Re: Big Yes for Formulaic Writing

["Sara Glennon" <SGLENNON@landmarkcollege.org>]

Very well put, Jeanne.  Thank you.

Sara


> From:          "Jeanne H. Simpson" <csjhs@ux1.cts.eiu.edu>
>

> I was asked, when do I think it is worthwhile to teach the 5-par. essay.
> 
> While there is no doubt that most students who arrive at this university
> have seen it, I have encountered students, specifically some who came to
> the writing center, who didn't have a clue about *any* structure for
> writing, 5-paragraph or otherwise.  So, as a means of teaching the concept
> of a structure, it seems to me the 5-par. essay has the same value as
> using the structure of a sonnet or a snake skeleton.  I learned long ago
> never to underestimate what students do not know about writing, to assume
> ignorance until knowledge is proved.  That includes a recognition that
> there is such a thing as structure.  Introducing the 5-para. essay to such
> students not only teaches the concept of structure, it also provides a
> format that can be used in a variety of academic settings, thus giving the
> student some important help early on.    
> 
> Is it the only structure? No, of course not. And to teach it as if it were
> is to do the student a horrible disservice.   Even so, I do not see that
> there is harm in teaching an element of discourse in isolation, as long as
> the connection to other elements is understood and, ultimately, a sense of
> the whole achieved.  We have to start somewhere.
> 
> A 5-par. essay, as another respondent noted, can be a useful response on
> an essay exam.  And I would not be able to look a student in the eye and
> say, well, using this is just prostituting yourself to the desires of the
> instructor and perhaps violating your personal integrity as a writer.  The
> student has a direct, personal, reasonable interest in doing well on the
> exam. A 5-par. essay meets the interests of allowing the student to
> demonstrate sufficient knowledge and of providing both student and
> instructor with an efficient format.  A 5-par. essay offers the reader
> clarity, predictability, symmetry.   
> 
> Another point at which I might offer the 5-par. essay would be to assist a
> non-western student in understanding some of the rhetorical conventions of
> western academic writing.  
> 
> I return to the question of why a writer would choose a particular format,
> with its defined constraints. Why a sonnet and not an epic poem written in
> rhymed couplets?  Why a 5-par. essay and not a 10-para. essay?  Why an
> epistolary novel and not a 3-act play?  Why even think in terms of acts?
> 
> Because form is an interface where reader, writer, and message converge.
> It is itself a kind of meaning, a cultural artifact.  If I compose a
> sonnet, my readers expect a certain kind of thing to happen in it.  If I
> write a play, my readers expect something else to happen than would occur
> in the sonnet.   And if I write a 5-par. essay, yet another set of
> expectations occur.  My job as a teacher is to help my students
> understand the implications of those choices, to provide recognition of
> the existence of the choices.  The students don't need to re-invent structure,
> they just need to know the range of variation and have some principles by
> which to choose.  
> 
> When the 5-para. essay has been taught badly, it has been presented as
> the total of the rhetorical universe.  And yes, the issue is really bad
> teaching, not bad writing per se.
> 
> Jeanne Simpson
> csjhs@eiu.edu    
> 
> 
Sara Glennon
Director
Center for Teaching and Learning
Landmark College
Putney, VT 05346
(802) 387-6746       email: sglennon@landmarkcollege.org