Essay

short-form Non-Fiction

re-surgence with online Wiki and WebLog Reading And Writing?

Beware the Subtopic Method!

2004-09-09-GrahamOnWritingEssays

2014 Lee Skallerup Bessette: students, despite the K-12 system’s best efforts, come into my classes resenting having to write and at a loss as to how to communicate, collaborate, or research in any sort of formal way. What has gone wrong?

2019 John Warner: A comprehensive investigation of student-produced writing artifacts dating back to 1917 by Andrea and Karen Lunsford also revealed that the number of errors in student writing have been largely consistent over time... The primary problem (with the 5-paragraph essay) is the practices which attach to the teaching of the five-paragraph essay, and the totalizing system of accountability which privileges the teaching of the five-paragraph essay. Prescriptive rules such as: a thesis must be the last sentence of the first paragraph... Effective argumentation is about learning to make choices consistent with audience, purpose and message (the rhetorical situation). The way the five-paragraph essay is employed as prescriptive practice actually prevents students from practicing those far more vital and complicated skills.