Teaching English in Korea - ESL blog

Teaching essay writing

I recently read in Zamel (1987)

Requiring students to formulate their ideas beforehand, to elaborate on them by using some prescribed rhetorical framework and to submit these written products for grading purposes seems to ignore everything we have learned about the (writing) process. p.269

However, the only way I knew to write an essay while in college was to formulate ideas beforehand in a thesis. Then I developed the ideas according to a prescribed format, the 5 paragraph essay.

I'm all for letting students discuss an issue and connect to it before writing the essay, but when it's time to write, the thesis should come first. At least it always did for me. So the question becomes how to teach academic essay writing, specifically the 5 paragraph essay which got me through college. I don't think the thesis needs to be a straight jacket; it could be changed, but when I was in college I rarely if ever changed my thesis once I'd thought one up; it was just extra work.

I guess we do some reading and look at the form of the essay. Choose and discuss a topic, brainstorm, come up with an argument and three supports, turn them into a thesis, and write the essay. I hope that's not what Zamel meant when she talked about articulating ideas beforehand, elaborating within a framework, and getting graded. If what I did goes against everything we know about the writing process, than I know nothing about writing. Bad news for a writing major! And it doesn't reflect too well on the school that graduated me with honors...

Posted by James Trotta at January 25, 2004 3:43 PM