College Writing Suggestions

What this handout is about This handout will help you figure out what your college instructors expect when they give you a writing assignment. It will tell you how and why to move beyond the five-paragraph themes you learned to write in high school and start writing essays that are more analytical and more flexible. What is a five-paragraph theme? North Carolina public school teachers sometimes give a writing assignment called a “five-paragraph theme”; in other places, this kind of assignment is called a “keyhole essay.” Either way, it’s hourglass-shaped: it begins with something general, narrows down in the middle to discuss specifics, and then branches out to more general comments at the end. In a classic five-paragraph theme, the first paragraph starts with a general statement and ends with a thesis statement containing three “points”; each body paragraph discusses one of those “points” in turn; and the final paragraph sums up what the student has written. Why d...