Abstract is study focuses on how teachers enrolled in a graduate-level, online English Education course perceived formulaic or thesis-driven student writing, commonly associated with the traditional “ve-paragraph essay.” One goal of this course,“Writing, Reading, and Teaching Creative Nonction,” was to engage teachers in reecting about the uses of this “new” genre in their own classrooms. Living in several states, the participants included one science teacher, four Special Education teachers, and ten middle and secondary Language Arts teachers. We analyzed 12 separate prompts posted to the discussion board over a six-week period. Also, participants were required to post one “thread” into each discussion board, with follow-up comments to threads from at least two other participants. Approximately 75 out of a total of 800 coded comments dealt with formulaic writing. e following patterns of participants’ perceptions emerged from these comments:(1) student benets of formulaic writing;(2) a hierarchical sequence for teaching writing;(3) obligations to teach formulaic writing;(4) resistance to formulaic writing;(5) the constraints of formulaic writing on students; and (6) the constraints of formulaic writing on teachers. Based on this study, we recommend that teachers engage in writing themselves which includes risk-taking, modeling writing and signicant revision for their students, and sharing models of writing; ensure that their students write in many forms and genres, including, but not limited to, the ve-paragraph essay; develop realistic views of the expectations and obligations they face daily; and internalize eective writing practices. In the process of exploring the genre of creative nonction, teachers also had to grapple with old debates, as almost all of this study’s participants changed their views, discovering that the chains they had felt actually were not as tight as they had originally believed.