I still have trouble believing that these arguments are still made. But since they are, here is one response.
Defenders of the five paragraph theme mainly argue that it should be taught because it gives beginning students a lesson in structure. Without it, these proponents claim, students will never learn to structure their writing.
There are at least two answers to this. First, if this were the case, then in learning the five paragraph theme, students would learn structure. But they don’t. They come to college having been drilled in the high school five paragraph theme, and they have no idea how to structure their arguments or essays. So they haven’t learned this basic lesson.
The second answer clarifies the first. It is this: these proponents speak of structure as though it is an absolute, as though it is a concern with writing that is free of all context. “First,” they think, “learn structure. Then apply it to any situation.”
As noted in the first answer, this doesn’t work. Structure is never free of rhetorical context. It is always contingent on a specific writing genre.
To learn structure, it would be better to approach writing, even at the basic level of elementary school or junior high school, the way we approach music. We should teach different genres. In music, we teach songs, preludes, marches, and dances. Then we move on to other longer, more complex structures.
With writing, begin with the genres that are most readily apparent to grade levels. Teach stories. Teach poems. Teach humorous essays. Then move on to parts of argument.
Along with this, of course, we have our students read in these genres. They learn how they work and why they work.
But again, we continue to hear that the real introduction should be a genre that isn’t really even a genre. It has no audience other than a teacher, and it creates no pleasure in reading it or, for that matter, writing it. Teaching the structure of five paragraphs teaches one organizational pattern–listing: First, second, third. It doesn’t teach other relationships between ideas.
And it doesn’t teach writing in a way that makes the need for process and rewriting apparent. These are lessons that are important later on.
The structure defense of the five paragraph theme, it turns out, is empty.