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

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Assignment 1
In the excerpt, “Unteaching the Five-Paragraph Essay” by Marie Foley, it reveals how the Five-Paragraph Essay formula as an unnatural method of writing. Foley shows that this formula is used by teachers as a strategy for survival, since it would be easier to teach a class the formula of five-paragraph than to teach the students individually. Also that this formula was originally was planned to help retain the efficiency and clarity of the essay. It’s a useful step for beginning student to write and to overcome writer’s block. However, Foley believe that this formula of writing should not only be the writing mode; because it would create gab between the students’ self and their expression in writing. Foley insists that the formula blocks imagination and cancels out the authenticity of the reader’s need for coherence.
The five-paragraph formula will not prepare students for college or any kind of writing since professional writers …show more content…

The patterns of organization that are most frequently used by writers are chronological order, spatial order, emphatic order, and causal order. The chronological order means to move through time, spatial order is moving from outside to inside, emphatic order is from least to most significant, and causal order is the effects to causes. These patterns may seem like they’re formals but they are not. They have become discourse conventions because they correlate with the natural thinking processes and they are versatile. The five-paragraph formula seems imperative and causes problems and it should be addressed by writing instructors at all levels and those who have created multiple strategies that share their