Love it or hate it, the five-paragraph essay is perhaps the most frequently taught form of writing in classrooms of yesterday and today. But have you ever actually seen five-paragraph essays outside of school walls? Have you ever found it in business writing, journalism, nonfiction, or any other genres that exist in the real world? Kimberly Hill Campbell and Kristi Latimer reviewed the research on the effectiveness of the form as a teaching tool and discovered that the research does not support the five-paragraph formula. In fact, research shows that the formula restricts creativity, emphasizes structure rather than content, does not improve standardized test scores, inadequately prepares students for college writing, and results in vapid writing. In Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay, Kimberly and Kristi show you how to reclaim the literary essay and create a program that encourages thoughtful writing in response to literature. They provide numerous strategies that stimulate student thinking, value unique insight, and encourage lively, personal writing, including the following: Close reading (which is the basis for writing about literature) Low-stakes writing options that support students' thinking as they read Collaboration in support of discussion, debate, and organizational structures that support writing as exploration A focus on students' writing process as foundational to content development and structure The use of model texts to write in the form of the literature students are reading and analyzingThe goal of reading and writing about literature is to push and challenge our students' thinking. We want students to know that their writing can convey something important: a unique view to share, defend, prove, delight, discover, and inspire. If we want our students to be more engaged, skilled writers, we need to move beyond the five-paragraph essay.

This volume was written to make the case for changes in second language writing practices away from the five-paragraph essay and toward purposeful, meaningful writing instruction. As the volume editors say, “If you have already rejected the five-paragraph essay, we offer validation and classroom-tested alternatives. If you are new to teaching L2 writing, we introduce critical issues you will need to consider as you plan your lessons and as you consider/review the textbooks and handbooks that continue to promote the teaching of the five-paragraph essay. If you need ammunition to present to colleagues and administrators, we present theory, research, and pedagogy that will benefit students from elementary to graduate school. If you are skeptical about our claims, we invite you to review the research presented here and consider what your students could do beyond writing a five-paragraph essay if you enacted these changes in practice.” Part 1 discusses what the five-paragraph essay is not: it is not a very old, established form of writing; it is not a genre; and it is not universal. Part 2 looks at writing practices to show the essay’s ineffectiveness in elementary schools, secondary schools, first-year writing classes, university writing courses, undergraduate discipline courses, and graduate school. Part 3 looks beyond the classroom at testing. At the end of each chapter, the authors--all well-known in the field of second language writing--suggest changes to teaching practices based on their theoretical approach and classroom experience. The book closes by reviewing some of the major questions raised in the book, by exploring which questions have been left unanswered, and by offering suggestions for teachers who want to move away from the five-paragraph essay. An assignment sequence for genre-aware writing instruction is included.

An important challenge to what currently masquerades as conventional wisdom regarding the teaching of writing. There seems to be widespread agreement that—when it comes to the writing skills of college students—we are in the midst of a crisis. In Why They Can't Write, John Warner, who taught writing at the college level for two decades, argues that the problem isn't caused by a lack of rigor, or smartphones, or some generational character defect. Instead, he asserts, we're teaching writing wrong. Warner blames this on decades of educational reform rooted in standardization, assessments, and accountability. We have done no more, Warner argues, than conditioned students to perform "writing-related simulations," which pass temporary muster but do little to help students develop their writing abilities. This style of teaching has made students passive and disengaged. Worse yet, it hasn't prepared them for writing in the college classroom. Rather than making choices and thinking critically, as writers must, undergraduates simply follow the rules—such as the five-paragraph essay—designed to help them pass these high-stakes assessments. In Why They Can't Write, Warner has crafted both a diagnosis for what ails us and a blueprint for fixing a broken system. Combining current knowledge of what works in teaching and learning with the most enduring philosophies of classical education, this book challenges readers to develop the skills, attitudes, knowledge, and habits of mind of strong writers.

For a long time now, readers and scholars have strained against the limits of traditional literary criticism, whose precepts--above all, "objectivity"--seem to have so little to do with the highly personal and deeply felt experience of literature. The Intimate Critique marks a movement away from this tradition. With their rich spectrum of personal and passionate voices, these essays challenge and ultimately breach the boundaries between criticism and narrative, experience and expression, literature and life. Grounded in feminism and connected to the race, class, and gender paradigms in cultural studies, the twenty-six contributors to this volume--including Jane Tompkins, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Shirley Nelson Garner, and Shirley Goek-Lin Lim--respond in new, refreshing ways to literary subjects ranging from Homer to Freud, Middlemarch to The Woman Warrior, Shiva Naipaul to Frederick Douglass. Revealing the beliefs and formative life experiences that inform their essays, these writers characteristically recount the process by which their opinions took shape--a process as conducive to self-discovery as it is to critical insight. The result--which has been referred to as "personal writing," "experimental critical writing," or "intellectual autobiography"--maps a dramatic change in the direction of literary criticism. Contributors. Julia Balen, Dana Beckelman, Ellen Brown, Sandra M. Brown, Rosanne Kanhai-Brunton, Suzanne Bunkers, Peter Carlton, Brenda Daly, Victoria Ekanger, Diane P. Freedman, Olivia Frey, Shirley Nelson Garner, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Melody Graulich, Gail Griffin, Dolan Hubbard, Kendall, Susan Koppelman, Shirley Geok-Lin Lim, Linda Robertson, Carol Taylor, Jane Tompkins, Cheryl Torsney, Trace Yamamoto, Frances Murphy Zauhar

In Writing Rhetorically: Fostering Responsive Thinkers and Communicators, author Jennifer Fletcher aims to cultivate independent learners through rhetorical thinking. She provides teachers with strategies and frameworks for writing instruction that can be applied across multiple subjects and lesson plans. Students learn to discover their own questions, design their own inquiry process, develop their own positions and purposes, make their own choices about content and form, and contribute to conversations that matter to them. Inside this book, Fletcher helps remove some of the scaffolding and explains how to put in practice some methods which can successfully foster: Inquiry, Invention, and Rhetorical Thinking Writing for Transfer Paraphrasing, Summary, Synthesis, and Citation Skills Research Skills and Processes Evidence-Based Reasoning Rhetorical Decision Making Rhetorical decision making helps students develop the skills, knowledge, and mindsets needed for transfer of learning: the ability to adapt and apply learning in new settings. The more choices students make as writers, the better prepared they are to analyze and respond to diverse rhetorical situations. Writing Rhetorically shows teachers what it looks like to dig into real texts with students and novice writers and how it develops them for lifelong learning.

George Orwell set out ‘to make political writing into an art’, and to a wide extent this aim shaped the future of English literature – his descriptions of authoritarian regimes helped to form a new vocabulary that is fundamental to understanding totalitarianism. While 1984 and Animal Farm are amongst the most popular classic novels in the English language, this new series of Orwell’s essays seeks to bring a wider selection of his writing on politics and literature to a new readership. In Why I Write, the first in the Orwell’s Essays series, Orwell describes his journey to becoming a writer, and his movement from writing poems to short stories to the essays, fiction and non-fiction we remember him for. He also discusses what he sees as the ‘four great motives for writing’ – ‘sheer egoism’, ‘aesthetic enthusiasm’, ‘historical impulse’ and ‘political purpose’ – and considers the importance of keeping these in balance. Why I Write is a unique opportunity to look into Orwell’s mind, and it grants the reader an entirely different vantage point from which to consider the rest of the great writer’s oeuvre. 'A writer who can – and must – be rediscovered with every age.' — Irish Times

div Composition research consistently demonstrates that the social context of writing determines the majority of conventions any writer must observe. Still, most universities organize the required first-year composition course as if there were an intuitive set of general writing "skills" usable across academic and work-world settings. In College Writing and Beyond: A New Framework for University Writing Instruction, Anne Beaufort reports on a longitudinal study comparing one student’s experience in FYC, in history, in engineering,;

This textbook is suitable for self-study. It takes students through a step-by-step process of writing expository, argumentative, and compare and contrast essays. Includes information on structuring an essay, enhancing introductions, judging the quality of sources, citing information and improving the academic tone of language.