I agree with the five-paragraph essay template being abandoned. Five-paragraph essays lack originality, they are more like fill in the blank assignments. In the process of writing an essay the student should be able to think and make original ideas up instead of paraphrasing something from a textbook and essentially having the same essay everyone else. I think an alternative would be to have a less structured writing class where students could discuss the book or topic and free write and from there their teacher should show them how to make their writing better.
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Thanks Jolaynie. I wondered how a teacher would tell a student how to make “their writing better.” What would better mean? I imagine we’d want to figure out what “better writing” is first, especially if it does not involve writing in the five paragraph format.
DW