This Just FWIW,
I was originally taught emergency landings the "book" way, that is a spiral down over the field followed by an abbreviated dowwind, base and final. Somewhere along the way to my Comm/Inst/ME, someone showed me a better way, in my view, which was to hustle right over to final and then fly a series of S-turns on 1/2 mile final or so, until the sight picture looked good to proceed straight in.
The reasoning was it was easier to judge a proper glide from a half mile final, than from downwind to a strange field, AND, most important, never required a 180 degree turn from downwind to final, especially should the pilot find he mis-judged that last 360, and wound up a bit low. That's a recipe for a stall/spin as the pilot (student) tries to stretch the glide and reefs it around at the same time. When S-turning on final, the "runway" is never more than a 90 degree or so turn from aircraft heading, and not nearly so easy to stall/spin if mis-judged or mangled.
When I took my CFI ride from the folks at Ft. Worth FSDO way back around '77 or so, everything was going along fairly well until the examiner pulled the throttle and asked me to teach him an emergency landing, the first words out of my mouth were, "Well, I don't teach this the way the Instructor's Handbook does." Oh, REALLY?" was the reply. (GULP) Anyway, I did the checks, selected a pasture, and then explained "my" method all the way down to 100', (and a darned good setup it was too!). Then the examiner told me to go around, smiled, and said "I liked that, it's exactly how I was taught in the military myself". The rest of the ride was a big chuckle.
I taught that way ever after, and while I don't actively teach any more, I never had a student bust a ride using the S-turn method.
