Exploring the Five-Paragraph Essay Writing Genre
We’ve been exploring the concept of genre and the many, many different types of texts that exist in the world. As you know, there are multiple genres of writing and there are more being developed because of the technology we’re using to read and write online.
Further another concept we’ve been discussing is that there are many ways to approach reading and writing. You’ve been reading about professional author’s methods and struggles in the readings you’ve done so far in the course: Min-zhan Lu: “From Silence to Words: Writing as a Struggle”, George Orwell: “Why I Write”, Anne Tyler: “Still Just Writing” and Anne Lamott: “Shitty First Drafts”.
So, with this in mind, this writing assignment is a “transition” assignment, in which you explore methods of creating texts, thinking about the five-paragraph essay method (if you’ve used it in past courses), and the methods discussed by the authors you read in the first few weeks of class (Lu, Orwell, Tyler, Lamott), as well as methods of writing you’ve been taught or used in past courses. One goal of this writing assignment is to get you thinking more about writing and the ways we think about putting texts together.
Your task for this essay is to consider one or all of the questions below in relation to the readings you’ve read during the first part of the course (Lu, Orwell, Tyler, Lamott) and your own experience. Your essay should have an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion. You should also incorporate discussion of 1 or more of the readings (Lu, Orwell, Tyler, Lamott) and how the ideas/concepts covered in these readings relate to your own experience with reading/writing. Here are some questions to consider in your essay:
What has been your past experience putting together essays for school?
What is your writing process? How do you tackle an essay assignment?
What differences do you notice in the methods that Lu, Orwell,