I Hate 5 Paragraph Essays

Something that was shocking to me while reading was how important all of the little things are in everything that we do as teachers. I remember doing little bubble outlines before writing a paper and I thought it was so silly to do those because to me, it was kind of pointless. I, personally, felt like my papers were better when I would just write. That is when I felt like my creative side came out was when I would do surprised timed-writes. There would be no specific structure and my brain would just shut off and I would write. I feel like now, being in college, I do find that I use those little outlines a little bit more but not to that extent. I am so sick of the typical 5 paragraph essay with the introduction, 3 body paragraphs, and conclusion. I feel like although it is helpful to begin with, every single student relies on that format and it is killing a student's creativity!! That is why I loved the timed writes. I also loved them because I feel like they helped me write in different time intervals. I was able to write a full paper in 45 minutes, rather than spending a couple of days to write a full paper. It spiked this creative side of my brain because I was almost in a rush to complete something. Even if it was not exactly fully completed, the paper was completed just when it was completed. When the time was up. That is when the thought was ended on paper, and we would all talk about about our papers and the endings and what could lead from the endings and it was just a cool concept.  This is something that I definitely want to bring into my classroom because it has so many possibilities to it and can get kids out of that "writing comfort zone" that every single student has in regular English classes.