![]() ![]() His words “so easy” and “habitually” do not seem as positive as his previous ways of describing the essay. On page 37, Hjortshoj writes, “This basic outline is so easy to use that students often bring it with them to college and use it habitually as a template for writing essays” (Hjortshoj, 37). A little bit into the depth of his paper, Hjortshoj begins looking at the five-paragraph essay format in a different light, one of which that is not as positive. If it is such a useful tool though, why does Hjortshoj also describe this essay format as a possible hindrance to writing?Īlthough in music it may seem obvious that a musician’s goal is to become a well-advanced musician, it is not always obvious that once students have learned the five-paragraph essay they should be expected to further advance their abilities to write. It’s okay for an essay format to simply be basic, as this format provides students with a strong structure to build upon, and it has all of the characteristics essential to forming a good paper, similar to the steps of being able to perform a good concert piece. So far in his essay, only at the second page, the five-paragraph essay format seems to be helpful. He uses that word “basic” again to describe simple, repetitive skills taught to a person in order to give them a good basis of knowledge that is meant to eventually be expanded upon. For example he says, “As you become more accomplished, the basic skills you first learned remained important, but standards for performance changed, and the range of music you could play expanded”, which exemplifies Hjortshoj’s argument about the five-paragraph essay (33). He describes that in order to learn the more complex pieces it is necessary that you first have basic skills. Hjortshoj additionally compares the five-paragraph essay to a concert piece. Why would it not be a good thing to use this style of writing in college as well? Here it seems that Hjortshoj is speaking very positively of this essay formula, as it helps the writer begin to layout ideas on paper. ![]() The organization of the essay comes from these three points, which makes it easy to have a chronological essay. ![]() ![]() Students are taught that the thesis is the very last sentence in an introduction, and the thesis is to have three strong points laid out. The five-paragraph essay must be a great example of good writing then. The description of good writing as Hjortshoj describes it is as follows, “All good writing should have a thesis, clearly stated in the introduction… writing throughout the essay should be clear, concise, and correct” (33). He surrounds the word basic by other words such as “good writers and all good writing”, and describes what the basis of “good writing is” (33). He repetitively uses the word “basic” (33) to describe the five-paragraph essay. The first introduction of the five-paragraph essay the reader gets is as it is simply described by Hjortshoj. In his eye-opening essay, Hjortshoj encompasses strong diction in order to enhance his ideas that while a five-paragraph essay is a simple, well-organized form of writing, it is also a hindrance to students hoping to forward their writing abilities to a college level standard, which leads college students to easily fall behind in their writing techniques. Does this mean that the five-paragraph essay should be completely abolished? As we explore in the well-written essay by Hjortshoj, we see that there are many pluses and minuses to the five-paragraph essay. In college, students are expected to be able to go beyond the five-paragraph essay style and begin to infuse more complex ideas and analogies throughout their papers. Throughout middle school and high school, many students are taught that their papers are to be written by using a system of five-paragraphs, three of which that follow the thesis statement, and have basically the same paragraph for the introduction and conclusion. In his informative essay, “Footstools and Furniture”, Keith Hjortshoj informs college students around the United States about problems one may encounter with the forms of writing they learned in high school. ![]()
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