There is an epidemic occurring among the high school students of America. Students are not being taught the necessary skills in high school to effective produce collegiate level papers. As the class of 2015 moves into college this month, students of the class of 2016 need to be warned: they are not being taught what they need to know to be successful in their writing careers. Although educators are teaching what is required by law for them to teach, educators need to step up their game and actually teach students how to write a paper. No more five paragraph essays. No more writing checklists. These primary school methods do not successfully transfer to higher level education. Please give writing in the high schools a face life. Students need more hands on activities and personalized writing classes. Students are graduating without the necessary skills to properly and effectively transfer their thoughts to paper. Without the ability to accurately allocate information from mind to print, students are going to fail. Educators need to give high school …show more content…
Although this writing can be successful, it lacks depth and does not allow creativity to flourish. It is difficult to write a five or six page paper when a student is limited with only five paragraphs. Students regurgitate information spoon-fed to them by their teachers and that teacher has to read at least twenty copies of essentially the same paper. What are we going to do about this epidemic? I will not hesitate to go against the norm to help our future generations in increasing their writing abilities and skills. Feeling unprepared in my introductory level college composition course is not acceptable and changes need to be made for the classes making their ways to college next
According to Runciman, there are many plausible reasons that students and other people don’t enjoy writing. Evidence, assumptions, and language and tone are the basis for which Runciman makes his argument. Overall, this argument is effective because reliable and well known sources are used in a logical fashion. Also, the assumptions made about the audience are accurate and believable. Runciman used his assumptions wisely when writing his claim and in turn created a compelling, attention capturing argument. The article was written so that students and teachers at any level could understand and easily read it. This argument is interesting, captivating, relevant through its age, and can relate to students and teachers at almost every academic level.
“Unteaching the Five Paragraph Essay” by Marie Foley demonstrates how a five paragraph essay formula disturbs the thought process of the students and limits what they can write. A five paragraph essay is an introduction with the main idea, with three supporting topics showing the relationship to the main idea, and a conclusion summarizing the entire essay. Foley argues that this formula forces students to fill in the blank and meet a certain a word limit. She noted that this formula was intended for teachers in the education system to teach an overcrowded class how to write. While it is beneficial for the first-time students learning how to write. In the long run, this standard destroys any free style writing, new connections between a topic,
Is the five-paragraph essay taught throughout high school and college more harmful or hurtful to students? According to John Warner in his article “Kill the 5-Paragaph Essay,” the schools should eliminate the five-paragraph essay, for the essay is more harmful to the students than it is helpful. He states how the five-paragraph essay turns into a “Frankenstein’s monster” and “lurches and moans across the landscape, frightening the villagers” (Warner). This comparison demonstrates Warner’s disapproval towards the essay and shows that the “essay” no longer looks like an essay but looks more frightening. Warner then states how writing should instead be “done for audiences” rather than a “performance meant to impress a teacher or score well on a
In Downs and Wardle’s article, they argue and identify the flaws in teaching writing in college. Demonstrating the misconceptions that academic writing is universal, but rather specialized in each case. Citing studies and opinions from esteemed professionals, Downs & Wardle state their points and illuminate the problem in today’s many colleges.
Both of the articles “Dancing with Professors” by Patricia Limerick and “Shitty First Drafts” by Anne Lamott resolve the issues faced by college students when writing papers. The first article, “Dancing with Professors,” explains why college professors expect more elaborate papers even though they assign dull and un-motivational reading to their students. On the other end of the writing spectrum, “Shitty First Drafts” explains how valuable the first draft is to students, and why students should not feel weary about writing them.
As I look back into my high school years, I thought I wrote papers well. But then coming into a college environment, my papers were mediocre. By overlooking at my past papers, I found that they were unorganized, sloppy and had bad use of diction. From now on, I will use the tools I learned in English 1100-40 as a foundation for the future papers I intend on writing in college. Following the criteria of organizing ideas so that they flow, impacting the reader with diction and also by being creative, will help become an ideal writer. Following the criteria of staying motivated in short and long term goals, taking responsibility for actions and finally the ability to study well will help me develop into a supreme student.
Both passages concern the same topic, the Okefenokee Swamp. Yet, through the use of various techniques, the depictions of the swamp are entirely different. While Passage 1 relies on simplicity and admiration to publicize the swamp, Passage 2 uses explicitness and disgust to emphasize the discomfort the swamp brings to visitors.
Several people have trouble writing college level essays and believe that they are unable to improve their writing skills. In “the Inspired Writer vs. The Real Writer,” Sarah Allen argues how no one is born naturally good at writing. Sarah Allen also states how even professional writers have trouble with the task of writing. Others, such as Lennie Irvin, agree. In Irvin’s article “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?” states how there are misconceptions about writing. Furthermore, Mike Bunn’s article “How to Read Like a Writer” shows ways on how one can improve their writing skills. Allen, Bunn, and Irvin are correct to say how no one is born naturally good writers. Now that we know this, we should find ways to help improve our writing skills, and
Learning to read and write are both considered to be fundamental human skills, that we begin to learn from the day we start school. As time advances, as do our minds, and we are expected to evolve in our reading and writing skills. Finishing high school is a large milestone for the lives of young adults; however, there is so much to learn in order to reach the next big milestone. To be a writer in college can challenge our preconceived thoughts on how we write. Although some skills remain unchanged, high school graduates are faced with overcoming new ways of doing a skill that seems so simple that it is practically innate. The definition of writing skills for college students is much different than high school. However, considering we have come so far it is time to go over the information we already know and challenge ourselves with ideas that we are yet to learn more about.
Many times, high school students are assigned to write essays based on inspirational figures or literature read in class, often requiring the same rhetoric following fastidious rules of English and sprinkling decorative wording across pages. Obeying the formats demanded by teachers is easy enough, but it is not creatively challenging. Author of "What Should Colleges Teach?", Stanley Fish, claims it is to learn the proper ways of composition alone that allows students to flourish; however, I question if it is possible to follow these principles too closely. Can it be so that the curriculum being taught in high schools fail to allow students to realize the potential creativity that can be involved when writing? Instead students are possibly turned
We would do research on a subject or a person, and write about them. We, once again, were not allowed to be unique in our writing or think creatively or critically. This is the time when I was taught the five paragraph essay. As stated in Gray’s article, the five paragraph essay is detrimental to students’ writing. This format for writing is damaging because it doesn’t allow students to express their own ideas about a topic. It does not allow for any creativity or uniqueness in a paper. In tenth grade, I wrote many papers for my English class, but I never once got an A on them. I was led to believe that my writing was weak because I could not relate to what I was writing about. I did not have any emotional connection to the research papers I had to write, and it made it harder for me to write them. I had grown up not being allowed to think critically, and therefore, my papers in high school lacked creativity and deeper
In our modern society, we have forgotten the art of writing. When we write, we think to ourselves, the longer the sentence, the more intelligent I will sound. Many may say it is by writing long sentences. But is it all that true? In this piece of writing I would like to focus on an essay written by Verlyn Klinkenborg, Several Short Sentences About Writing. In this essay he explains how and why when we write, we should keep our sentences short. he also explains why students should be assigned essays that are not determinate on other sources as evidence. I will also be comparing this to a piece written by Sarah Manguso, Ongoingness. I will be comparing these two pieces on their writing style, and their essayistic ideas. My belief is that we need
All through our academic years we were taught how to write. Starting with elementary, when the form of writing was first introduced, it consisted of compositions with simple prompts about our weekends. Now, that there was an idea of how to write, middle school English teachers began teaching students a writing format. This format is commonly known as the five-paragraph essay, which entailed an introduction, three supporting body paragraphs, and a conclusion. The five-paragraph essay began being strongly implemented in high school and it leads to many debates whether or not it benefited students proceeding into college. I believe the five-paragraph format was helpful for high school students starting out, but is not as beneficial to freshman
Writing is an important part of everyone’s life, whether we use it in school, in the workplace, as a hobby or in personal communication. It is important to have this skill because it helps us as writers to express feelings and thoughts to other people in a reasonably permanent form. Formal writing forms like essays, research papers, and articles stimulates critically thinking. This helps the writer to learn how to interpret the world around him/her in a meaningful way. In college, professors motivate students to write in a formal, coherent manner, without losing their own voice in the process. Improving your writing skills is important, in every English class that’s the main teaching point; to help students improve their writing skills. Throughout my college experience I have acknowledge that
Writing is an excellent practice because the benefits gained are essential to an individual’s success in a job, or just conveying their ideas through words. Within the semester we have written three major papers, and have rewritten two of those papers. In each paper I discovered new ways to get information, and have gained more experience in sculpting a paper. Obtaining this new knowledge of how to present my ideas in different writing styles will help me expand my range in how I can write, and essentially allow me to be better prepared for upcoming jobs following my college education. I can safely say that with the papers from this semester and their mistakes that dealt with minor grammar errors, awkward sentence structures, and oversimplifying