The Fifth Blog

As a former spoon-fed student of the five paragraph essay format, I agree with Spandel in that there are many inhibitors when following a formula. yet, I do feel to some degree that the five paragraph essay was successful in helping me, as a young student, to focus on structure. For some students that find writing troublesome, this method can help alleviate the pressure of beginning writing and writing in a manner that makes sense. For me, it also helped my formal writing, largely because I followed the form for a few years, and then a wise teacher told us we can do more than five paragraphs. And we can put our thesis where ever we feel is suitable. And we can make it our own. It's hard to say for sure, but I do not feel the five paragraph essay held me back as a writer, especially when compared to the detrimental effect of being taught phonetic spelling, which crippled me as a speller for quite some time. (so you know, I had spelled phonetic incorrectly the first time around because I attempted to spell it phonetically)

Once again Smith lays on a heavy dose of philosophical writing, and it was a good piece but thick to read. He had many interesting points relating to the creative process, such as "the actual process of imagination is, like all the brain's activities, not under our immediate conscious control." (123) Again, it was interesting to hear him expound upon the nature of the creative mind, but I do not find it to be too helpful as a writer or in teaching writing. The more valuable tidbits came in the section about writer's block. Unfortunately, it is all good and dandy for him to say "accept the block", which I have previously employed as a last emergency option, and it often resulted in me having nothing to present worth reading due to the last minute attempt to put my jumbled thoughts into words.

I really enjoyed the Language of Coats. For a change, I didn't resent the analogy at all. Also, there is a wonderful feeling when reading about the fulfilling nature of a career as a writing teacher. Many of the lines made me smile to myself. When Sommers says, "in a heavy semester, I myself write nothing except that genre we call 'comments' or 'responses' to student writing," (176) there is a feeling of comradery that developed for me as a reader, since being on the opposite end of teaching feels much the same. I think this piece best related to our class this Monday past, where the value of good feedback in order to shape and develop a student as a writer is centrally important.