I do not remember the last time I have read something as moving and as powerful as the introduction to Tom Rademacher's book. If you think I'm being dramatic, I'm not. Day after day we have slogged through countless theoretical readings from the aforementioned "white-haired dudes with PhDs" with seemingly no end in sight. These readings, while informative and certainly telling of a dedication to betterment of the educational environment, have oftentimes seemed disconnected from any practical application. I have written about this phenomenon before, specifically in my final for CI 5441 (which I incidentally did not do too well on) - I can have all the theory I want shoved down my gullet, but at the end of the day it is my lived experiences and my human to human interactions that are going to define me in the classroom. Tom is right here - students aren't gonna care if I'm super articulate and effective teaching them about the intricacies of Shakespearian ...
If I were an impartial spectator to the development of my opinions regarding teaching and I were asked what I thought my opinion would be regarding whether or not the Five Paragraph Essay, I would have laughed in my own face and walked out of the room, leaving myself alone behind. ...that doesn't make any sense. Anyway, contrary to what you may think that I think, I like the idea of the five paragraph essay. Here's why. While I do tend to lean towards going against the grain of traditional teaching measures, I think there are plenty of merits in teaching the traditional structure of the five paragraph essay. At its core, I think teaching this structure allows students the opportunity to construct their arguments in a concise manner that follows a logical progression, as opposed to letting students essentially vomit each and every thought that runs through their heads onto a page and call it writing. Writing is a bit more refined and eloquent than word vomit, and I do wish...
The further I dug into the Christiansen chapter, the more excited I became about the prospect of teaching writing in the schools. When I look back on my writing experiences during my time in high-school, I remember nothing but writing research papers. I wrote research papers for my college biology class, I wrote research papers for my college history and government courses, and I wrote research papers for my English courses. As I jumped right into my college composition coursework in 11th grade, I remember the goal was for us to be "college ready," meaning that we were to be professionals in regards to academic tone and citation formatting, specifically MLA. I was able to write some fun papers in these courses (I remember that my senior paper was 15 whopping pages of "Jet Fuel Can't Melt Steel Beams" nonsense, which culminated in the line "God bless America"), though I was far from a creative writer. I did not start writing creatively until college -...
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