Paul Emerich's Five-Paragraph Analysis

All through our academic years we were taught how to write. Starting with elementary, when the form of writing was first introduced, it consisted of compositions with simple prompts about our weekends. Now, that there was an idea of how to write, middle school English teachers began teaching students a writing format. This format is commonly known as the five-paragraph essay, which consist of an introduction, three supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The five-paragraph essay began being strongly implemented in high school and it lead to many debates whether or not it benefited students proceeding into college. My stance leans more towards the five-paragraph format not being as beneficial to freshman in college, but it was helpful
for high school students starting out. Which is why when conducting research on the topic I looked up the perspectives of both teachers and students to compare and contrast different point of views. In attempt to encourage teachers to get more in depth and branch off of the five-paragraph format in junior and senior year in which could be very beneficial for first year composition students in college. For the start of the five-paragraph essay format it was a wonderful way to demonstrate organization and structure. It helped students clear up their thoughts and write them out in an orderly fashion. In an article titled “Speaking My Mind: Defending the Five-Paragraph Essay” written by Byung-In Seo, she shares her strategy of teaching inexperienced writers, specifically remedial freshman and sophomores in high school. Seo begins her method with the five-sentence paragraph which is to get her students familiarized with organizing their thoughts. Once her students grasp the concept of her first strategy Seo begins teaching the five-paragraph essay as she combines both of her strategies. Multiple other teachers disagreed with Seo’s method of teaching the writing format because they felt it deprived the students of creativity and her students actually did lower on their college entrance exams. Expanding from the debate of teaching the five-paragraph format there was a blogger named Paul Emerich who wrote about his experience as a sophomore in high school.
Emerich’s blog was called “Why I Refuse to Teach the 5-Paragraph Essay” and mentioned how he was assigned an essay approximately five pages long and considering all he had been taught up to this point was the five-paragraph format was upsetting. His mindset was that he was restricted to five paragraphs on five pages so stumbling upon the discovery that he could write as many paragraphs necessary was news to him. Which is actually quite shocking considering the five-paragraph format is usually the standard in high school. Since Emerich’s teacher assigned a lengthy essay and allowed the students to write multiple paragraphs it was helpful in getting the students a hang of that strategy for college. The only downfall within the teachers’ decision was that she did not explain to her students that there was no specific outline she was expecting of them. With that small detail neglecting to be mentioned the students may not fully understand the task being asked of them, which may also lead to rambling and losing their train of thought. Another student faced the same issue as Emerich. In “The Ill Effect of the Five Paragraph Essay” written by Kimberly Wesley, Wesley explained that there was an assigned essay of five-to-seven pages long. The student, mentioned by Wesley, had difficulties comprehending how to incorporate
the five-paragraph essay into her assignment. Many students face this problem throughout their academic years and although teachers began by teaching an excellent organization method, the students still had a form of missing information.
Students of all grade levels faced different problems from the others, especially if they were taking an advanced or remedial classes. Students are all taught one way in the beginning, but once they have more options of different courses to take is when everyone begins to learn differently. Such as, a dual enrollment student is being taught at the college level so they have a better understanding of how to write a well-organized lengthy essay but a student in a remedial or regular course does not know quite the same thing. A dual enrollment student learns slightly more than students not taking the same courses as them. Perhaps dual enrollment students are taught about research papers and content within their writing but not many students take an AP course because they often feel discouraged. Therefore, very few students are taught the strategy needed to help them easily advance once they enter into a college. Since not all students learn the material necessary college professors sometimes feel like they have to take time to reteach students the material that was not taught to them.
“Closing the Gap between High School Writing Instruction and College Writing Expectations” states that some of the professors mentioned that their expectations have decreased over the years due to the realization that students’ knowledge was mostly based on information beneficial for their high school years. All this directing back to the determination Seo had in her teaching method and engraving one main writing style in her students’ minds. Considering the standard writing method high schools have it is understandable as to why teachers would put so much concentration on the five-paragraph essay. Additionally, it is likely that the other teachers who were against the method had put college professors stumble within their teaching lesson into consideration and have thought further into obstacles a student may encounter. The standard of an essay changes drastically as an individual becomes a freshman in college. Students are expected to know how to write different types of papers, such as research papers and response papers, and how to write in different formats. Any proper paper requiring your own input would have a minimum of three body paragraphs and then from that point the writer decides how many more paragraphs to write. In essence, college compositions differ from high school in the sense that
there is less “restriction”. Students are now in charge of their length and how they choose to separate information opposed to being set to three body paragraphs and cramming everything into those three.