The Five Paragraph Essay

I went to our kids’ school tonight for a parent event where we got to meet next year’s teachers and learn about what’s in store for the kids curriculum-wise. One of the fifth grade teachers, a cool guy with tattoos and a beard^[1], mentioned that in fifth grade they start to work on learning writing structure for essays as they prepare for their years learning logic (middle school) and rhetoric (high school). One of the concepts they introduce to the children is the five paragraph essay. Upon hearing that, I lit up. I mean, who doesn’t love the five paragraph essay! There I was, with my tattooless and beardless self^[2], quickly and needlessly boring this poor man with my love for the five paragraph essay. He had taught a full day of school, probably didn’t have time to go to dinner, and was now here listing to this tall nerd going on and on about a writing style of all things. But I didn’t care (at least in the moment). I talked about why I love the format, how I used it in college for pretty much every paper I wrote, and how I even use it today in my working life.

If you’ve never heard of it, let me introduce you to my friend, the five paragraph essay. It’s basically a formulaic approach to writing a school essay. For pretty much any essay topic, you start by writing out an introduction paragraph, which includes your thesis, and then move on to three supporting paragraphs, each highlighting a point that supports your thesis, and finally end up with a conclusion paragraph that ties a bow in the whole thing. I think I started learning about the five paragraph essay in roughly the seventh grade, and it instantly made perfect sense to me. As someone with a wandering mind (which turned out to be ADHD), the five paragraph essay gave me just the structure I needed to stay on topic and churn out a thoughtful and methodical essay on anything my teachers could throw at me. The structure gave me just the right guardrails which enabled me to write good essays. I’m sure many of my middle school and high school teachers fondly think back to the essays I wrote and even have a few framed in their dining rooms.

My school, Woodward Academy, was originally a military boarding school. By the time I got there the military and boarding parts had been dropped, but it was still the “largest independent day school in the continental United States.” It was also old (we spent a year celebrating the school’s centennial as I was entering high school^[3]). I tell you all this because it’s important to know that the school’s English department drilled grammar and writing into us with military precision, and it was clear that’s how it had been for more than 100 years. When I got to college, one of the first things I realized was how far ahead I was than the other students in my writing abilities. Others in my college who I had gone to high school with agreed. We quickly developed an appreciation for the rigor that had been forced upon us all of those years in middle and high school. So when those college-level writing assignments came to me, I knocked them right back with my handy five paragraph essay format. The A’s^[4] came pouring in thanks, at least in part, to my trusty old friend. And as college courses grew more complex, I just brought my five paragraph essay right along with me. By the later years, my essays may have been more than five actual paragraphs, but the structure was still there. I just thought of them as “five section” essays. It was an easy expansion.

As my career progressed after college, at some point I found myself in a role that required a lot of corporate writing. Persuasive writing, news writing, crisis communication, sensitive topics, even basic email messages: all were fodder for at least the concepts of the five paragraph essay format. An introduction, some points supporting that introduction, and a conclusion. As my career has progressed, I don’t think of the five paragraph essay on a regular basis (and my writing is rarely exactly five paragraphs), but I think its spirit lives on. It’s become a way of structured thinking, of looking at topics from multiple angles and then clearly communicating those to my audience. I pride myself on clarity in my writing, and without having learned the basic five paragraph essay, I don’t know that I would be the writer I am today.

Looking back to earlier this evening, I’m not sure if I was trying to look smart to the cool teacher, or if I really was geeking out while reminiscing on a writing format I hadn’t thought about in a long time. But it was fun to go down memory lane enough to at least write this blog post (and hopefully not embarrass myself in front of the cool fifth grade teacher with the tattoos and beard^[5].

Afterthoughts:

This didn’t really fit into the well-defined structure of the five paragraph essay I wrote above (yes, I wrote a five paragraph essay about five paragraph essays), but as I was writing, I did some Googling and reading about five paragraph essays, only to find that they have been controversial in the academic world for a long time now. I guess it puts students in a box and doesn’t teach them to think critically. While I understand that thinking and even agree with it somewhat, I think as a tool, especially for younger grades, the five paragraph essay can become a great teaching tool to teach them how to begin to think critically (logic) and, more importantly, how to communicate that critical thinking with others (rhetoric). There are certainly more advanced writing styles, but you have to start somewhere.

I also mentioned ADHD above in passing. I haven’t yet written much about my ADHD discovery journey^[6], but for now I will say that looking back through my life with the knowledge and lens of an ADHD diagnosis has been very eye opening. Even today, thinking about something as simple as the five paragraph essay, which it basically a teaching tool, and how I gravitated to it so much, makes a lot of sense. It turns out I needed that structure and organization. It was like comforting guardrails to my racing brain. And, when the inevitable and chronic procrastination hit, it gave me a safe passage to get my assignments done quickly (at the last minute) and with a dependable structure that worked.

So I remain thankful of the five paragraph essay and what it taught me. And I plan to drill it into my kids with military precision.

If you’re interested in reading more about the five paragraph essay and how it can evolve into what’s likely a much more practical writing style, check out this post I found about writing so readers will read.