Sandy Dorley wrote:
> Before we dismiss it out of hand, there is a time and a place for
> such structures as the 5 paragraph theme. The problem is not that
> they exist--they are quite useful in some cases with novice writers
> and simple subjects. The problem is that they have a limited shelf
> life.
>
And I have to agree with this, wholeheartedly. The history of the
five-paragraph essay suggests that like the New Criticism in literary
studies, it fit the post-WWII need for a simple teaching model with
distinct rules and expectations. Novice teachers could be rapidly
"trained" and given a set of marking criteria. The history to this
is, I believe, fairly well documented in the American comp curricula.
I found the five-paragraph essay quite effective in Detroit's urban
middle schools, where I first became aware of its teaching. But in
that setting, as well as in Adult Basic Education in British Columbia
-- a spread of settings that would seem to make a world of difference
-- I found the continuance of the five paragraph form to be an
impediment specifically among those who had been judged as
inarticulate by its criteria.
In Detroit, the prevalence of strong home languages and communication
styles, especially those which were driven by example, interfered
with what the students saw as the relatively dry expectations of the
form. Surprisingly, among both the First Nations and non-First
Nations adult learners I've encountered in three years of teaching in
BC, the same effect showed through. Students with rich life
experiences to share and a significant grasp of rhetorical strategies
in verbal environments ran up against the same internalized demon of
what "good writing" meant. And it simply wasn't big enough to "fit"
their story.
Arguments about immersion in a culture of literacy aside, I found
that once students "learn" that one style is the expected style, they
chafe against its constraints at the same time they continue to judge
their own writing as inadequate by its parameters.
In short, I found that those who felt -- or who had been told -- that
their writing did not live up to the expectations of this form
(whatever the particulars of the form might be -- number of
paragraphs, use of "I", whatever) managed to internalize the form,
and its constraints, far more than those who felt -- or who had been
told -- that they were good writers. The self-identified "good
writers" already knew that the five paragraph form was just one
style, did not need to be taught that speeches, magazine articles,
book reviews and research papers did not necessarily all follow this
model. The writers who struggled against the formal constraints had
to be reminded to try other styles, and to look towards other writing
models.
As long as the five-paragraph model is offered only as a style -- as
one pattern in a rich field of writing technique -- then it certainly
has credible teaching merit. But at least in the US, it feels that
thirty years of Composition work (roughly since the early '70s
publication of a Student's Right to Speak) have largely been directed
at undoing the historical damage of the mass post-WWII training in
(and resultant monoculture of) the five paragraph form.
Cheers,
-marc c.
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