5 P

I was failing freshman English. This was pretty weird for me since I never failed at anything. Also, I constantly read instead of doing things—like, really important assignments and future type goals. So why would I struggle with a class based on reading?

Perhaps it’s because I have always hated asking for help, not matter the context. Even if there was no possible way I would know something- I hated asking. If help was offered, I would politely refuse and struggle alone. Honestly, this method worked for me quite well for a strangely large chunk of my life. I made it through school on the honor roll without ever asking a question in class.

I’m sure this sounds like some obnoxious level confidence, like I think I know everything. That’s really not it. I didn’t have confidence. I didn’t think I knew everything.

I was just scared of sounding stupid.

I was afraid of being wrong.

But freshman high school English forced me to change. I had to go to this teacher, whose class I had below 50% in, and say “I don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t know what you’re talking about. I might as well not be in this class because I don’t know what the heck is happening.”

It’s not like she wasn’t aware of this- she read my papers. I think she was more on the fence about judging me and deciding if it was that I was super lazy or struggling

She really felt for me. I had never done a five paragraph essay before, and I was pretty sure the word thesis was made up by some demon. It just didn’t click. I would pull quotes that were irrelevant, and my thesis was usually just a factual commonplace. I didn’t even know what the word analysis meant.

When I read, I was just along for the ride.

When I wrote, I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I didn’t know how to do it right.

To my credit, the book I had to write my first five paragraph essay on was A Tale of Two Cities. I barely understood the book, and didn’t even come close to analyzing it.

The teacher knew that this was not a good practice novel, and switched me to To Kill a Mocking Bird. She had me read the whole thing and meet with her every day at least once to talk about it. I told her which part I was on and what I thought about it. I ate all of my lunches with her, and stayed after school for tutoring with her three times a week.

We didn’t do anything other than to talk about the world of Atticus Finch, Jim, and the kids.

At the end of the book, Jim died. I was pissed. I read this whole damn book about an innocent man who was racially convicted and he just dies. End of story. What the hell.

That day I went in to speak with her, and she knew I had read the ending. Apparently my reaction is a common one.

Then, she asked me, “why did Jim die?”

I stared at her like she was stupid. “I don’t’ know. He shouldn’t have tried to run away from prison I guess.”

She said something like, “yeah, but think about this. The author is in control of the entire story. They picked every aspect, and drew you in to this world. They made you recognize Jim’s innocence and wish for him to be free. If they did all of this, why did the author kill him?”

I told her that it’s because the book is racist. She quickly stated that books do not discriminate or have feelings.

I then said that maybe the author was trying to say that certain kinds of people were racist. She drove me to dig further. I said that maybe Jim was so likeable so the audience would be sad when he was killed, because the author wrote in a racist time.

 

She told me to try to write a paper about that, with that sentence as my thesis. She helped me find quotes that enforced that point. We wrote a 5 paragraph paper together, a little at a time each day, until I had completed it. She gave me an ‘A’ and told me this was all I had to do—make an assertion about a work and try to defend it.

That was the first time I ever understood this.

It wasn’t an awesome paper. But it was a start.

As far as the articles go, I agree and disagree with both of them. Personally, the five paragraph essay format really helped me to learn to analyze, find supporting evidence, and dig into deeper meaning in a work.

However, it has been nearly a decade since I’ve taken this class and I never use the five paragraph format now. It feels juvenile and basic, so I stay away. Moreover, I almost failed a class because I did not understand it, even though I was an extremely competent writer in many other ways (especially fiction).

I think this format does not work for many people, and often hinders the understanding of writers. The only reason I grasped it was because a lovely teacher helped me in their free time because they genuinely wanted me to succeed. Not everyone is so lucky.

The five p essay should not be a requirement. It really should be a tool to help students understand principle aspects of academic writing- a central idea, evidence, structure, and flow. However, it is not the only was to teach this, and as the articles said- it often hinders creativity due to its’ strict structure.

It should still be taught as an alternative, because it will help some people. However, it should not be the standard.