Hi Theresa,
Thanks for the thoughtful comments on the eve of All Saints' Day.
Though I, as noted, have never seen (as student, teacher or
citizen-reader) the famous 5-para essay, many Inkshedders have, and seem
to have mixed views on the utility / uselessness of the thing. If I had
to guess, I'd guess that the form was created out of thin air (i.e.,
with few real-world antecedents) by teachers for teaching purposes (for
better or worse). If I'm right about this, it's a funny kind of
"model." There are, in the real world, personal essays of various ilks,
proselytizing / agitating essays (e.g., Payne, Burke, Coleridge),
academic / critical essays, etc., all the fruit of genuine rhetorical
exigencies. If studying models is useful (and I think, to a limited
extent, it can be) then you'd think it might be wise to . . . well, I'm
winging it here:
- study a variety of essays (maybe even avoiding the term "essay" and
using instead "short non-fiction")
- maybe, just maybe, for the genre-minded, develop a taxonomy of types
- start with a genuine rhetorical need (which typically, can only be
determined by the writer), and write an "essay" (any length, any
organizational pattern)
- emphasize / enable revision
- let the seed find its soil, i.e., let the real audience really read
it . . . and provide feedback
Of course this rhetorically-minded approach presumes that
getting-better-at-writing-essays is a good thing (and it may be, for
some folks). But unless the student is a lit student, he or she might
benefit a lot more from getting better at writing filmscripts or love
emails or buy-sell recommendations or pre-nuptial contracts or graphic
novels or . . . .
As to Lucifer, I rather like the chap, at least Milton's version. He
never wrote a 5-para essay, and was a very persuasive fellah who knew
how to rise to the kairos-occasion.
Jamie
-----Original Message-----
From: CASLL/Inkshed [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Theresa
Hyland
Sent: October 28, 2005 4:46 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Lucifer?
I tried to send this yesterday, but it bounced back because it seems
that Huron has changed my email address! So, it's a bit late but here
goes:
Jamie, many of us learned to teach writing by using writing handbooks
such as "The Practical Writer with Readings" where the five paragraph
essay is used as a handy model which contains all the elements of a good
essay --- an introduction, a body where several points are made and
supported, and a conclusion. I would say that it has its uses (as a
model) but must be handled with care. Unfortunately, it has become a
metaphor for mechanical writing. If Lucifer is banal, then the 5
paragraph essay is evil.
When we, as writing teachers, rely too heavily on formulae in teaching
writing, we squeeze the life out of concepts that began as good ideas.
However, these concepts took hold because they did contain the germ of a
good idea, and we often forget that when we concentrate on how these
concepts have been used and abused in the writing classroom. It's the
same with the teaching of grammar. I DON'T equate the teaching of
grammar with the teaching of writing, but there are grammatical concepts
that are useful for students to know when they are editing their own
work (i.e. comma splice, sentence fragments, parallel structures etc).
Keep Lucifer at bay? Better to look at what he has to offer and use it
carefully, sparingly, and creatively. Theresa
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