Reasons for a 5 Paragraph Essay
The five-paragraph essay is the most basic type of essay students are asked to write in school. Most often it is used in lower grades, but is at times used in high school. The reason it is used is that it allows students to learn the basics of organizing an essay. From this type of essay, students can easily move on to longer and other types.
Other People Are Reading
-
Basics
-
One major reason for a five-paragraph essay is to teach students how to write essays. The idea is very simple. It involves an introductory paragraph, three paragraphs to develop a thesis, and then a summary or conclusion paragraph. These three steps can be the essence of any essay of any length, and about any type of essay. Once a student has this format down, he or she can easily move on to other longer formats. The five-paragraph essay is good for elementary and junior high students, but not as appropriate for more advanced high school or college students.
Foreign students
-
Students whose first language is not English may have trouble writing essays in English. The problem is in choosing words they are not that comfortable using, and organizing thoughts in a language they are still learning. Having a simple format such as a five-paragraph essay gives them a structure to use to organize their thoughts in a more coherent way.
-
Detractors
-
Some teachers and education officials dislike the five-paragraph essay, and have reasons they believe it should no longer be used. They say it is too restrictive on students' creativity, and that teaching students to express ideas is more important than learning how to organize words in a neat package. They feel that focusing on language and ideas would be more beneficial, and that organizing an essay will take care of itself as the student writes the essay.
Growing
-
The five-paragraph essay is often called writing with training wheels. It is a rather narrow structure, but it does teach a student to organize his or her thoughts. Once this is grasped and can be done competently, there really is no longer a need to use the system. Students need to move on to other types of writing and types of essays once they have the five-paragraph essay down. Like riding a bicycle, once you know how to ride, you are able to put away the training wheels.
-
