The five-paragraph essay is a format of essay having five paragraphs: one introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs with support and development, and one concluding paragraph. Because of this structure, it is also known as a hamburger essay, one three one, or a three-tier essay.
According to Thomas E. Nunnally[2] and Kimberly Wesley,[3] most teachers and professors consider the five-paragraph form ultimately restricting for fully developing an idea. Wesley argues that the form is never appropriate. Nunnally states that the form can be good for developing analytical skills that should then be expanded. Similarly, American educator David F. Labaree claims that "The Rule of Five" is "dysfunctional... off-putting, infantilising and intellectually arid" because demands for the essay's form often obscure its meaning and, therefore, largely automatize creating and reading five-paragraph essays.[4]
Structure Of A 5 Paragraph Essay
Part of the appeal of the five-paragraph essay format is that it can accommodate all types of essays. No matter your assignment, whether an argumentative essay or a compare-and-contrast essay, you can apply the structure of a five-paragraph essay to communicate clearly and logically, as long as your topic is simple enough to be covered in just five paragraphs.
As with all essays, before you begin writing a five-paragraph essay, you first need to know your thesis, or main topic. Your thesis is the idea you will defend or expand upon, and ultimately what your entire essay is about, and the three paragraphs in the middle will support, prove, or elaborate on your thesis.
One of the biggest challenges in essay writing is transitioning from one paragraph to another. Good writing is seamless and fluid, so if your paragraph transitions are jarring or abrupt, readers will get distracted from the flow and lose momentum or even interest.
The first paragraph is crucial. Not only does it set the tone of your entire essay, it also introduces the topic to the reader so they know what to expect. Luckily, many of the same suggestions for how to start an essay still apply to five-paragraph essays.
Your introductory paragraph is also a good spot to include any background context for your topic. You should save the most significant information for the body paragraphs, but you can use the introduction to give basic information that your readers might not know.
After the topic sentence, fill in the rest of the paragraph with the details. These could be persuasive arguments, empirical data, quotes from authoritative sources, or just logical reasoning. Be sure to avoid any sentences that are off-topic or tangential; five-paragraph essays are supposed to be concise, so include only the relevant details.
The basic principles of how to write a conclusion for an essay apply to five-paragraph essays as well. For example, the final paragraph is a good time to explain why this topic matters or to add your own opinion. It also helps to end with a thought-provoking sentence, such as an open-ended question, to give your audience something to think about after reading.
The five-paragraph essay structure consists of, in order: one introductory paragraph that introduces the main topic and states a thesis, three body paragraphs to support the thesis, and one concluding paragraph to wrap up the points made in the essay.
The introduction is the first paragraph of the essay, and it serves several purposes. This paragraph gets your reader's attention, develops the basic ideas of what you will cover, and provides the thesis statement for the essay. The thesis statement is usually only one sentence and is made up of the topic, focus, and three main points of the essay.
Be sure that each sentence in the paragraph directly addresses both your topic sentence and your thesis statement. If you have a point to make that is not directly connected to the topic sentence, it does not belong in the paragraph. You might write a different paragraph on that other point, but you may not stick it into any old paragraph just because you thought of it at that point. (You can't stick a red towel into a load of white laundry without causing damage to the rest of the clothes, and you can't stick a point that' off-topic into a paragraph without doing damage to the rest of the essay. Keep your laundry and your paragraph points separate!)
The conclusion is the last paragraph of the essay. This paragraph brings the essay to a close, reminds the reader of the basic ideas from the essay, and restates the thesis statement. The conclusion should not contain new ideas, as it is the summation of the content of the essay. The restatement of the thesis is a simpler form that the one originally presented in the introduction.
Before we finish, it is important to remember that the format of the five-paragraph essay is the foundation of nearly every other essay you'll write. When you get ready to write longer papers, remember that the job of the introduction and conclusion are just the same as they are in the five-paragraph essay. Also, when you write longer papers, change your idea of support from three body paragraphs to three (or two or four) body sections, with as many paragraphs as necessary in each section (just as you had as many sentences you needed in each body paragraph).
Your process should always start with an outline. Even if you have limited time, creating a very basic outline will benefit your writing. Aside from the immediate sense of accomplishment that comes with getting some words on paper, an outline essentially gives you the skeleton for your essay. If you have a good outline, the actual writing of the essay will mostly involve filling in the muscles and organs of that skeleton.
Conclusions are hard for a lot of people to figure out, but try not to overthink it. The easiest way to start is to restate your initial thesis using context from your body paragraphs. Write that in your outline as a single sentence.
From there, think about how the thesis and the contents of the essay might affect an actual person. That might even include a call to action for the reader. Jot those ideas down under your concluding sentence.
The more you practice outlining essays of any type, the easier the outlining and writing processes will become. Use a simple essay outline template to create a few outlines, then the process will become habitual.
How to brainstorm a topic: Brainstorming is a strategy for coming up with ideas and content for your essay. Brainstorming can be anything from creating word associations, to freewriting, to making lists, to drawing a venn diagram, or whatever makes sense for you so that you can break down the topic and pick out what you have to say.
A 5 paragraph essay can look very different from one essay to the next, however they will all follow the basic structure of the five paragraphs: introduction, (at least) 3 supporting paragraphs, and a conclusion.
The purpose of an essay is the effect a writer intends to have on the reader. It's the one thing the writer wants the reader to walk away from the essay feeling, thinking, or knowing.
Students tend to fall into a dangerous mindset after being taught the 5-paragraph essay structure. Instead of thinking about how to structure an essay to fit their ideas and explorations, they begin thinking about how to manipulate what they have learned to fit a certain structure.
If anything without an electric current gives you hives, then check out the great online editorials from The New York Times. In them you will find an opinion that is argued and explained in a way that is relevant to the reader. However, you will be hard pressed to find a cookie cutter structure.
Moreover, as Mr. Rosenthal from The New York Times suggests in his video, every writer needs an editor. Take the time to hand your essay over to an experienced editor to give you an honest appraisal of the effectiveness of your argument.
Modeling the Five-Paragraph Essay with List Books When Melissa talks to young writers, she often compares a list text structure to a sandwich. The beginning and end are like slices of bread. They give the book its shape and hold everything together. And all the examples in the middle give the book its flavor, like the bacon, lettuce, and tomato in a BLT.
Activity: List Books as Mentor Texts for the Five-Paragraph Essay To give students in grades 3 and up a deeper understanding of the connection between expository literature list books and five-paragraph essays, divide your class into eight groups and hand each team one of the following books:
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.
I have been teaching five paragraph essay structure and everything that goes with it for several years now. I hope that after you read this blog post, you will have a good understanding of how to teach and grade five paragraph essays.
I start color-coding with my students at the very beginning when they are working on simple paragraphs. I add the additional elements of the color-code as we progress through our five paragraph essays.
In the Talks With Teachers posts, we hear many of the undoubted benefits of authentic writing: cultivating passion, personal expression; writing with purpose, with audience in mind; writing as a means of empowerment; helping students to discover and develop a distinctive voice. All are desirable outcomes, to be sure, and all are likely to result from authentic writing assignments. Furthermore, the writer rightly observes that these desirable outcomes are unlikely to develop directly from lessons focused on the 5-paragraph essay (hereafter, the 5-PE, because nobody wants to read thefiveparagraphessay thefiveparagraphessay thefiveparagraphessay). 2ff7e9595c
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