Analysis Of Marie Foley's Unteaching The Five-Paragraph Essay

“They’ll turn us into writing robots”, a student contends against the use templates influencing the structure of their essays. (10) In the book “They Say/ I Say”: The Moves That Matter in Academic Writing, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein insist that the use of their relevant templates provide tools that will enhance the readers writing skills. These templates provide an exemplary format that one can use when writing an essay. Graff and Birkenstein suggests that, “Instead of focusing solely on abstract principles of writing, then, this book offers model templates that help you put those principles directly into practice.”

As I was reading Melissa Duffy’s “Inspiration, and Craig Vetter’s “Bonehead Writing,” I found myself connecting with Vetter’s paper more than Duffy’s. I found that the presentation in “Bonehead Writing” to capture my attention, and that Vetter’s feelings about writing was similar to my opinion on writing. Through his wording and humor, I think Craig Vetter wrote the best essay. I find that the wording and presentation of an article or essay influences my opinion of the writer, and it affects how I receive the idea they are trying to present to me. Craig Vetter uses a blunt approach to convey his idea that writing is nearly impossible to teach, and describes writing as “A blood sport, a walk in the garden of agony every time out.”

The article by Donald Murray entitled, “The Maker’s Eye: Revising Your Own Manuscripts” provides readers a better understanding of the writing process and argues that writers learn to write, by writing and rewriting. Murray also contends that writers must learn to be their own best enemy. Well, I believe I have this trait covered! I will confess, that I purposely saved this course for last, due to the number of years between my last structured learning experience and returning to school to complete a BSN degree.

In They Say/ I say, Gerald Graff and Cathy Birkenstein informs the audience of the basic moves in academic writing through text, illustrations, and templates. Their main model in this book is they say/I say template, in which it helps writers to develop their arguments by paying attention to what others are saying, and engaging with a response. The authors goal is to demystify academic writing, and return it to its social and conversational roots. The authors want the writers to engage in the ideas of others. These concepts from this book, will help make a stronger, supportive argument.

In this short passage by William Zinsser, Zinsser used compare and contrast to inform the readers about his personal opinions of being a writer. Due to different understandings and opinions on how to be a good writer, Zinsser decided to use compare and contrast in order to present a clean and detailed differences to the reader about how different people’s writing style can vary. By doing this, it would be extremely helpful for the readers to distinguish the differences of each writing style, see the benefits and disadvantages, and ultimately gather enough information to decide which style fits them the best. At the panel with Dr. Brock, Zinsser gave the audience a broader view of different writing styles and how they contribute differently.

This chapter can help young writers in English class with their papers in many different ways. For instance, Trimble gives examples on what a veteran writer does in order to make their writing interesting. He also gives out techniques on how you can get a reader’s attention or how you can fix your writing to make it readable instead of having nonsense. What makes this difficult for me as a writer is that I write what ever comes to my mind and it will not make sense. Another thing that makes it difficult for me as a writer is that I am not good at getting the readers attention and having him hooked on to my work.

Meta-Cognition Journal: English Reflection This journal demonstrates five topics through five paragraphs that reflect on my literary experience throughout my study of literature in ENG 3U. The five topics that I am going to talk about are my English study ’s, how I approach work that I get back, how I should improve my routine style, things I have to work on and the next step I am going to take to improve in English.

Irvin’s conclusions are that writing has its own format and set of rules that differs with each kind of writing and will be subject to change by the writer. Evaluation: Irvin uses expository writing to state how academic writing is argumentative and has its own set of writing myths. Writing myths can happen to any form of writing using critical thinking skills to address the issue. Irvin states in his article that the intended audience is college students. This reading is effective as the myths can help the reader to understand certain layout for the different parts of

In " The 3 Effects of the Five Paragraph Theme" by Kimberly Wesley, she discusses the problems with using five paragraph theme (FPT). In this article, the writer argues that by using FPT will limit the students idea that can be represented in the paper. Students are trying fit the specific FPT requirements, and they cannot write any deeper or include new ideas. Student's tend to think not following the FPT will lead to bad grade. Therefore, students would not including more information, because it can be risk taking.

When moving to the subject of the text’s organization, we notice that the author has excellently organized her thoughts at first and put them into consecutive paragraphs that were easy for the reader to follow, only to give up on this organization of thoughts after the tenth paragraph. In the introduction, the writer announces that she wishes to “imply” her hopes and thoughts by classifying the critics. She does so rather pleasantly in the article; however, the readers may find themselves lost in an abundance of unorganized thoughts after a few paragraphs of structured ideas. In the first five body paragraphs, Fuller divides the critics into three categories and describes the pattern of each critic’s writing in one or two paragraphs. After being done with the categorization, she starts describing the ideal critic in her own way by giving up on her chain of structured thoughts and starting to toss her ideas of a critic in an unorganized manner which is enjoyable to read but confusing when trying to find a clear and solid definition of a critic from Fuller’s perspective.

Over the course of the semester, my main goal was to become a more precise writer and develop my identity as a writer. According too, the Portfolio Letter assignment sheet, becoming a better writer consists of precise planning, draft and revising. It also includes understanding a variety of academic genres by examining the basic characteristics that defines each type. In order too efficiently meet my goal of becoming a better writer, it was very important to have my work evaluated by others and myself as well. The use of rhetorical knowledge, critical thinking, reading and writing all are the important aspects in this course.

In the essay “Stopping to Talk”, Karen Vais analyzes the short story “Early Autumn” by Langston Hughes. She first introduces the story along with her thesis. Vais establishes the theme of Hughes’s work as “walking versus talking.” The idea is that “hurried movement through life prevents people from forming or maintaining meaningful relationships.” In her first supporting paragraph, Vais lets the readers know of the setting.

Writing has always been an issue but yet interesting subject of mine. As hard as I try and write essays, and papers I just can’t get the hang of writing. But after taking this class, I did learn different writing technique and improved my writing proficiency, material body of formatting, and how to uncovering and properly use sources. Through class exams, essays, and a research paper, I was able to learn new writing skills. Although I have learned a variety of things, my writing still needs improvement.

Each essay I wrote took me several time to write, several drafts which show that I have improve every time I do the drafts to write a perfect masterpiece. I learned a lot of skills and techniques this quarter, which has helped me to improve and progress my writing skills for the future. I will remember the skills, techniques, and tips that professor gave us in this English class for my higher education. For example, all the time that I went to visit professor Sapozhnikov office hours to receive help on my out-of -class essays has helped me to improve, grow, and progress in my writing skills as a writer. Some of the significant changes I have made as I was progressing and growing were to develop a strong thesis to help support my claims as I write my essays, such as facts, observations, illustration, and examples.

There are many genres of writing like business writing, professional writing, journal writing but in college and university, academic writing is the most common. It is writing done to satisfy an essential of the school proposed. While writing an academic essay, the writer needs to pay attention to the reader, and the main subject here is college’s teacher or tutoring teacher. Academic writing method is different from other methods because it has own characteristics and requires more skills. Writing is a skill that required in many contexts of life.