Global Rhetorical Traditions

 Global Rhetorical Traditions

Jennifer Fletcher Books on Teaching Arguments and Rhetoric

 https://stenhouse.com/collections/jennifer-fletcher

Teaching Literature Rhetorically TRANSFERABLE LITERACY SKILLS FOR 21ST CENTURY STUDENTS 

Writing Rhetorically: Fostering Responsive Thinkers and Communicators 

Teaching Arguments RHETORICAL COMPREHENSION, CRITIQUE, AND RESPONSE

Effective Teaching of Technical Communication: Theory, Practice, and Application

 Effective Teaching of Technical Communication: Theory, Practice, and Application

Workload Estimator 2.0

Workload Estimator

How to Write an Obituary

How to Write an Obituary

by Malia Wollan

“An obituary should be more about how someone lived versus the fact that they died,” says Victoria Chang, a Los Angeles-based poet and writer who wrote 70 obituary poems in the two weeks after her mother died of pulmonary fibrosis in 2015. Ever since, Chang has been a student of obituaries, seeking them out in newspapers and alumni magazines. “The diction is very flat and matter-of-fact,” she says. An obituary tends to have three distinct parts: the beginning (name, age, date of death, cause of death [if possible to include], work, education); the middle (anecdotes that celebrate the person’s life); and the end (so-and-so is survived by, which Chang calls “a very efficient way of saying who’s grieving.”) 

 If the deceased is a public figure, the job of writing an obituary falls to a journalist, probably a stranger. But most who pass will be eulogized by someone in the family. If you’re tasked with writing one, remember that your aim is to center the person’s life and not your grief, profound though it may be. In fact, your sorrow might act as a kind of writer’s block. Chang suggests jotting down the functional bookends first (who died, who survived), and then let yourself free-associate themes and memories that might end up in that middle part. If you’re feeling stuck or you had a difficult relationship with the person, ask friends and relatives for their recollections. “Everyone is special and quirky, and I think the best obituaries capture the essence of those qualities about each of us,” Chang says. What things did she collect? What did she love to eat? What brought her joy? 

 An obituary is for the living, but you should consider the sensibilities of the deceased. How would the person want to be remembered? “Imagine what they would write about themselves,” Chang says. It’s OK to be funny. “There’s a lot of humor and oddity, strange tensions and funny stuff about people and the things they do together,” Chang says. Obituaries, even simple ones, remind us of our briefness. After watching her mother die, Chang understood in a visceral way for the first time that she, too, would die. She thinks that if people spent more time acknowledging their mortality they’d live differently — kinder, more present. Writing an obituary can be a wake-up call. “This person is dead,” Chang says. “You’re alive.”

Grant Writing Textbook

 Date:    Thu, 10 Dec 2020 18:10:39 -0600

From:    Joe Grohens <joe.grohens@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Grant Writing Textbook

Wioleta -

An outstanding text is the “Grant Application Writers’ Workbook”. 

It is very specific, and comes in different versions adapted to NSF, NIH, and other agencies. So, I’m not sure how it would work in your class. However, the writing advice is excellent.

See http://www.grantcentral.com/workbooks/


Joe Grohens
UIUC

On Sep 30, 2020, at 4:43 PM, Wioleta Fedeczko <WFedeczko@UVU.EDU> wrote:

Hello friends,

Do people have suggestions for a really good grant and proposal writing textbook?

I’ve been using snippets of multiple texts, including portions of Writing Proposals by Johnson-Sheehan, but it’s the second edition from 2008 (!), and I don’t see a more current edition.

Please email me off-list at wfedeczko@uvu.edu <mailto:wfedeczko@uvu.edu>

Thank you for any suggestions. Stay safe and sane.

Wioleta 

-- 

Wioleta Fedeczko, Ph.D.
Associate Professor 
Department of English and Literature
(801) 863-5403

Gibbs Reflective Cycle

Gibbs Reflective Cycle

Arguments for Tenure-Line Writing Center Director

Hi Mike, I'm thinking of three possible arguments:

1. The position is far more competitive as TT, so you're more likely to get stronger candidates. 
2. The WC is more sustainable with leadership in positions that are more secure and have more leverage in the university (an argument we make in Sustainable WAC).
3. The WC will be stronger and more informed if the director is expected to take part in the scholarship of the field of writing center studies. 

Wish I could point you to a WC article that makes this case, but I'd have to do a search. You may be able to find something on the CWPA website about WPA positions that would be helpful.

Take care, Michelle.

Dear Mike, 

If you see (or can imagine) your writing center as a key component of support for writing across the curriculum, you might consult with Michelle Cox and Jeff Galin (I think that's right?) and their work on creating sustainable WAC Programs. While every institution is different and the authority and efficacy of individuals and structures of individual programs are quite varied, there are some important reasons to consider a TT director.  

One of the important reasons for a tenure line is continuity of stewardship (which can make such projects more productive and coherent).  TT faculty often have reporting lines which can increase accountability (in both directions), and can support the teaching, research, and service missions of the institution more fully (teaching undergraduate and graduate courses, generating research (with students, staff and faculty across the institution) on many areas of writing studies. TT WC directors may have more purchase in creating collaborative projects with service learning and social justice initiatives at or beyond the institution. They may be able to raise the profile, visibility, and viability of the Center as full and equal members of the academic community in department, academic senate, or key committees or initiatives that may require faculty status. Of course, all of this depends on the mission and aims of your writing center, as well as its structure, history, and mandate There are many other arguments to make and I am glad to follow up with you if you like, but these come to mind immediately. 

Hope this is helpful,

Cinthia Gannett

On Rubrics

Anson, Chris M., Deanna Dannels, Pamela Flash, and Amy L. Housley Gaffney. "Big Rubrics and Weird Genres: The Futility of Using Generic Assessment Tools Across Diverse Instructional Contexts." Journal of Writing Assessment 5.1 (2012). 

On Genre

The Rhetorical Situation

Genre in the Wild

My FYC students have responded well to Kerry Dirk's "Navigating Genres" and Mike Bunn's "How to Read Like a Writer."
Both are available via WAC Clearinghouse.

Devitt, A. J. (1993). Generalizing about genre: New conceptions of an old concept. College composition and Communication, 44(4), 573-586.

The How To Of PPT

"Free Culture" by Lawrence Lessig, founder of Creative Commons 1/3

Why I hate PowerPoint (funny)

How To Not Suck at Powerpoint

Writing about Literature

Joanna Wolfe and Laura Wilder's *Digging into Literature" (2 votes)

Laura Wilder & I wrote this as a rhetorical approach to teaching literary and cultural analysis. We wanted to create a relatively slim, inexpensive book that instructors could supplement with their own selection of texts, novels, movies, art works, etc.

Robert Scholes, Nancy Comley, and Gregory Ulmer's: Writing through Literature

Schilb and Clifford's Making Literature Matter

Donahue and Salvatori’s Elements (and Pleasures) of Difficulty

But I Like My Third Eye! Or: How I Came to Stop Worrying and Love WAC

But I Like My Third Eye! Or: How I Came to Stop Worrying and Love WAC

Working with College Freshman

How do college freshmen view the academic differences between high school and college?

Insights for your college-bound students.

By Drew C. Appleby, PhD

Psychology teachers can serve an important role as mentors to their students in ways that can help students make a successful transition to college. By sharing information about the differences between the high school and college experiences, teachers can help students understand they will be adjusting to many changes, particularly in terms of expectations.

Fostering students’ adaptation to college

To help my students adapt to their freshman year in college, I have used a three-stage strategy. 

1. The first stage is to bring students’ attention to the ways in which their college classes and professors are going to be different from their high school classes and teachers. For example, the work in college is harder, there is more of it, it must be completed in a shorter period of time and most of it must be done outside the school environment. 
2. The second stage is to help them identify and value the knowledge, skills and attitudes (KSAs) they will need to adapt to their new academic environment. For example, they must have knowledge of the resources their college provides (e.g., the library, the writing center and academic advising), the skills their classes will require (e.g., the ability to follow instructions, think critically and manage time) and the attitudes required to be academically successful (e.g., the willingness to take responsibility for their own learning and to assume an active — rather than a passive — attitude toward their education). 
3. The third stage is to engage them in assignments and activities designed to develop or strengthen these KSAs.

I identified these academic differences and the KSAs needed to adjust to them by combining the wisdom of experts in the field of the first-year experience with the experiences I have had with the thousands of freshmen I have taught during my 40-year career as a college professor. My strategy was reasonably successful, but it suffered from a reliance on the faulty assumption that younger people (i.e., college freshmen) would eagerly attend to, value, believe and act upon advice given to them by older people (i.e., college faculty). I am sure my students perceived me as a friendly, well-meaning person who sincerely desired to help them, but as I aged, my ability to act as a credible source of advice for college freshmen diminished. This article represents an honest attempt to create a source of advice for college freshmen that comes from a far more credible source than a person who is three times as old as they are. The source of this advice is students who, only one short year earlier, were freshmen too.

My method to create this advice was simple. I asked the 24 students enrolled in my freshman learning community to tell me the differences they had experienced between (a) their high school classes and their college classes and (b) their high school teachers and their college professors. I then content-analyzed their responses and put the responses into categories that reflected basic differences between their academic experiences in high school and college. The remainder of this paper presents a summary of the differences in these two crucial aspects of the academic environment (i.e., classes and teachers) supported by the actual voices of my students.

Perceived differences between high school classes and college classes

My students identified several differences between high school classes and college classes, most of which dealt with the work assigned in classes. Students said that both the amount and difficulty of the work they were required to do in college classes had increased significantly from high school. 

Time was also a factor mentioned by many students, both in terms of the amount of time it took to complete assignments and the speed with which material must be learned. 

Another aspect of the differences between the work done in high school versus college is where the work is done. 

The most commonly cited difference between how learning takes place in high school versus college was that more responsibility is placed on students to learn on their own in college.

A final difference a few students noted between high school and college classes was classroom atmosphere. The following two quotations make it clear high school students should expect a difference in the way their classes will be run in college. (Please note these comments refer to rules for classroom behaviors, not academic rules such as deadlines for papers and tests, which tend to be stricter in college as we will learn later.)

Perceived differences between high school teachers and college professors

My students also identified several differences between high school teachers and college professors, the most important of which centered on the fact that college professors expect their students to be more responsible partners in the teaching-learning process. Several students’ responses focused on the syllabus college professors use to communicate the structure, procedures and requirements of their classes to students.

The following poignant comment from another student communicates the feeling of frustration and helplessness a freshman who has not yet fully adapted to this greater level of responsibility can experience.

A second aspect of increased student responsibility for learning in college emerged in comments about the difference between what is taught by high school teachers versus college professors.

A final comment lends a cultural perspective to the different atmosphere of academic responsibility in high school versus college and the differential way students value this responsibility.

Another responsibility-related difference students reported between high school teachers and college professors was adherence to rules. 

The following comment helped explain the potentially negative results of this difference for college students who are accustomed to their old high school ways.

A final difference my students perceived between high school teachers and college professors dealt with student-teacher relationships. 

Advice that can help high school students become aware of the differences between high school and college and successfully adapt to these differences

The advice in the following paragraphs should help incoming college students who would like to know how their academic experience in college will differ from that in high school. Taking this advice seriously and using it to modify their academic behaviors and attitudes can prevent students from blundering into their freshman year in college and expecting it to be their 13th grade in high school. I truly believe the transition from high school to college can be as serious as the culture shock experienced by travelers who are not properly instructed about the customs of the countries they visit. Imagine arriving in England and renting a car if no one had told you that the English drive on the left side of the road. You might survive your first encounter with an English driver but, then again, you might not.

Before you begin your freshman year in college, prepare yourself to be challenged by harder work, more work, and work that must be completed in a shorter period of time. You should begin to change your educational work ethic because you will be doing most of your work outside of the classroom, and you will be expected to learn the majority of your assigned material on your own, rather than relying on your teachers to teach it to you. You should also begin preparing yourself to learn in a less-structured classroom atmosphere in which your teachers will no longer remind you about what you are supposed to do, will hold you responsible for completing your assignments in the correct and timely manner described in the course syllabus they give you on the first day of class, and will be less likely to bend the rules or allow you to earn extra credit if your work is late or if you perform poorly. You may also discover that college professors are less available than high school teachers and that some prefer to maintain a somewhat more formal relationship with their students than high school teachers.

Time management is a tremendous problem for many freshmen. For most high school students — especially bright ones — the educational day ends when the school day ends because they were able to learn all they need to know while they were in school. Learning does not end when the class day ends in college. In fact, learning often begins when classes end because so much learning takes place outside the classroom. This abrupt change of events is particularly difficult for students who are accustomed to going to high school for seven hours and then having the remaining 17 hours of the day to eat, sleep, relax, shop, play video games, watch television, listen to music and hang out with friends. One of the purposes of higher education is to prepare you to become a person who is capable of mastering large amounts of difficult material in a short period of time and performing this work in a responsible and independent manner without having to be reminded to do it. In other words, one of the objectives of a college education is to transform adolescents into adults. The following comment from one of my former learning community students puts this objective into sharp perspective. “It’s time for me to step out of the purgatory between my teenage years and adulthood and take some responsibility for my life.”

Reference

Appleby, D.C. (2006, May). How do college freshmen view the academic differences between high school and college? Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwestern Psychological Association, Chicago.

Author’s note

If you would like to receive a PowerPoint Presentation created from this article that can be presented to college freshmen or high school seniors, please contact me via email.

About the author

Drew C. Appleby, PhD, received his BA from Simpson College in 1969 and his PhD from Iowa State University in 1972. During his 40-year career, he served as the chair of the Marian University psychology department, the director of undergraduate studies in the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) psychology department, and the associate dean of the IUPUI Honors College. He was honored for his outstanding contributions to the science and profession of psychology by being named as a fellow of APA’s Div. 1 (Society for General Psychology) and Div. 2 (Society for the Teaching of Psychology), the Midwestern Psychological Association, and as the 30th distinguished member of Psi Chi. He has been recognized for his outstanding contributions to teaching, advising, mentoring and service.

Resources (books) for grad writing courses

https://www.press.umich.edu/script/press/elt/special/swalesfeak

Academic Writing for Graduate Students, 3rd Edition

Essential Tasks and Skills

A possible syllabus for ENGL 520

From Tate et al Guide to Composition Pedagogies:

Draftback to the Future: A Tool for Writing Process Analysis

Draftback to the Future: A Tool for Writing Process Analysis

How To Write an A Paper

How to Write an “A” Paper

Be nebulous. Scratch that, be amphibological.  The vaguer, the better.  The reader should be thinking, what the hell does that mean? right off the bat.  The first sentence is key.  Make it short, deadly, and impossible to understand.  Convoluted is the term to use here.  And remember, I’m not talking indiscernible due to stupidity; I’m talking indiscernible due to smarts.  You have to sound brilliant.  Scratch that, perspicacious.  Be as opaque as a dense fog settling in front of a concrete wall—let them see nothing.  Make them understand that you’re smarter than they are.  The sooner you establish this, the better.  Hitting them hard and fast on the first sentence is the quickest way to do it.  Make them so unsure of their own acumen from the start that they won’t question you afterwards.  Get them on the ground, and keep them there.  Your God-like intelligence should never be questioned by these mere mortals—that’s how you should be writing.  Look at your first sentence for a moment and consider this: Is it short?  Is it vague?  Does it tell the reader nothing about what’s going on?  If so—bingo.  You’re in the clear.  You can’t be marked off if they can’t understand your higher parlance—and that’s exactly what we’re going for.

The end of the introduction means it’s thesis time.  If you really want to pull this off, end the introduction with no clear thesis.  That way, they’ll assume the thesis is lurking around somewhere later in the paper like a prowling hyena in Serengeti; and before you KNOW it, they’ll forget what they were searching for.  You never had one anyway.  And if they’re really keen for it, they’ll probably just extrapolate something from the parts they don’t understand later in the paper.  You’re Shakespeare, remember?  You know best.

Be choppy.  Scratch that, be desultory.  Jump around like a rabbit on fire—never let the reader know where you’re headed next.  The transitions between your paragraphs should be sudden and unexpected; your sentences short and rapid fire.  Your teachers always taught you to be smooth and transitional—screw that.  Toss your reader around like a paper bag in a tempest; the only thing they should be doing is covering their heads.  Confusion is the key term here.  If your reader doesn’t look flummoxed and bleary-eyed by paragraph three, you aren’t trying hard enough.  You’re smarter, you’re faster, and the only thing they can do is try to keep up.

Paragraph four, all right, now we’re getting somewhere.  This is the part of the essay where you’re taught to bring out the big points.  The “meat” of the essay is how teachers sometimes REFER to it.  That’s all garbage.  You don’t need a plethora of in-depth points or solid evidence to fill up your paper—you just need one.  One point.  That’s all you need.  Reiteration is the key term here.  I can’t stress this part enough.  All you need to know is this: keep talking.  Be the jammed cassette deck on repeat.  Write as if you’re a five-year-old kid with Tourette’s syndrome who just discovered the word “crap” and a pound of Pixie Stix to go with it.  Write as if you’re being paid a dollar a word, and you have only thirty seconds to type.  Just keep pushing through the same old stuff with different wording.  Dress it up; do its hair; color its nails; I don’t care.  Repackage the old, make it look new.  Novelty sells the car.  Write frivolously.  Scratch that, farcically.  It’ll seem like you’re getting deeper and deeper into the topic with every word you say, but really you’ll JUST be wasting their time.  Analysis is overrated—just keep spitting out what you already said.  Regurgitation is the key term here.  Vomit your words out and eat them back up, then spit them out a minute later.  You’re the mother eagle, and the reader is your starving chick.  To add weight to this empty package, make sure the paragraph you put your half-digested words in is one of the longest.  Nothing says “important” like a hefty paragraph.  You would know.  You’re the smartest.

The thesaurus is your friend.  Scratch that, your soul-mate.  This whole operation is FUELED by perplexing your reader.  If you’re the matador, the thesaurus is your cape—you’re both coaxing the reader to charge through your charade.  An essay is just made up of words, and that’s the punch-line of this exploitation.  Every word can be more sequestered; every syllable can be more ambagious.  Make reading your essay more difficult than solving a Rubik’s cube in the dark.  Don’t write elderly person, scratch that off.  Write septuagenarian.  That woman isn’t pretty; she’s pulchritudinous for someone possessing your voluminous vocabulary.  And don’t worry if the definitions aren’t totally the same; it’s not as if the reader is going to know what’s going on anyway.  Obfuscate is the key term here.

Metaphors.  It’s always good to throw a lot of these in—teachers love this stuff.  Make sure they’re really random and sporadic, popping up anywhere and everywhere like ferns in the Amazon jungle.  Whatever pops into your head at the time, make it a metaphor.  Whether it’s animals from the Nature Channel you were watching two hours ago, or a Rubik’s cube that’s sitting on your desk, anything is fair GAME.  Forget about clarity or adding depth, your metaphors are there for the same reason neon lights exist—distraction.  Your essay should be a patchwork quilt of random-as-crap metaphors, shrouding your essay from lucidity like the moon blocking the sun during a lunar eclipse.  Just stick them everywhere.

Make errors.  You heard right.  Capitalize some random words throughout your paper.  Attach a note to the final document explaining that your computer was on the fritz, and even during printing it was behaving idiosyncratically.  Proof-reading couldn’t prevent it because it occurred during printing, the note will say, and how can the teacher blame you?  Your computer was haywire,; totally nuts.  It was jumping off the walls and banging into the ceiling like a rubber ball fired out of a Civil War cannon, spitting and blasting unnecessary semicolons and punctuation errors into your work.  You weren’t responsible for what it did.  And once you get that across, you can also blame the computer for for any typos or repeated words you may have left in my accident.  Just type some OCCASIONAL caps-locked words now and then, and suddenly you’re exonerated from all grammatical imperfections.  Diabolical is the key term here.

By now you should be closing in like a school of piranha onto a drowning ox.  You’ve probably written enough, so you might as well wrap things up.  Conclusions are easy.  All you need is a quote and your choice of any massive, tear-inducing flaw in society.  Take your pick: consumerism consuming our culture, superficiality sucking out our souls, mankind’s maniacal instincts, the government’s dominance of society’s free will, et cetera, et cetera.  It doesn’t matter.  It doesn’t even have to pertain to your topic.  The beauty with conclusions is you can tie just about anything to anything.  If you were writing about the mating habits of rhinos, you could probably conclude with an anecdote about world hunger.  The point is that there is no point.  Be as random as a herd of buffalo showing up to present the Best Picture award at the Oscars.  Just pick something you can rant about for a good half-page and you’re in business.

Now for the quote.  This is the last thing the reader’s nonplussed eyes will see—so make it good.  This is the one time in the essay you want them to understand what’s going on.  After all this confusion they’ll be ravenous for something transpicuous—and this is the time to dish it out.  What’s even better, they’ll love you for it.  Everyone likes being enlightened.  And after your quote, your reader should be more sagacious than Buddha on heroin.  Choose one THAT sounds inspirational and profound.  Aristotle and Socrates are always solid choices.  Once again, it doesn’t matter if it actually pertains to your topic.  As long as it’s half decent, the reader will be grateful.  Place this at the end in italics and you’re home free.

Congratulations, you’re done.  Don’t worry about proof-reading for typos—you took care of the errors, remember?  That damn computer of yours.  All you have to do now is make sure you turn it in on Wednesday.  Sit back and relax; and have a triumphant smile and modest remarks ready for the teacher next week when he praises your work in front of the class.  What could go wrong, anyway?  We’ve covered all the bases.  An “A” is inevitable.  Scratch that, ineluctable . . . which reminds me.

I received a paper back this morning and I still haven’t checked the grade.  Excuse me for a moment; I have to confirm my “A.”  Consider this a testament to my guide to success.  Confidence is the key term here.

* * *

Be a victim.  Scratch that, be a scapegoat.  Take the paper and crumple it, throw it away or tuck it away somewhere you won’t see it.  Who gives a shit anyway?  This was a stupid assignment to begin with.  It was a puerile assignment with an imbecilic teacher to grade it.  What the hell does he know?  Confusing Introduction.  Lack of Content.  Bad Transitions.  Excessive Grammatical Errors?!  You told him the computer was going haywire.  Didn’t he see the note?  What an IDIOT.  Obviously it was too much.  He probably didn’t understand what was going on and decided to take it out on you.  What a sucker.  Scratch that, a simpleton.  His lack of comprehension isn’t your fault—the damn ignoramus.  He’s taking his confusion out on you, satisfying his own denial by giving you a shitty grade.  He’s just like everybody nowadays.  No one takes responsibility for their own problems.  People mess up their lives beyond all repair and still have excuses for everything.  It’s the whole damn world’s fault before anyone will admit it’s theirs.  He doesn’t like me because . . . It’s not my fault, she’s the one that . . . I’m late because this stupid . . . blah . . . blah . . . blah . . . How about a simple, “sorry, it’s my fault”?  It’s like the entire bastard world would rather blame its problems on other things rather than fixing them.  No one is willing to own up to their actions and take the consequences anymore.  That’s what this is all about.  I’m just the hapless victim for all those ignorant fools out there.  Those vainglorious dunderheads.  Those egocentric imbeciles.  It’s like a wise man once said:

You must not lose faith in humanity.
Humanity is an ocean;
if a few drops of the ocean are dirty,
the ocean does not become dirty.
                                 ~Mahatma Gandhi

Rhetorical Analysis in the Real World: A Useful Thinking Tool

Rhetorical Analysis in the Real World: A Useful Thinking Tool

More on the 5PE

My Anti-Five-Paragraph-Essay Five-Paragraph Essay

From the dawn of time, or at least the dawn of the modern high school, the five-paragraph essay has been utilized in high school classrooms. Despite this long tradition, the five-paragraph essay is fatally flawed. It cheapens a student’s thesis, essay flow and structure, and voice.

First, the five-paragraph essay constricts an argument beyond usefulness or interest. In principle it reminds one of a three-partitioned dinner plate. The primary virtue of such dinner plates is that they are conveniently discarded after only one use, much like the essays themselves. The secondary virtue is to keep different foods from touching each other, like the three-body paragraphs. However, when eating from a partitioned plate, a diner might have a bite of burger, then a spoonful of baked beans, then back to the burger, and then the macaroni salad. The palate satisfies its complex needs for texture, taste, choice, and proportion. Not so for the consumers of the five-paragraph essay, who must move through Point 1, then Point 2, and then Point 3. No exceptions. It is arbitrary force-feeding to the point of indigestion. After the body paragraphs, and if readers have not already expired, they may read the Conclusion, which is actually a summary of the Introduction. There is no sense of building one’s argument or of proportion.

Second, critical thinking skills and the organization of the essay’s flow are impaired when a form must be plugged and filled with rows of stunted seeds that will never germinate. If we return to the partitioned-plate analogy, foods are separated, but in food, there is a play in blending flavors, pairing them so that the sum is greater than the individual parts. Also, there is typically dessert. Most people like dessert and anticipate it eagerly. In the five-paragraph essay there is no anticipation, only homogeneity, tedium, and death. Each bite is not food for thought but another dose of the same. It is like Miss Trunchbull in the Roald Dahl novel,  forcing the little boy to eat chocolate cake until he bursts—with the exception that no one on this planet would mistake the five-paragraph essay for chocolate cake. I only reference the scene’s reluctant, miserable consumption past all joy or desire.

Third, the five-paragraph form flattens a writer’s voice more than a bully’s fist flattens an otherwise perky, loveable face. Even the most gifted writer cannot sound witty in a five-paragraph essay, which makes one wonder why experts assign novice writers this task. High school students suffer to learn this form, only to be sternly reprimanded by college professors who insist that writers actually say something. Confidence is shattered, and students can’t articulate a position, having only the training of the five-paragraph essay dulling their critical reasoning skills. Moreover, unlike Midas whose touch turns everything to gold, everything the five-paragraph essay touches turns to lead. A five-paragraph essay is like a string of beads with no differentiation, such as a factory, rather than an individual, might produce.  No matter how wondrous the material, the writer of a five-paragraph essay will sound reductive, dry, and unimaginative. Reading over their own work, these writers will wonder why they ever bothered with the written word to begin with, when they sound so inhuman. A human’s voice is not slotted into bins of seven to eleven sentences apiece. A human voice meanders—but meaning guides the meandering. Voice leans and wends and backtracks. It does not scoop blobs of foodstuff in endless rows. If Oliver Twist were confronted with such blobs of written porridge, he would not ask for more.

In conclusion, the five-paragraph essay is an effective way to remove all color and joy from this earth. It would be better to eat a flavorless dinner from a partitioned plate than to read or write a five-paragraph essay. It would be better to cut one’s toenails, because at least the repetitive task of clipping toenails results in feet more comfortably suited to sneakers, allowing for greater movement in this world. The five-paragraph essay, by contrast, cuts all mirth and merit and motion from ideas until there is nothing to stand upon at all, leaving reader and writer alike flat on their faces. Such an essay form is the very three-partitioned tombstone of human reason and imagination.

Kim Zarins is a medievalist and an Associate Professor of English at the California State University at Sacramento. Her debut young adult novel, Sometimes We Tell the Truth (Simon & Schuster/Simon Pulse, pub date Sept 6), retells Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales with modern American teens traveling to Washington D.C. Find her on Twitter @KimZarins.