My Conviction of The Five Paragraph Essay

When I started college, I was introduced to the five paragraph essay by a professor who I now see as my mentor. It made so much sense to me to explicate what I am tying to convey in three distinct yet succinct paragraphs. After attending graduate classes, I realized that there are several ways to compose an essay and I deduce that the City University uses the five paragraph theme because it as helpful for the professors to grade as it is effortless for some students to compose.

This semester I read a few essays such as "The Five Paragraph Essay", "My Five Paragraph Theme Theme" that where not in favor of this method of composing essays. The issue that I had with the latter essay is the fact that the author went out of his way to ridicule this system, yet he offered no alternative method of teaching students how to organize their essays in a lucid manner in which the professor can comprehend the points that were being made. The entire article was satirical to the point where I wondered if the writer has ever taught any ELL.

The third essay that I read in reference to the five paragraph essay was "Traci's 44 List of Five Paragraph Essays" which I found to be brilliant. Unlike the other two essays, she did not even attempt to lampoon the system that is currently being used in Universities across the country. Instead she created ten fabulous theme prompts for writing original five paragraph essays. Cultural competence is a major asset when teaching students how to write and think in a new language. The traditional five paragraph essay is a wonderful way to teach foreign students the rules of writing a clear well organized essay. For the critics that disagree with this notion, I would like to ask them a single question. If you were learning to speak, read, listen, and write in a language that had a totally different alphabet system, would you want a system as clean cut and feasible as the five paragraph essay, or would you want various other techniques that might confuse you?" Empathy is the key to understanding and understanding is greater than knowledge!!!