<p>Gifted teachers help the non-writers with structure and organization and allow the creative writers free rein. The five-paragraph method gives some students a safety net and a way to approach the dreaded blank page. Of course it is elementary, but a necessity for some. The idea is to get all of the students to a point at which they will be able to communicate their ideas to others. Believe me, I know many adults who cannot do this and could use a quick lesson on the five-paragraph essay.</p>
<p>The only time I ever got into it with one of my daughter's teachers was her 10th grade English teacher. It started with the lengthy reading assignment and questions over the summer. My daughter read all the books and filled a notebook with the ridiculous questions and then the teacher never collected it.</p>
<p>A month into the school year, my daughter came home in tears and we started to get word from other parents of similar experiences. They were reading the books, spending hours on essays, getting C's, with no comments and the teacher refusing to let them bring the essays home. One essay was one I had proofread from my daughter. I didn't think it was Pulitzer material, but I couldn't understand a C with no comment, so I made an appointment on parent/teacher conference day after the teacher had refused to stay after school for a conference with my daughter, who was truly at a loss to get any guidance on improvement.</p>
<p>We got into right away when she told me that she kept the essays in a notebook in class and that my daugther wasn't allowed to bring them home for me to read. I looked at the "C" essay and saw that it had ZERO comments. Just a grade. We discussed why she wouldn't meet with my daughter and she informed me that her union contract called for her to work until 3:20 and that was that. It was all I could do to keep from going across her desk. </p>
<p>I told her that my daughter had been a voracious reader since she was five years old and I was not going to let this teacher kill that. I further told her that I was going to tell my daughter to stop doing ANY assignments in this teacher's class and just take an F for the year while she and I read books together and discussed them on our own.</p>
<p>The teacher told me I had no right to speak to her like that and suggested that I talk to her boss, the head of the dept. "Let's go, I said...and give me her notebook of essays."</p>
<p>I then proceded to have a long conversation with the English Department head. He read the essay in question and said that a "C" was a totally unfair grade and that he would deal with the situation. I'm not sure what transpired, but essays started coming home, the teacher started explaining what she was looking for, etc. -- and she was gone from the school the following year.</p>
<p>Most frustrating experience I had in 12 years of public school, to have the half dozen best students in the school all going home in tears with nobody able to give them the slightest inkling how to improve what they were doing and a teacher unwilling to even meet with them.</p>
<p>Long before No Child Left Behind or much standardized testing at all in school I had lousy instruction in writing by teachers who were supposedly specialists in teaching English. Most of the best information I received at high school age about writing came from books I checked out of the public library. Some especially interesting books were books by professional writers critiquing one another's works--that was a much more interesting introduction to literary criticism than anything served up in school lessons.</p>
<p>Sincere fan of the teaching profession here. My kids' English teachers in high school have been all over the map. One teacher assigned only 4 essays in an entire marking period and then had each student select one for her to grade. That's it - no other grades given. When my youngest d was ill freshman year and had to miss a week of school, her English teacher told her not to bother submitting the essay that was due that week because he liked to grade essays the weekend after they were passed in, and he didn't want to wait to grade hers. He figured her average as if the essay had never been assigned. One d wrote her first academic research paper, 15 pages long with footnotes and works cited, and received only a letter grade back. No notes, no corrections, no comments for an entire marking period's work. It was a good grade, but what an opportunity missed for learning what is required in a research paper.</p>
<p>But, for the most part, my kids' English teachers (and all their teachers) have been far better than competent. The AP English teachers are, in a word, superb. They have transformed my kids into college-level writers and thinkers. I am deeply appreciative of their knowledge, commitment, and sheer teaching ability.</p>
<p>I feel that standardized testing in the elementary school years probably has an unfortunate effect on more advanced level writing. It stresses the mechanics at the expense of the message. If a 6th grade teacher is prepping a diverse classroom for that be-all, end-all English test, she's got other things to worry about than nurturing finely honed individual writing styles.</p>
<p>My son will have the same English teacher (we are a small, rural HS) for a fourth straight year. She is fabulous. He came into HS with excellent preparation. She has polished his writing abilities, but moreover, she has allowed him to discover his voice. And he is very funny! He just wrote a readers' theater based on a novel they had to do for class. It was a scream! They was allowed to lip-sync to various pop tunes. They dressed up. They even served cake and fruit -- it was the teacher's birthday! </p>
<p>When it came time for her to sign his yearbook, she wrote that he has forced her to change her lesson plans to make things more interesting and challenging. Mind you, she is a master teacher. She loves her students, and the feeling is mutual. But she has allowed herself to change, and by doing so, she has become a better teacher -- not that she wasn't a good one before he entered the class. </p>
<p>She could teach some of those, stuck in the same rut teachers a lesson or two. </p>
<p>BTW, when he landed an 800 on the SAT writing, the first person he went to see was ... his English teacher ... to thank her. Not bad for a math kid.</p>
<p>Please understand that I write with a very limited perspective, as someone who has taken the highest level English courses in affluent suburban schools. I understand that the basics should be stressed, but this was surely unnecessary in AP English where we continued the 5 paragraph theme habit for the 4th straight year (I had heard that this format was begun in middle school, but I did not attend middle school in this state). In retrospect, all of my high school English teachers have been terrible except for one, and that one, while she attempted to invoke the passion that had been beaten out of us, could not effectively communicate the writing process beyond trite abstractions - that is the primary reason why I said writing cannot be taught explicitly, since I have had to figure out her lessons for myself, by myself, even when it was taught "right".</p>
<p>My qualms are not with what is taught (ie: 5 paragraph theme) as it is with how it is taught; I am no great fan of creative writing, and I actually very much prefer analytic prose. When I speak of voice and imagination, I do not dream of emulating Hemingway. I only wish to communicate effectively and naturally, and to that extent I believe my English classes have served as my greatest obstacles. Let me emphasize again: I am not grubbing about the 5 paragraph format and its restrictions on larger logical organization. The 5 paragraph is a fine writing implement that can easily expand into a larger format. The problem, I think, is with the micromanaging. For example, I once had a required assignment that consisted of filling in the blanks for a turn-key essay - it was basically a worksheet where we had to individually craft the Thesis, Statement of Development, and all the way down to Paragraph Transitions and Quote Usage. Putting a fine-tooth comb to writing and treating it like a reductionist process has destroyed the fluidity, voice, and complexity of structure. And then you're stuck with that anal, narrow, passive voice-anxious mindset that transforms a proficient 8th grade "reader" (that's all I did back then) into a bumbling 12th grade "writer". It's just unnatural, and I agree with whoever said earlier that writing, like grammar, is best picked up via the environment. In fact, I read a study that vocabulary, unlike most other types of information, is best learned implicitly. That's what I'm trying to get at.</p>
<p>Ironically, I also scored an 800 on the SAT. When I told my English teacher, "According to Collegeboard, I can't get any better at writing", we both had a good, sardonic chuckle.</p>
<p>Last year, Swarthmore sent my D a great pamphlet entitled "Write For Your Life!" by Nathalie F. Anderson, Professor of English Literature. She says, "It's your own intellectual life you're writing for, and nothing you write can be wrong for you." One of the best things D received during the app process. That and the other pamphlet that Swat sent entitled "The Usefulness of Uselessness" by T. Kaori Kitao, Professor of Art History.</p>
<p>OP give yourself a pat on the back for knowing the value of creativity and inspiration.</p>
<p>After a mind-numbing 10th grade Honors English class, in 11th my D took AP Lang & Comp with one of the best teachers in her HS. Despite having to "teach to the test" for the NY state regents and the AP, this teacher inspired her students with examples of great writing and the power of language. They analyzed literary styles, famous speeches, and nonfiction works and practiced incorporating all of the devices in their rhetorical toolbox in their writing. My D loved that class and it definitely refocused her writing and improved her ability to move the reader.</p>
<p>In spite of receiving a 5 on the AP exam, an 800 on the SAT writing portion and numerous honors and awards for English, my D is not convinced she's a "great" writer. She looks forward to her first year college writing program in the fall where she hopes she will gain new inspiration and new knowledge. </p>
<p>I think the important lesson is to be a lifelong learner and always strive for something more. In life, there is certainly always something more to be learned.</p>
<p>I think the OP is on the right track.</p>
<p>^^^^^I think the important lesson is to be a lifelong learner and always strive for something more. In life, there is certainly always something more to be learned.</p>
<p>I think the OP is on the right track."</p>
<p>Nice and so true!</p>