the basic five-paragraph theme

Once while teaching freshman comp, I criticized a student's essay as being weak in content. She wailed: "But this is a basic five-paragraph theme!" I'd never heard of a five-paragraph theme, but stood my ground. She said nothing, but said it in a very well-structured fashion and probably is now the CEO of a major corporation.

If you've never heard of a five-paragraph theme, I urge you to Google the term for yourself. There's lots of material out there -- both pro and con.

The reason I bring it up is that the other day I noticed my blog posts tended to be five paragraphs long.This was unintentional and pretty scary. In fact, almost half fit the five-paragraph mold.

This one will not.