The Ill Effects Of The Five Paragraph Analysis

Throughout every aspect of our lives, we do things solely as a means to an end. We don’t value the process, but it’s necessary in order to get us the results we desire. This can be seen in interactions as simple as driving to arrive at a destination, but is especially prevalent in the academic world. Kimberly Wesley exemplifies this in her essay “The Ill Effects of the Five Paragraph Theme” as she explains how many students have been taught writing as a means to get a product, and being given a cookie cutter way of getting that end. This stifles imagination and creativity in young writers, and these ideals carry from grade school and high school into college. In Jeffrey Selingo’s essay “What’s the purpose of college: A job or an education”

To get the most out of an essay and ensure the best grade, following a five paragraph essay format was necessary. Writing essays became more about creating work that was palatable and easily graded for teachers rather than creating work that challenges ourselves mentally and creatively. Wesley observed a similar phenomenon with her students, and says, “In my student’s mind, the only kind of writing considered ‘good,’ the only kind of essay that would earn an ‘A’ from the teacher, must have a thesis with exactly three points, no more, no less” (Wesley 57). Instead of writing being an exploration of creativity and ideas, the Five Paragraph Theme “actually dissuades students from practicing the rhetorical analysis necessary for them to become critical thinkers” (Wesley 58). I experienced this myself, when in elementary school, English teachers started to prepare us for the standardized test in Massachusetts called MCAS. Every example fed to us followed the five paragraph theme. We would critique some essays that received worse grades than others, and learn why the best ones were effective. Every single essay without fail followed the five paragraph theme, three-pronged thesis and all, and if it didn’t, it got a lousy grade or scored poorly on the MCAS. When I went to middle school and continued to write essays in an academic setting, every paper I wrote

The MCAS is only one example in which we see ourselves fitting ourselves into boxes for success so that we can do well in college and further. The MCAS in Massachusetts offers the opportunity to receive a scholarship for college, tying all of this into an even larger idea of stifling ourselves for success. Only students who effectively wrote a paper that was easily graded by test proctors were given the opportunity to save money on a higher education. Beyond this, Selingo in his essay says, “Students and their families, faced with big tuition bills, want to be sure to pick a major that leads to a job after graduation” (Selingo 1). Not only will we write specifically created essays to obtain money and success, but we are willing to stifle our entire creative beings and interests in order to earn a career and perceived ‘success’ out of college. Pursuing a fulfilling career that nurtures the curious mind is no longer an option, and as Selingo puts it, the new pressure to find a career out of school “[worries] those who advocate liberal arts studies and the idea that college should be a place to develop a foundational knowledge that provides lifetime benefits” (Selingo 1). I confront this myself as a political science and anthropology double major. Although I’m lucky to have a career path ahead of me, I’m still subject to bizarre looks and questions of what I