The Five-Paragraph Essay and the Deficit Model of Education

[...]most students spend their academic lives appearing disorganized to their teachers and structur- ing their thoughts into pre- fabricated formats. First Things First, But Not Necessarily in That Order4: The Problem of Efficiency Teachers using the logic of Smith and Seo see the five-paragraph theme as the starting point; once students learn this structure, they can then move on, become creative, and develop more sophisticated ways to get organized. [...]rather than teach writing, the teach- ers spend weeks closely monitoring and efficiently requiring students to write topic sentences with two supporting examples, slot in transitional devices, and decorate paragraphs with vocabulary words. Because of the intense pressures from the testing industry, teach- ers believe that they are required to provide constant structure, scaffolding every aspect of the writing process for students, from the num- ber of sentences per para- graph to the inserting of transition words. Teacher consultants Shana Woodward (Gardner-Webb University), Jeanie Reynolds (UNC Greensboro), Karen Haag (UNC Charlotte), Karen Mach (Central Piedmont Community College), Mary Kendrick (North Mecklenburg High School), Anthony Iannone (Nathanial Alexander Elementary), and Lacy Manship (Newell Elementary) contributed to the essay's exploration and development with their classroom stories and research.