Have You Driven a Five-Paragraph Essay Lately?

The Ford is a functional car: nothing special, but sturdy and reliable. That's why my mother, a veteran middle-school teacher, compares the five-paragraph structure to a Ford for her students. As she explained it to me, whether or not I want to teach the five-paragraph essay is immaterial; I will probably have to teach it. So the question becomes, how am I going to teach it? In what context should the five-paragraph form be framed for students?

To answer that question, let me refer to this week's readings, which consisted of several articles, each with a different take on the five-paragraph theme, or FPT. On one extreme is Tracy Novick, whose letter to the English Journal praises the FPT, saying that, "taught with creativity and variety, it gives our students a useful tool," comparing it to the sonnet form of poetry, without which we wouldn't be studying Shakespeare. On the other side is Kimberly Wesley, who, in her article "The Ill Effects of the Five Paragraph Theme," eviscerates the FPT, saying that it tends to "stunt students' critical thinking abilities." Wesley would prefer that organizational formats should fit the purpose of the writing, rather than the reverse, which I can certainly agree with.

I don't have a problem with the idea that formal writing needs a structure, and that the FPT is one that people generally agree on. My main problem with the FPT is its emphasis on the number three. We somehow think that three is a magic number, as if it's more important to have three points than for those points to have depth. Of course a paper needs a beginning and an ending, but will every thesis have three equal areas of analysis? Not so much. I have seen (and written) too many essays in which the writer's third point is pretty much tacked-on and irrelevant, or in which one of the points is really two points (because the writer had four points but had to condense it down to three).

I also hate the idea that the FPT is "what they'll need to know for college," because no. As long as there's some organization, college professors (and the TAs who'll actually be grading your papers) care more about the quality of your ideas and the depth of your analysis. They're not counting your paragraphs; they care that you have something worthwhile to say and have put some thought into it. Just like in the real world, the managers who read your memos or the people who read your letters don't care about the format as long as you're comprehensible.

The five-paragraph form is a tool, not a dogma, and it's a pretty limited tool at that. But it can be useful for those writers who don't know how else to organize their thoughts. As long as it's not presented to students as the only way to write (and that alternate forms of writing are taught alongside it), I can live with having to teach it in my class. Since, you know, I won't really have a choice.

Resource link: The Five-Paragraph Essay. This site explains the five-paragraph form and breaks it down using a sample essay. It can be a guide for those students who know the very basics of the form but need more assistance with it.