The 5-paragraph essay as taught in schools misses the point. The point of an essay is to make a single cohesive argument, preferably in as few words as possible.
"Write a standard, 5-paragraph essay discussing the theme of chaos in Slaughterhouse Five, making sure to cite several examples from the text, 1000 words minimum" is a ludicrous assignment. The assignment should be: "Argue whether chaos is a significant theme in Slaughterhouse Five, 5 pages maximum."
Not only does it miss the point, I suspect it's why there's so many blog posts nowadays that end with a paragraph titled "Conclusion" that just repeats what was previously said, without actually tying those thoughts together.
What you call "ludicrous" I call "beginner". Beginning students need the 5-paragraph structure, and they need minimum word counts, just like they need to be told to cite examples. Otherwise they just turn in a single-sentence "Slaughterhouse Five has a lot of chaos, which you can see clearly from reading the book, the end." Maybe you laugh but you will literally receive this from 9th-graders.
The assignment you're advocating for is more appropriate for a weekly college homework assignment, where you know that the (good) students will struggle to get it down to five pages, and (hopefully) don't have to be taught that their arguments need to be supported with citations. But it would be disastrous for most high schoolers.
You need to learn to play chords and scales before you can play jazz. Writing is no different, you need to start with the fundamentals.
> Otherwise they just turn in a single-sentence "Slaughterhouse Five has a lot of chaos, which you can see clearly from reading the book, the end." Maybe you laugh but you will literally receive this from 9th-graders.
That essay would easily get a 0, and the student (and their peers) would learn not to try that. A student producing a single sentence instead of an essay is a different problem than a student producing an unclear essay or failing to demonstrate that they read the text, which, I think, is the point of the 5-paragraph essay.
The actual fundamentals of good writing are grammar, logic, and rhetoric. We only teach one of those (grammar) in schools, and we don't necessarily teach it well. The subjects of logic and rhetoric have largely been replaced by the "5-paragraph essay" until you reach college. That is insane to me.
Teaching 5-paragraph essays from middle school to high school is like teaching jazz by having students spend 8 years writing renaissance chorales. Writing a few renaissance chorales is probably good for jazz musicians, but spending 8 years writing them will not produce a good jazz artist.
"Write a standard, 5-paragraph essay discussing the theme of chaos in Slaughterhouse Five, making sure to cite several examples from the text, 1000 words minimum" is a ludicrous assignment. The assignment should be: "Argue whether chaos is a significant theme in Slaughterhouse Five, 5 pages maximum."