Is the Era of the Five Paragraph Essay Over?
Credit to Kevin Snodgrass
and written by Jeremy Howard
Since the start of my 4th grade class, the 5 paragraph essay has been the golden standard in every classroom. We were taught a way of writing that helped us get our ideas across in a neat and organized way. You may be wondering about the title and thinking, "What is this fool talking about?" Well to answer that question, we need to dive into what makes a 5 paragraph essay.
What is the 5 paragraph essay?
A 5 paragraph essay has 5 main parts:
- Introduction
- Body 1
- Body 2
- Body 3
- The Conclusion
Introduction
The introduction has an opening statement of attention getter. It's followed by a supporting sentence which links the attention getter to the thesis statement. The thesis statment tells the reader the pupose of the essay and the flow of the three main topics that will be discussed.
Body Paragraphs
There are 3 body paragraphs to explain your claim and ideas. The very first sentence is the topic sentence which tells you what that paragraph is about. This is followed by sentences that support back up your claim or idea.
The Conclusion
The conclusion is the final paragrpah that will summarize all of your main points and re-assert your claim. The main purpose of this is to top off your essay and end with a pondering thought that makes your essay memorable.
Natural Evolution of Writing?
It's time to talk about how the power of the 5 paragraph essay has dwindled as the grades went by. It was not until my high school years that the importance of the 5 paragraph essay started to wane. Towards the end of my freshman English class, I remember that we began to go past 5 paragraphs. There are limits to what you could express in this form factor. If you had more than three main points to write about, the format wasn't extensive enough to put everything you needed inside it. This was common when I had to write research papers because 3 main points weren't enough to fill the page requirements. We fast forward to my senior year of high school in my creative writing English class. The idea of the 5 paragraph has all but faded into obscurity. We learned to write as if telling a story. It allowed us to write to our hearts content without the boundaries of 5 paragraphs. It sometimes feels as if the limits of my writing had been let loose and has lead me to a stark thought that this may just be the natural evolution of writing. This is the point where we work up to as we age. The death of the five paragraph essay is the beginning of learning new writing genres for which we can express ourselves.
Conclusion
I hope you have enjoyed learning about what makes up a 5 paragraph essay, my thoughts over the importance it, and the use of the it. To answer the title, no, the 5 paragraph isn't going anywhere, at least not for the generation to come.