69传媒

Special Report
69传媒 & Literacy

Is the Five-Paragraph Essay History?

By Stephen Sawchuk 鈥 June 20, 2016 5 min read
  • Save to favorites
  • Print
Email Copy URL

Has the five-paragraph essay, long a staple in school writing curricula, outlived its usefulness?

The venerable writing tool has largely fallen out of favor among influential English/language arts researchers and professional associations. 鈥淩igid鈥 and 鈥渃onstraining鈥 are the two words critics often use to describe the format.

There鈥檚 no denying that a five-paragraph essay鈥攃omprising an introduction with a thesis, three paragraphs each with a topic sentence and supporting details, and a conclusion鈥攊s highly structured, even artificial, in format. Yet many teachers still rely on it at least to some degree. Supporters of the method argue that, used judiciously, it can be a helpful step on the road to better writing for emerging writers.

鈥淵ou can鈥檛 break the rules until you know the rules. That鈥檚 why for me, we definitely teach it and we teach it pretty strongly,鈥 said Mark Anderson, a teacher at the Jonas Bronck Academy in New York City, who recently helped devise a framework for grading student writing based on the five-paragraph form.

Classical Origins

Long before 鈥済raphic organizers鈥 and other writing tools entered teachers鈥 toolkits, students whittled away at five-paragraph essays.

Just where the form originated seems to be something of a mystery, with Today, the debate about the form is intertwined with broader arguments about literacy instruction: Should it be based on a formally taught set of skills and strategies? Should it be based on a somewhat looser approach, as in free-writing 鈥渨orkshop鈥 models, which are sometimes oriented around student choice of topics and less around matters of grammar and form?

Surprisingly, not much research on writing instruction compares the five-paragraph essay with other tools for teaching writing, said Steve Graham, a professor of educational leadership and innovation at Arizona State University, who has studied writing instruction for more than 30 years.

Instead, Among other things, they include supportive classroom environments in which students can work together as they learn how to draft, revise, and edit their work; some specific teaching of skills, such as learning to combine sentences; and finally, connecting reading and content acquisition to writing, he said.

As a result, the five-paragraph essay remains a point of passionate debate.

A quick Google search turns up hundreds of articles, both academic and personal, pro and con, with titles like 鈥淚f You Teach or Write the 5-Paragraph Essay鈥擲top It!鈥 duking it out with 鈥淚n Defense of the Five-Paragraph Essay.鈥

Structure or Straitjacket?

One basic reason why the form lives on is that writing instruction does not appear to be widely or systematically taught in teacher-preparation programs, Graham said, citing surveys of writing teachers he鈥檚 conducted.

鈥淚t鈥檚 used a lot because it provides a structure teachers are familiar with,鈥 he said. 鈥淭hey were introduced to it as students and they didn鈥檛 get a lot of preparation on how to teach writing.鈥

The advent of standardized accountability assessments also seems to have contributed, as teachers sought ways of helping students respond to time-limited prompts, said Catherine Snow, a professor of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

鈥淚t simplified the tasks in the classroom and it gives you structures across students that are comparable and gradable, because you have real expectations for structure,鈥 she said.

It鈥檚 not clear whether the Common Core State Standards鈥 new emphases in writing expectations have impacted the five-paragraph essay鈥檚 popularity one way or another.

鈥淚 don鈥檛 connect the two in my mind,鈥 Anderson said. 鈥淭here is more informational writing and analytical writing, but I haven鈥檛 got a sense that the five paragraph format is necessarily the best way to teach it.鈥

Still, Anderson argues that structure matters a great deal when teaching writing, and the five-paragraph essay has that in spades.

At a prior school, Anderson found that a more free-form workshop model in use tended to fall short for students with disabilities and those who came without a strong foundation in spelling and grammar. The format of a five-paragraph essay provided them with useful scaffolds.

鈥淭he structure guides them to organizing their ideas in a way that is very clear, and even if they鈥檙e very much at a literal level, they鈥檙e at least clearly stating what their ideas are,鈥 he said. 鈥淵es, it is very formulaic. But that鈥檚 not to say you can鈥檛 have a really good question, with really rich text, and engage students in that question.鈥

On the other hand, scholars who harbor reservations about the five-paragraph essay argue that it can quickly morph from support to straitjacket. The five-paragraph essay lends itself to persuasive or argumentative writing, but many other types of writing aren鈥檛 well served by it, Snow pointed out. You would not use a five-paragraph essay to structure a book review or a work memorandum.

鈥淭o teach it extensively I think undermines the whole point of writing,鈥 she said. 鈥淵ou write to communicate something, and that means you have to adapt the form to the function.鈥

A Balanced Approach

Melissa Mazzaferro, a middle school writing teacher in East Hartford, Conn., tries to draw from the potential strengths of the five-paragraph essay when she teaches writing, without adhering slavishly to it.

A former high school teacher, Mazzaferro heard a lot of complaints from her peers about the weak writing skills of entering high school students and ultimately moved to middle school to look into the problem herself.

Her take on the debate: It鈥檚 worth walking students through some of the classic five-paragraph-essay strategies鈥攃ompare and contrast, cause and effect鈥攂ut not worth insisting that students limit themselves to three points, if they can extend an idea through multiple scenarios.

鈥淢iddle school especially is where they start to learn those building blocks: how you come up with a controlling idea for a writing piece and how you support it with details and examples,鈥 she said. 鈥淵ou want to draw your reader in, to have supportive details, whether it鈥檚 five paragraphs or 20. That is where it鈥檚 a great starting point.鈥

But, she adds, it shouldn鈥檛 be an ending point. By the time students enter 9th grade, Mazzaferro says that students should be developing more sophisticated arguments.

鈥淚 used to help a lot of kids write their college essays, and whenever I saw a five-paragraph essay, I鈥檇 make them throw it out and start over,鈥 she said. 鈥淎t that point, you should be able to break the rules.鈥

Related Tags:

Coverage of the implementation of college- and career-ready standards and the use of personalized learning is supported in part by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Education Week retains sole editorial control over the content of this coverage.

Events

School & District Management Webinar Crafting Outcomes-Based Contracts That Work for Everyone
Discover the power of outcomes-based contracts and how they can drive student achievement.
This content is provided by our sponsor. It is not written by and does not necessarily reflect the views of Education Week's editorial staff.
Sponsor
School & District Management Webinar
Harnessing AI to Address Chronic Absenteeism in 69传媒
Learn how AI can help your district improve student attendance and boost academic outcomes.
Content provided by 
School & District Management Webinar EdMarketer Quick Hit: What鈥檚 Trending among K-12 Leaders?
What issues are keeping K-12 leaders up at night? Join us for EdMarketer Quick Hit: What鈥檚 Trending among K-12 Leaders?

EdWeek Top School Jobs

Teacher Jobs
Search over ten thousand teaching jobs nationwide 鈥 elementary, middle, high school and more.
Principal Jobs
Find hundreds of jobs for principals, assistant principals, and other school leadership roles.
Administrator Jobs
Over a thousand district-level jobs: superintendents, directors, more.
Support Staff Jobs
Search thousands of jobs, from paraprofessionals to counselors and more.

Read Next

69传媒 & Literacy What Teachers Say They Need Most to Help Struggling Teen Readers
Educators also want more time in the school day to work on reading skills, a new survey finds.
4 min read
Close cropped photo of an open book with a teen girl's eyes peering over the top of the book.
Jack Hollingsworth/Getty
69传媒 & Literacy Opinion Boys Don't Love to Read. Could This Former Teacher Be on to Something?
Boys are falling behind in reading. Books with military-history themes may help reverse this trend.
7 min read
The United States Capitol building as a bookcase filled with red, white, and blue policy books in a Washington DC landscape.
Luca D'Urbino for Education Week
69传媒 & Literacy Is Handwriting a Lost Art? What One College鈥檚 Kerfuffle Over Cursive Can Tell Us
Since 2014, there鈥檚 been a resurgence of cursive and handwriting education.
6 min read
A photograph of a close up of cursive handwriting that is undecipherable
E+
69传媒 & Literacy Quiz Quiz Yourself: How Much Do You Know About Student Literacy Data?
Answer 7 questions about the importance of student literacy data and how to collect and use it.