# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Dennis Allen doesn't think the five-paragraph essay is dead.

In the years before his retirement in May from West Virginia University, the Professor Emeritus did not assign "strict" five-paragraph essays. He contends that the five-paragraph essay may be dead in the literal sense because instructors of college composition classes don't assign it, but he believes its structure is still around.

"I think a dissertation chapter is just a substantially more elaborate version of this," Allen, who taught at West Virginia University for 35 years, explains. "In other words, the first five pages are the introduction with a thesis near the end, and you have two to five points, and it just expands out."

The five-paragraph essay is a topic long debated by educators, and strong opinions abound. Ray Salazar called the five-paragraph essay an "outdated writing tradition" that "must end" in a 2012 post for his blog White Rhino. And in a 2016 blog post for the National Council of Teachers of English, Sacramento State associate professor Kim Zarins used the five-paragraph essay structure to show why she's against teaching it. She called herself a high school "survivor of this form." Despite its "long tradition, the five-paragraph essay is fatally flawed," she wrote. "It cheapens a student's thesis, essay flow and structure, and voice."

A year later, her stance hasn't budged.

"When I see five-paragraph essays come into the stack of papers, they invariably have this structural problem where the ceiling is so low, they don't have time to develop a real thesis and a truly satisfying or convincing argument," she says.

Five-paragraph essays are not the majority of what Zarins sees, but she points out that she teaches medieval literature, not composition. Regardless, she thinks high school teachers should steer clear of this approach, and instead encourage "students to give their essays the right shape for the thought that each student has."

Kristy Olin teaches English to seniors at Robert E. Lee High School in Baytown, Texas. She says sometimes educators have structures that don't allow for ideas, content or development to be flexible, and instead of focusing on what's actually being said, they become more about "the formula."

"It seems very archaic, and in some ways it doesn't really exemplify a natural flow," Olin says about the five-paragraph essay. "It doesn't exemplify how we talk, how we write or how most essays you read are actually structured."

Consider paragraphs. They should be about one subject and then naturally shift when that subject changes, Olin explains. But because the five-paragraph essay structure dictates that there be three body paragraphs, students might try to "push everything" to those body paragraphs.

Olin does think, however, that the five-paragraph essay format is useful for elementary students, adding that fourth grade is when the state of Texas starts assessing students' writing in standardized tests. But once students get into sixth, seventh and eighth grade, teachers need to break away from that five-paragraph essay format and say "'this is where we started, and this is where we need to head.'"

Hogan Hayes, who teaches first year composition at Sacramento State, is the second author of an upcoming book chapter about the "myth" that the five-paragraph essay will help students in the future." There's a perception that if students get good at the five-paragraph essay format, they'll hone those skills and will be good writers in other classes and writing situations, he says. But there's "overwhelming evidence to suggest that's not the case."

He doesn't think that first first year composition teachers should be spending time "hating the five-paragraph essay." Instead, they should recognize it as knowledge students are bringing with them to the classroom, and then "reconfigure it to new contexts" and use it ways that are more college-appropriate.

Hayes says college writing instructors need to get students to understand that the reason their K-12 teachers kept assigning five-paragraph essays was because they were working with "100, 120, 150 students," and a standardized writing assignment "that works the same way every time" is easier to read, assess and grade. In regards to students who leave K-12 with a "strong ability to write the five-paragraph essay," he says, ""I don't want to snap them out of it because I don't want to dismiss that knowledge."

Take McKenzie Spehar, a Writing and Rhetoric Studies major at the University of Utah. She says she learned the five-paragraph essay early on, and except in an AP English class she took in the 12th grade, the structure was pushed heavily on her at school. She can't say she's ever written a five-paragraph essay for college. Her papers have all needed to be longer, though she does note that they do tend to stick to a five-paragraph type format-an introduction, a body and a conclusion.

"In general, the consensus is you need more space than a five-paragraph essay gives you," she says, adding that it's a good place to start when learning how to write academically. She explains that later on, however, students need a looser structure that flows more with the way they're thinking, especially if they go into the humanities.

Kimberly Campbell, an Associate Professor and Chair of Teacher Education at the Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling, is strongly opposed to the five-paragraph essay structure. She thinks it stifles creativity and "takes away the thinking process that is key for good writing." And she says she's not the only one worried that the structure doesn't help students develop their writing. In Beyond the Five-Paragraph Essay, a book she wrote with Kristi Latimer (who teaches English Language Arts at Tigard High School in Oregon), Campbell cites research studies that critique the approach of teaching the five-paragraph essay.

"Studies show that students who learn this formula do not develop the thinking skills needed to develop their own organizational choices as writers," she says. "In fact, it is often used with students who have been labeled as struggling. Rather than supporting these students, or younger students, it does the opposite."

For his part, Hayes thinks the five-paragraph essay makes it easy to not be creative, not that it necessarily stifles creativity. He believes creative students can work their imagination into any structure.

Allen, the retired English professor, stresses that even if writing isn't argumentative, it always needs some structure. It can't be simply uncontrolled, because the reader's not going to get the point if it's all over the map."

Rita Platt is currently a teacher librarian with classes fromPre-K to fourth grade at St. Croix Falls Elementary School in St. Croix Falls, Wisconsin. She still stands by a piece she wrote in 2014; in it she said she was "being really brave" by stating she believes in teaching elementary school students "the good old fashioned" five-paragraph essay format.

She thinks the five-paragraph essay format has room for creativity, such as through word choice, topic and progression of thought. Kids can use the five-paragraph essay model to organize their thoughts, she says, and once they're really comfortable, they can play around with it.

"Kids need something to start with," says Platt, who has 22 years of teaching experience across different grade levels.

Campbell's recommendation, which she says research backs, is to focus on reading good essay examples and give students in-class support while they write. She wants students to read a variety of essays, and pay close attention to structure. The students can then develop ideas in a writing workshop. As they develop their content, they consider how to structure those ideas.

"Students can explore a variety of organizational structures to determine what best supports the message of their essay," Campbell says.

Platt tells EdSurge that she thinks there's a movement in writing that says to "just let kids write from the heart." But that means the kids who aren't natural writers are left "in the dust." What's more, this approach doesn't honor the constraints of teachers' jobs, such as how much time they have to teach. And not all teachers love writing or write themselves, she says. Many elementary school teachers, she claims, never write, and not everyone has the skills of, say, Lucy Calkins or Nancy Atwell.

Campbell's not a fan of asking kids to "'just write from the heart.'" She wants kids to write about topics they care about, but at the same time, recognizes that instructors do need to teach writing. She says her mentor text method described above "is a lot of work," but it was effective when she taught middle school and high school.

"In my work with graduate students who are learning to be English Language Arts teachers, I am also seeing this approach work," she explains. She adds that her method would be easier if class sizes were smaller and teachers weren't trying to "meet the needs of 150-200 students in a year."

Most people aren't going to become professional writers, Platt continues, noting that she's not saying most people couldn't, or that schools shouldn't encourage people to think that way. She says there's a sense of elitism in education that she gets a little tired of, along with some teacher bashing that makes her feel like she has to defend her colleagues who aren't themselves natural writers yet are tasked with teaching kids to be "serviceable writers."

"It bothers me in education-particularly in my field, language arts-where everybody says, 'everybody should love reading and writing,'" she says. "Well, you know, you hope everybody loves reading and writing. You model that passion, you share that passion with your students but truth be told, our job is to make sure everybody reads and writes very well."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Is the Five-Paragraph Essay Dead? - EdSurge News

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Dennis Allen doesn't think the five-paragraph essay is dead. In the years before his retirement in May from West Virginia University, the Professor Emeritus did not assign "strict" five-paragraph essays. He contends that the five-paragraph essay may be dead in the literal sense because instructors of college composition classes don't assign it, but he believes its structure is still around.

# data[].attributes.body
Documents from our group's work, including student comments about how writing helps them. (To access these resources, click on the purple tab at the bottom right of the page that says "source."

# data[].attributes.body
Writing and Remembering: A purpose for writing that makes sense.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A few weeks ago I wrote a post on note-taking skills. One common experience many people have, and that several people mentioned in response to that post, is that when they take good notes they remember things well enough that they rarely end up having to look at their notes again.

In fact, it seems that writing anything down makes us remember it better. On the other hand, not writing things down is just asking to forget. It's a kind of mental Catch-22: the only way not to have to write things down is to write them down so you remember them well enough not to have written them down.

Oy.

Curious about this, I decided to do some research into the psychology of writing and memory. As it happens, I have quite a background in the anthropology of memory, none of which did me any good reviewing the psychological literature. There's not a lot out there, not that I could easily find anyway (not being familiar with the psychological literature probably hampered my search) but what I did find was interesting. Seems it's not simply wishful thinking that lets us ignore our notes once they're written; there's good evidence that the act of writing itself helps us remember things better.

Not all things, though. What's especially interesting is that writing things down appears to help us remember the important stuff, and that the better our notes are the more likely we are to remember.

But first, some basic neuropsychology (!). The brain is divided up into several regions that process different kinds of information. There are separate regions that process visual information, auditory information, emotions, verbal communication, and so on. Although these different regions communicate with each other (for example, when we look at a piece of art we often have an emotional response, which we might then transmit to the language center of our brain to share verbally) each of them has its own processes it has to complete first. (OK, this is all a vast over-simplification, but what can I say? I didn't take notes that day in Neuropsychology 101...)

When we listen to a lecture, the part of our brain that handles listening and language is engaged. This passes some information on to our memory, but doesn't seem to be very discriminating in how it does this. So crucial information is treated exactly the same way that trivia is treated.

When we take notes, though, something happens. As we're writing, we create spatial relations between the various bits of information we are recording. Spatial tasks are handled by another part of the brain, and the act of linking the verbal information with the spatial relationship seems to filter out the less relevant or important information.

So here's what happens: in one psychological test involving students watching a lecture on psychology (psychologists who work in academia have a virtually unlimited supply of research subjects - their students!) students who did not take notes remembered the same number of points as the students who did take notes. That is, the mere act of taking notes did not increase the amount of stuff they memorized. Both groups of students remembered around 40% of the information covered in the lecture (which as a professor makes me sad, but I guess that's the way humans work). But the students who had taken notes remembered a higher proportion of key facts, while those who did not take notes remembered a more or less random assortment of points covered in the lecture.

What this and other tests suggest is that when we write - before we write, although indistinguishably so - we are putting some degree of thought into evaluating and ordering the information that we are receiving. That process, and not the notes themselves, is what helps fix ideas more firmly in our minds, leading to greater recall down the line.

Which is fine for notes, but what about other kids of writing? Apparently the same thing happens: in building a link between the spatial part of our brain that we need to use in order to make marks on paper that make sense (that is, to write) and the verbal part of our brain that we need to compose meaningful utterances to supply our writing hand with, we strengthen the process by which important information is stored in our memory.

But there's something else going on, too. When we write something down, research suggests that as far as our brain is concerned, it's as if we were doing that thing. Writing seems to act as a kind of mini-rehearsal for doing. I've written before about how visualizing doing something can "trick" the brain into thinking it's actually doing it, and writing something down seems to use enough of the brain to trigger this effect. Again, this leads to greater memorization, the same way that visualizing the performance of a new skill can actually improve our skill level.

The first thing just about every personal productivity writer in the world tells us is to write everything down. If you're a "writer-downer", you know how important this is, and you know that it works. Hopefully, now you know a little bit about why it works, too.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing and Remembering: Why We Remember What We Write

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A few weeks ago I wrote a post on note-taking skills. One common experience many people have, and that several people mentioned in response to that post, is that when they take good notes they remember things well enough that they rarely end up having to look at their notes again.

# data[].attributes.body
Informal Writing Assignments

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing and Learning - CATL | UW-La Crosse

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Writing is most likely to be an effective learning tool when it engages students in making sense out of the subject matter and when it helps students work through conceptual pitfalls, misconceptions, and problems. However, not all writing activities are equally appropriate for every discipline, instructor, and situation.

# data[].attributes.body
Important when we're talking about deepening understanding!

# data[].attributes.body
Not only does writing help us learn, but the physical process of writing--holding that writing instrument and taking it to paper--is important!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Don't trade in your pencils and paper for a keyboard just yet.

A new study that compared the different brain processes used for writing by hand and typing has found that there are cognitive benefits to putting a pen to paper. These findings give support to the continued teaching of penmanship and handwriting in schools.

Children who don't learn the skill of handwriting, like generations before them had to, may be missing out on an important developmental process. Compared to using two hands to type out letters on a keyboard, writing with one hand uses more complex brain power.

Writing is more complicated because it integrates the following three brain processes:

Visual: Seeing what is on the paper in front of you.

Motor: Using your fine motor skills to actually put the pen to paper and form the letters to make the words.

Cognitive: Remembering the shapes of the letters requires a different type of feedback from the brain.

As adults, we know that writing by hand is a much slower process than typing on a keyboard. And we're all in a hurry to share our every thought with our social networking worlds. But, as an experiment, sit down and write a letter. See how different it feels to actually hold the pen and to have to plan out your thoughts. It'll be good for your brain. Handwriting may be slower, and there is no spell check, but this is precisely why picking up a pen and writing your thoughts down on paper may actually help you exercise your brain.

ORIGINAL RESEARCH:
Handwriting Is Beneficial to Children's Cognitive Development

Summary
There have been very few studies that address the various modalities of writing, such as the difference between writing with a pen on paper and a keyboard and a mouse. This review attempted to differentiate between handwriting and keyboard writing and their different implications on children's learning; in addition the researchers looked at adult reading and writing behavior and experiences. Results from analysis of previous literature on various writing methods and their implications showed that there is a significant difference between handwriting and the use of a mechanized device. Neuroscientists have noted that the shift from handwriting to mechanized or technical writing has serious implications on cognition and skill development.

Introduction
There have been very few studies that explore the implications of the change of writing devices. This change is from traditional pen on paper to computer keyboards, digital stylus pens, and writing tablets and beyond. There are two aspects of writing; one is the visual aspect and the other is the perception and motor aspect, otherwise known as "haptics." Some studies have revealed that in the actual act of writing by hand you must use your motor skills to copy a letter graphically, a slower process that actually aids in cognitive development. This review examined the effects of technical or mechanized writing on cognitive development and writing and other finer skills in children; and also how daily mechanized writing has affected the hand/brain relationship in learning.

Methodology

The researchers evaluated studies from neuroscience, biopsychology and evolutionary biology for this review.

The researchers attempted to detect how writing by hand aids in learning and cognitive development, and also the development of language, especially in children from various studies.

They also studied evidence such as brain images to identify the connections between visual stimulation by handwriting and recognition of letters and alphabets.

Results

Evidence from studies has shown that writing skill is a process that needs an integration of visual, motor, as well as cognitive or perceptive parts. The perception allows one to remember the shape of the letters that is written while sight and motor skills of the hand enable the writing. Present brain imaging shows that the nerves are also connected to these three components.

When a person writes uses a typewriter or a computer, he changes this pattern to a great extent. For example, typewriting involves both hands while handwriting involves one, and handwriting is slower and more laborious than typing. Handwriting needs a person to shape a letter, where typing does not.

Some Japanese studies have shown that repeated handwriting aids in remembering the shape of the letters better. One study showed that when children learned words by writing, they remembered it better than if they learned it by typing.

Handwriting makes a person focus on one point alone-the tip of the pen. However, mechanized writing makes a writer oscillate between the keypad and the monitor.

Next steps Authors state that while this study has explored some previous work connecting writing skills of the hand and the brain, a lot more needs to be done to explain the actual connection. They suggest further studies to explore the implications of modern learning, reading and writing skills on the development of cognition and intelligence.
Conclusion
As more and more children learn their first words and letters on the computer instead of on paper, this study is very relevant. There has been minimal research in this field and reviews of previous studies shows that when comparing handwriting to mechanized writing, the "hand is not merely a metaphor or an icon of humanness, but often the real-life focal point of a successful and genuinely fulfilling life," opines the authors. Educators need to be aware of these findings and modify their teaching accordingly.

More from FYI Living:
Is Lead To Blame For Low IQ Scores
How To Maximize The Power of Affirmations
Is The Secret To Self-Regulation Hidden In Marshmallows

For More Information:
Digitalizing Literacy: Review on the Science of Writing
Publication Journal: Advances in Haptics
By Anne Mangen; Jean-Luc Velay; National Centre for Reading Education and Research, University of Stavanger, Norway, and the Mediterranean Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience, CNRS, Université de la Méditerranée, Marseille, France

*FYI Living Lab Reports Are Summaries of the Original Research.

Read more at FYI Living: http://fyiliving.com/research/handwriting-is-beneficial-to-childrens-cognitive-development/

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Don't trade in your pencils and paper for a keyboard just yet. A new study that compared the different brain processes used for writing by hand and typing has found that there are cognitive benefits to putting a pen to paper. These findings give support to the continued teaching of penmanship and handwriting in schools.

# data[].attributes.headline
Writing and the Brain: Neuroscience Shows the Pathways to Learning

# data[].attributes.subject
Writing and the Brain: Neuroscience Shows the Pathways to Learning

# data[].attributes.body
The importance of writing for learning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Writing and the Brain: Neuroscience Shows the Pathways to Learning - National Writing Project

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Also, multiple sensory-intake systems such as talking, writing, moving, and listening enhance long-term memory. The multisensory intake and positive social interactions are reflected in neuroimaging with activation of multiple neural networks when the brain seeks to retrieve stored information. This duplication of memory storage in the multiple long-term memory circuits throughout increases efficiency of information retrieval and durability.

# data[].attributes.body
Another article that discusses the importance of writing for the instructor. We cannot merely assign; we must DO!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Learn English for Free

For Students, Teachers, and Authors

Become a Better Writer Today!

Clear up confusion between commonly misused words.

Stop making embarrassing writing mistakes.

Become the better writer you want to be.

As my free gift to you, I'd like to give you a complimentary copy of my latest e-book, 35 Mistakes to Avoid in Your Writing.
Free E-book Download

Want to Improve Your Writing?

The Writing Explained Confusing Words Section Can Help!

Become a Better Writer Today.

Sign up For the Writing Explained Newsletter.
Sign Up

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Grammar, Style, and Usage - Writing Explained

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Learn English for Free For Students, Teachers, and Authors Become a Better Writer Today! Clear up confusion between commonly misused words. Stop making embarrassing writing mistakes. Become the better writer you want to be. As my free gift to you, I'd like to give you a complimentary copy of my latest e-book, 35 ...

# data[].attributes.body
Blog that talks about how important our modeling writing behavior is if we want our students to write.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"Books will soon be obsolete in the schools. Our school system will be completely changed in 10 years." -- Thomas Edison, 1913

Sound familiar? Ninety-nine years later, we are hearing this nearly verbatim today. Educational technology is a wonderful addition to learning, and to our world, but it does not and will not replace the process of learning or the planning of teaching.

Technology will also never replace the need to be literate. Students will always need to be able to read and write. And it's essential that they are able to do both incredibly well.

How do we prepare our students for the critical literacy skills required in today's world? Although there's so much to say about this matter, there's one key aspect of it that's been close to my heart since I attended a National Writing Project workshop more than a dozen years ago:

To help our students become writers, we need to write side by side with them.

In our classrooms, as students are scratching away with their pencils brainstorming ideas, drafting on the computer, thumbing through a thesaurus, or reading a section of their essay aloud to a classmate, we need to be willing to do the same. We need to be willing to participate in writer's workshop with the children we teach. This sends an invaluable message to the young writers in the room. It says this:

I struggle too. I get tongue-tied and run out of things to say. I repeat myself and I forget words that I know I've used in the past. I sometimes change my mind halfway through a page, or even two, and want to start over with a new topic. Writing isn't always so easy!

Let's face it, for most children and many adults, writing can make us feel vulnerable (does this make sense? will people understand? I'm not sure I spelled that correctly?) When we write with our students and share with them our uncertainties about word-choice, a topic, or organization, won't they be much more willing to do the same?

Here's a couple of instances where I shared with my eleventh-grade students during writer's workshop:

Mistakenly, I received an automated ticket in the mail for driving in the carpool lane without a passenger. The ticket was an error (since I'd been teaching at the time of the incident). I wrote a letter to the traffic court. The students advised me that my tone was too harsh (I was angry!) I revised.

A poem I had written years before about my mother. Since it hadn't been titled, I never felt it was finished, only abandoned. They suggested numerous titles and then voted as a class on the most fitting.

Reading with students is just as important. The message this sends? I like to read. I don't just tell you this and grade you on how much you read, I read side by side with you. You see my facial expressions as I struggle to understand something difficult and you see when I feel emotion at a sad or funny part. I am a reader, too.

When we model for students our love -- and struggles -- as readers and writers, they will follow. The more our students fall in love with writing and reading, the more of it they will do. And as we know, practice can make us better at just about anything.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Do You Write with Your Students? | Edutopia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"Books will soon be obsolete in the schools. Our school system will be completely changed in 10 years." -- Thomas Edison, 1913 Sound familiar? Ninety-nine years later, we are hearing this nearly verbatim today. Educational technology is a wonderful addition to learning, and to our world, but it does not and will not replace the process of learning or the planning of teaching.

# data[].attributes.body
These are the two questions that we're focusing on for our inquiry. Along with our questions, we've thought about WHY students write in terms of understanding, and the importance of creating routines and structures in our classrooms that provide students with opportunities for writing to understand.