Bottom line: the five-paragraph essay’s inherent prioritization of structure over style can have long-term damaging effects on students who never learn to move beyond it, but teaching the form ...

Once the introductory paragraph has sufficiently engaged and set the scene for the reader, the real development happens. Teaching students to really develop their ideas meaningfully is essential ...

You hate to write one five-paragraph essay. How would you like to read 30,000? Most of them are so boring, you would need to sew your eyelids open. Why?

(The whole essay, which Sharples considered graduate-level, is available, complete with references, here.) Personally, I lean toward a B+. The passage reads like filler, but so do most student essays.

Illustration – evidence and examples that reinforce the main point; Explanation – evaluate the evidence in the illustration, discuss its significance, and show how this paragraph connects to the ...