Memo #2: using the origin of the essay

With my topic for the I-search being on the use of the 5 paragraph essay and how to use the formula as a starting point to develop more creative writing, I was prompter to look up some of the work of Michel de Montaigne. To give a little background, Montaigne is considered to be an influential writer of the French Renaissance and is credited with popularizing the essay as a genre. His essays mainly featured him analyzing aspects of the world through the lens of his own experiences, something uncommon at this time.

Montaigne’s essays did something that no other writer at the time was doing, and wrote about how he felt and not about other people’s ideas. He would often reference Greek educators such as Plato, and many great writers such as Shakespeare have referenced Montaigne’s writing. I have skimmed through a large amount of Montaigne’s essays and some of the things he wrote about were age, drunkenness, education, there are no essays about the use of theme in a novel, so why is this the main purpose of essays in the classroom now.

I think that using Montaigne could be a starting point when teaching essays to students. Before a formal essay is introduced to a class, Montaigne’s personal essays could be introduced. I would probably read one in class, stopping frequently to explain what is being said because it is very dense. The importance of showing students these essays would be for them to see that essays don’t have to be these boring analyses of text but can be connected to their own experience and views of the world. This is an excellent starting point in essay education.

As I continue to do more research on the 5 paragraph formula, I myself have come to the conclusion that it is an extremely valuable tool. The problem that I see with the 5 paragraph essay is that it is over used. At some point the students will understand and be able to produce the 5 paragraph essay, but that is when it’s time to scaffold on this knowledge and practice. The purpose of the 5 paragraph essay should be for students to learn to organize their thoughts and form an argument.

I think my next step after teaching about the 5 paragraph essay would be to refer back to my lessons on Montaigne and work on personal arguments with my students, such as arguing which rapper or actor is better. This way it will be a solid argument developed by students about their own personal beliefs. This will benefit students because they will see that essays don’t have to be structured to create a point and don’t have to be about abstract themes.

I do not think that the 5 paragraph essay is a perfect form of writing, I believe it serves its purpose as a tool, and that is how teachers should use it in this classroom. How to develop this tool to create organized and intelligent writers is what I plan to figure out throughout this I-search process.

Memo 1: First Article of Interest

In my search for information on my topic, I first wanted to find articles that showed a positive side of the five paragraph essay. I do not think that this type of essay is worthless, but rather a great way to teach students to organize their thoughts. This formulaic essay can be used as a spring board to more creative writing. One argument that I found agrees with this idea, but says that college professors are the ones that will help build on top of this. This goes against my personal experience, but I still find value in some of the opinions in this article.

            The title is “In Defense of the Five Paragraph Essay”, and it was written by Kerri Smith, a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey. Smith addresses how the 5 paragraph essay may not be the best writing but it is a good start to getting students to organize their thoughts. She mentions students that she has that she wishes would write this formulaic way. Smith goes on to explain that this is because she wants to help them develop their writing away from the formula and structure.

            This article definitely is a great starting point for my research on how to make the 5 paragraph essay a starting point for students. But I’m going to have to dig around more to find effective ways to teach away from the formulaic essay building on top of the knowledge students have developed. Probably the most appealing element of this article is that it is an extremely effective 5 paragraph essay, proving the point that the 5 paragraph formula is not necessarily an enemy of creativity or style.

Exploring the Start of my I-Search

For my I-search I am going to explore the movement away from the 5 paragraph essay that we have all come to know and love. In the 6^th grade I first met the 5 paragraph essay when this ela specific teacher came into my class and handed out worksheets that were split into 5 boxes to develop a 5 paragraph essay, and this is what essay writing became to me. Any writing assignment I was given turned into a 5 paragraph essay. It was simple, structured, solid, and BORING. I’ve come to realize that these are just as boring to read as they are to write. In high school, this type of essay continued, but when I got into higher grades and advanced classes, I realized that 5 paragraphs wasn’t enough and I adjusted my technique.

I personally was never given any instruction on how to get away from the daunting 5 paragraph essay and had to discover it on my own. So naturally, I would like to research how to get away from this boring type of writing so I can teach real writing to my students. I also through my last post realized just how little I know about the essay beyond using it to analyze literature, I think education students on the history of the essay and showing students how versatile an essay can be that this will inspire students to use essays in a more creative well and really help them to develop their writing. Something that I personally wish I would have been given because the word essay still sends shivers down my spine. Searching this may not only help my future students, but really open up my own mind and thinking. I am extremely excited.

Narrowing It Down

Last week we posted 5 ideas for our I-search, this week we were asked to narrow it down to 2 and It was pretty clear to me which two I would want to focus on more. They are:

1) How could a teacher work collaboratively with students to create assignments of criteria for the classroom? Is this a good approach or would it cause the students to feel like the teacher is lazy?

As a student I would have liked to collaborate with the teachers on assignments. This could have made expectations a lot clearer for all the students, eliminating the guessing game that goes into teacher created assignments. This also gives students some of the power in the classroom.

2) How to make the transition away from the 5 paragraph essay that is used to introduce students to the art of essay writing?

The 5 paragraph essay, a good starting point for writing essays, but not the form you want students to be stuck with forever. I am curious when the appropriate time to move away from these essays and how to appropriately do it. I know as a teacher I don't want to have to read a massive pile of 5 paragraph essays when I assign a writing assignment, and I know the students don't want to write them.

I am probably leading more towards the first one than the second one, as I see a lot more room for exploration.