraph formula continues to be taught to students because its easier for teachers to teach it the class rather then teaching individually. Although students feel nervous when writing, they hardly create something theirs. The author believes the formula its useful for beginner students writers “it helps them to overcome writers

The III Effect of the Five Paragraph Theme article by Kimberly Wesley is more about persuading students to write other types of essays rather than just the common five paragraph essay that’s been taught for countless years. In my opinion, I prefer not to write my essays in the five paragraph theme because it isn’t remarkably conducive to not only high school students like me, but as well as other writers. As of my own experience in writing throughout my school years, there’s no doubt in confessing that I have had more than three main ideas for a certain essay, while on the other hand, there have been essays where I would struggle to come up with even two ideas! According to a college student (my sister), I have been told that the FPT is not

This paper is going to talk about the analytical points of the paper, “ Unteaching the Five-Paragraph Essay,” by Marie Foley. Describing this paper is one of the easier things to do because it is talking about a basic topic, the five-paragraph essay. It talks about how the five-paragraph essay is good for beginning writers and how it is a setback for other types of writers. It gives a basic concept of how it is not the best format for a writer to use; it is not the best way for complex ideas to be shown.

In most college level English classes, students learn to generate various types of essays. These essays give the students an opportunity to enhance their writing capabilities. The Composition instructor also has a chance to critique the students writing. This particular English course allows students to create exemplification, cause and effect, and comparison and contrast essays.

The essay “How to Say Nothing in 500 Words” is a semi humorous description of writing an essay for class and the pitfalls that can occur. The purpose of this essay to illustrate through example how to write an essay on assigned topics. (Connell (2013)) The author uses concrete language to illustrate his examples of the types of writing students should avoid in creating college essays. Mr. Roberts illustrates the techniques a writer can use to create a paper that is interesting to an instructor while writing on a topic that the student does not have a strong opinion on. He touches on procrastination and choosing a position, but he best exemplifies this in his explanation of excess padding. He shows how using excess

Students of composition are advised to write “big” paragraphs while they are learning. Why? They are told this because according to the text writing long paragraphs are another way to make someone think more and develop each idea. It is easier

Jane the woman that every guy wish they could have. Not only was she the only woman in the entire world, but she was unlike anyone else. Jane was special, very special. At one minute she was the girl that got no attention because no one knew about her, but then one night she decided to go out with the couple of friends she had. On the way out of her building jane was kidnapped by a older man and took her away for full 2 days and ran test on the young girl. The first night Jane was kept in a abandoned building and there was a bad storm sweeping throughout the city. The building was struck by a lighting bolt and caught fire quick this is when jane first noticed the powers that that she was given. Jane came back a different Jane that week.