According to John Warner, the 5-paragraph essay is similar to the Frankenstein monster created in the original novel. Only the 5-paragraph won’t kill your new wife because you couldn’t give it a proper mate that would be just as ugly and grotesque to view as the original monster. Or…could it?

Let’s dissect this claim for a moment, shall we (the question mark is absolutely necessary by the way)? The main reason that most if not all students complete these five paragraph essays is to please the teacher/professor enough so they could get a high enough grade to the point where they never have to think of stories like Frankenstein ever again. However, because of this issue of constantly writing the same formulaic essay with the same audience (professor), message (whatever they want in order to get a very high score), and purpose (to get a very high score), that is all the student becomes accustomed to until it reaches the point where they are no longer self-aware of what they are writing anymore because it is just second nature to spew out the words they know the teacher wants to hear. It’s as if they are a one-hit one singer who has been performing the exact same song over and over at every concert to the point where they have lost all emotion, effort, and learning experience from the song. The same goes for the student, who no longer uses their writing as a chance to discover a new philosophical identity or perspective never seen from the novel before, but rather as the opportunity to waste more time creating the same exact grotesque piece of work that every other student creates to the point that the student can multitask and write essays and read a book like Frankenstein at the same time.

This may work in high school, but the same grotesque Frankenstein essay does not work in college, just as the same old date routine (which literally consists of the same humdrum activities of trying to binge watch the new Netflix hit You while both of you nudge each other off trying to reach for the popcorn with absolutely no interest in each other) will not work when your girlfriend becomes your wife. If this is the case, you can seriously kill your new wife by crushing her from all the grotesque and monumental failures you have created ever since abandoning the 5 paragraph essay.

But didn’t I just get through explaining the laziness and uselessness of the 5 paragraph essay? Well yes, but do you have any better ideas? Everybody is always so quick to judge and complain about something without having a logical explanation to fix this issue. As a sports fan, I see this constantly…and by constantly, I mean every second of my life is filled with yet another meaningless idea. It wastes so much of my time I could literally make better use of my time by writing a 5-paragraph essay, which John Warner even states, “engaging opening, clear focus/thesis, transitions between ideas, general coherence.” Compared to all of these ridiculous ideas, the 5-paragraph essay is actually not so bad considering the student must be able to read what the teacher wants the student to achieve in order to achieve it. Therefore, the student still learns reading skills and perspectives that must be gained in order to fully understand something. Of course, it is not ideal because of the reasons stated above, but they are much better than many solutions.

A how-to essay does not work for every last essay, especially when it comes to analyzing or interpreting a specific section of text and/or comparing the text to another piece of writing. Also, trying a free-write can allow the students to also cheat the system and pick one section they like the most or see the easiest evidence from the text to use in an essay to once again create a monotone and humdrum essay that they continue to use in a similar fashion to the 5-paragraph essay.

In essence, the 5-paragraph essay has become a humdrum, formulaic essay that is easily criticized with many alternatives, but none that are truly viable because they too will one day succumb to the humdrums of writing. That’s why the only 5 we need is Maroon 5. We need more guys like them, fewer essays like the 5-paragraph.

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