This summer, I reread Bruce Pirie’s Reshaping High School English. Oddly enough, when this book came it out it wasn’t one that had all the kids lined up around the block at midnight to get a hold of it. Nobody dresses up like Bruce Pirie (at least as far as I know), nor are there Bruce Pirie fan clubs.

Maybe we ought to rethink that. Below are the parts of the book that absolutely sent me, in the Sam Cooke sense of the word.

One way of clearing space is by being cautious about serving up theory first, before students have had a chance to see what they can make of experience. If we tell students, “Here’s how short stories are structured,” or “Here are five figures of speech,” then send them on a mission to analyze stories in those terms or to find examples of metaphors, we effectively limit students to making their experience fit our structures. This is not the same as making sense of things themselves–encountering the text and seeing what grows out of that transaction…The point is not that we should hide literary labels from students; we should let identification grow naturally out of the meaning-making processes of the reader, rather than beginning with lists of terms and drills in the hunting and labeling of metaphors. (69)

Right on, isn’t it? Now check this out:

What does the five-paragraph essay teach about writing? It teaches that there are rules, and that those rules take the shape of a preordained form, like a cookie-cutter, into which we can pour ideas and expect them to come out well-shaped. In effect, the student is told, “You don’t have to worry about finding a form for your ideas; here’s one already made for you.” This kind of instruction sends a perversely mixed message. On the one hand, it makes structure all-important, because students will be judged on how well they have mastered the form. On the other hand, it implies that structure can’t be very important: it clearly doesn’t have any inherent relationship to ideas, since just about any idea can be stuffed into the same form…

Structure isn’t an all-purpose predesigned add-on. Ideas don’t come neatly packaged in sets of threes…[i]ndeed, the most common symptom of five-paragraph essay writing is the student’s heavy-handed attempt to make unwilling material fit those three obligatory body paragraphs…like Cinderella’s sisters trying to squeeze their toes into someone else’s shoe…

[A defender of the five-paragraph essay] is angry because she sees criticism of the five-paragraph formula as a wrong-headed attack on structure by theorists who think students should just spill their thoughts onto the page. I, on the other hand, am criticizing the formula because I do think structure–or rather, structuring–is such an important part of writing. It is so important that you’re not really writing unless you are doing it…(76-78)

Thoughts? Fire away. I’m sure this post’ll be revised as I think more about it, but I wanted to get these quotes up.

Added

This, I think, is what we should be giving our students.  The Cal State L.A. Writing Center has some good information about what a “college-level” essay is and isn’t.  I understand that 10th graders aren’t in college, but aren’t we supposed to be preparing them?

How many paragraphs you have depends on the nature of your ideas and how much you have to say.

I think this page here would make a very useful handout for high school students with any sort of basic writing skills.

Then, of course, is the kind of advice you find on the About.com page on How to Write a Five-Paragraph Essay.  Grace Fleming, About’s guide to Homework/Study Tips, dispenses this kind of advice (emphasis mine):

Luckily, you can learn to craft a great essay if you can follow the standard pattern and write in a clear and organized manner.

I have no problem with clear and organized writing, but the standard pattern makes no sense here.  Especially because in the paragraph before, Fleming’s just written that “essays play a big role in the college application process, as well.”  I don’t think there are any college admissions folks in the bless’d world who’d want a five-paragraph essay from an applicant.

At the end of her piece, Fleming gives us this gem:

You might find that the supporting paragraphs are strong, but they don’t address the exact focus of your thesis. Simply re-write your thesis sentence to fit your body and summary more exactly.

Which is where I start beating my head against the wall.  Because a thesis is supposed to be the thing you prove by providing three well-reasoned and well-supported paragraphs.  But if what you write doesn’t support your thesis, you just change your thesis to make it fit.  Then you’ve got a tight paper that is unassailable by the teacher, and you’re good to go, except you’ve just written something that, by definition, doesn’t really reflect what you believe.

I’m getting my first student writing samples this week.  I’m very curious to see how many of them immediately jump into the five-paragraph mode, and how many will pick up on the fact that nowhere in the assignment do I even hint that that’s what I’m looking for.