The Beauty of Some Structure

Hey guys..I was sorry to miss class tonight, but I officially have strep throat and didn’t want to expose everyone to that, but I did still want to contribute to the discussion on Lindemann. The chapter I wanted to speak on was Chapter 8: "Shaping Discourse". I feel that a lot of what I have been taught in the Master's program is to let students run with their writing, creating as they go a la Elbow (I didn’t mean to make a rhyme just now :). Even Lindemann says that forms such as the five-paragraph essay are "irrelevant forms", but I believe she is referring to students filling in the five necessary spaces and calling it an essay.  This is not what I believe the five-paragraph essay is.  The five-paragraph essay is a way for students to organize their thoughts in a cohesive, interesting and structured way. As wonderful and empowering as it may sound to allow students to find their own method, I have seen many students who this does not work for.  Their confidence as writers is very low and need the guess work to be eliminated.  They are desperately seeking someone to tell them how to do it. For many students, their writing experience is minimal and they need some form of structure to get started. Without it, they are writing a bunch of repetitive nonsense just trying to fill the minimum page requirement. A professor once told me that teaching writing is like teaching someone how to bake cookies. A successful batch of cookies comes from following the recipe. This is similar to writing. Students must follow the recipe to have a successful essay: 1 part catchy intro, 1 part clear thesis, a sprinkle of transitions, 3-5 parts supporting paragraphs, 1 part conclusion, etc. Students must first master the recipe, BUT once they have mastered it, they can begin to alter it. Maybe add peanut butter or take out the oil and add applesauce; or in regards to an essay, change the location of the thesis, alter the tone,  add more supporting paragraphs, etc. This is how I teach writing to my students, and they cling to my every word like I am telling them some forbidden secret. I am all about students finding their own voice and experimenting, but they need to find an academic voice first. I love the quote from Ernest Hemingway that Lindemann uses to start the chapter, "Prose is architecture, not interior decoration", and I could not agree more; students must have the general framework set, or the paper will crumble.