The Five Paragraph Essay or How I learned to stop worrying and let go of creativity

This week's reading really has me going, and although I know we will get into this pretty good in class, I will try to use this space to set up my argument. First, let me say that in general I agree that formulas and tricks and do not work for writers. I agree with this whole-heartedly, and this is why I cringe as I watch the creative writing teacher I am observing pull out and explain the 6 +1 traits. She goes so far as to have the students learn the difference between a 1,3, and 5 point paper, practice scoring the fake papers in the book, and THIS IS A CREATIVE WRITING CLASS. I can't think of anything less creative than the five paragraph essay or the 6 + 1 traits, or frankly, any other formulaic thing that teachers who don't know how to teach writing love to throw at kids and that testing companies love to assess. 

That said, I am one of those teachers. I have an idea of how to teach writing, but it only consists of how it was taught to me, and I, yes I, was taught to write using the five paragraph essay. Now, I know that it's extremely difficult to tell that I once lived inside that five-sided writer's cage especially given my seemingly God-given talent, but alas, everyone must come from somewhere. I was kidding in that last sentence, but only in part of it (Guess which part). It seems that these formulas, given their widespread use, and given the number of good writers that manage to squeak their way through, can't be all bad. Surely, they are restricting, and for those who are not good at "toeing the line" as they say, they may be debilitating. But, as the other adage goes, you have to learn the rules before you can break them. 

Therefore, maybe the answer is to teach the five paragraph essay in middle school and switch to a more sophisticated form around 10th grade? Or perhaps we just need to get the kids reading more and throw out this entire business about "teaching" writing to begin with. 

www.loft.org- this is a website for a writing center in Minneapolis called The Loft Literary Center. They offer classes for adults and for students, and this would be a great way for students to pursue their writing outside of school AND for future writing teachers to pick up some methods.