The Writing Process

My writing experience in middle school and high school involved the notorious five paragraph essay. I believe that learning about the five paragraph essay helps students understand how to organize their thoughts and ideas in a very simple and structured way. However, I also think that there is much more to writing than just the five paragraph essay, which is often neglected in schools. I think that the five paragraph structure is a good one to use with struggling readers and writers. It is an easy way for these students to understand how to expand on an idea or thesis. However, after knowing the capabilities of your students it is also vital that more ways of organizing an expanding an essay are implemented in the classroom. I would argue that writing an informational or technical piece of writing is easier in some respects, because the writer is simply trying prove a point. Often vital questions such as Why should I care? or Why is this topic interesting to the writer? are neglected. Students need to understand that there are a multitude of reasons to write. Often the school envronment promotes writing skills for passng basc sklls tests. However, in the world outside of the school sphere students will be asked to write for a multitude of reasons. It is essential that we teach students how to write and expand ther ideas in more ways than the restrictive five paragraph essay. This will aid students in achieving their lifelong learning goals and better prepare them for the future.
At www.learner.org:
Teachers can find informaton about how to enhance the skills of developing writers. On this site there are videos and ideas for meaningful writing assignments.