home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
/ NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26 / NN_1992_26.iso / spool / bit / listserv / mbul / 5251 < prev    next >
Encoding:
Text File  |  1992-11-07  |  1.4 KB  |  27 lines
  1. Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU
  2. Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!paladin.american.edu!auvm!UTXVM.BITNET!SLATIN
  3. Message-ID: <MBU-L%92110609384002@TTUVM1.BITNET>
  4. Newsgroups: bit.listserv.mbu-l
  5. Date:         Fri, 6 Nov 1992 09:36:00 CST
  6. Sender:       "Megabyte University (Computers & Writing)" <MBU-L@TTUVM1.BITNET>
  7. From:         SLATIN@UTXVM.BITNET
  8. Subject:      Re: is the end of "the paper" in
  9. Lines: 16
  10.  
  11. Bill, I didn't mean, and don't think I said, that students are "great writers"
  12. just waiting to be released from the evil oppressive tyranny of the
  13. five-paragraph essay.  What I meant, and what I thought I said though I
  14. probably didn't, was that such rigid structures as that imposed by the
  15. five-paragraph essay are themselves conceptual and psychological barriers
  16. impeding student writing and student thinking.  You've been teaching longer
  17. than I have; you've therefore probably had even more conversations than I have
  18. in which you attempted to help a student understand that the paragraph isn't
  19. some Platonic Form to which all student paragraphs aspire, that the paragraph
  20. is  not the primary organizational unit, that deciding how many paragraphs
  21. you're going to have before you know what you're talking about is to put
  22. yourself in a situation like the one described in the immortal words of Dan
  23. Quayle: "If we don't succeed, we run the risk of failure."
  24.  
  25. John Slatin
  26. UT Austin
  27.