Would this blog entry be better if it were written in a 5-paragraph essay?

Organization is clearly an important part of good writing, but it seems like a difficult idea to teach. I think the most important aspect that the Culham chapter pointed out was that there isn’t just one kind of organization—a piece might be organized by space, time, content, perspective, etc. Looking back on my own writing assignments over the years, I feel like teachers often get stuck on the idea of organizing by time: First, this happened; next, this happened-- and so on. That’s a useful way of thinking about some pieces, but a good story doesn’t necessarily follow that kind of linear construction. I think the more teachers can use examples pulled from literature and articles and previous student work, the more we can emphasize that “organized” writing looks different in different contexts. My favorite point from the Dornan text was that everyone organizes differently. We know an organized desk when we see one, for example, but it seems like no two people organize their desk exactly the same. Students might find that analogy useful, because it reminds us that there isn’t a formula for organization—it’s just a matter of finding what works for the writer and the writing.

It was interesting to read about the different “types” of papers that teachers typically assign their students to write. The more I think about it, the more it seems so silly for teachers to focus solely on the end product and disregard the writing process. In my opinion, that’s the biggest downfall of the 5-paragraph essay-- there's no attention to process. The student doesn’t have to learn anything or do any real thinking, because there’s already a set form they know they must produce. Actually, when I wrote papers in the 5-paragraph form, I barely even thought of it as a writing assignment—it was just an assignment. The only revision I ever did was to move Point One to Point Three, or maybe change the wording of my thesis statement. I know that writing these didn’t help me at all as a writer, except for perhaps strengthening my ability to write a 5-paragraph essay about a topic I didn’t have to care about. That said, I do think that we as English teachers can’t completely throw the form out of the window. I like what Wesley suggested in her article about focusing instead on three parts: an introduction, a body, and a conclusion. Then, it’s not “okay, what three points can I mention,” but “okay, what do I want to say.” We have to make sure that students do understand the uses of a clear introduction, coherent body, and concise conclusion-- we just shouldn't mislead them into thinking that that's the only kind of writing that works.

On a different note, my favorite reading of the week was actually the article about multigenre responses to literature. I absoluately loved the idea of having students respond to literature by writing in different genres, and I’d really like to incorporate something like that into my student teaching. But I’m struggling a little about how to handle it practically—how would you fit in time for revision and make sure that everyone is making progress when everyone is writing something different? Suggestions welcome. Oh, and my resource link for the week relates to multigenre writing too: http://www.sheboyganfalls.k12.wi.us/cyberenglish9/multi_genre/genre_types.htm. One of the points made in the Gillespie article was that the teacher wishes she had given her students a more thorough understanding of what each type of genre was before they dove into writing them. This site provides a pretty good list of different genres, and the descriptions are written specifically with students in mind.