The Rise and Fall of the Modes of Discourse by Robert J. Connors

Discourse was formerly classified into different classifications, according to this article. I believe they still are classified this way, as I've either taken or taught a class titled in one of these modes: narration, description, exposition, and argument.

The article takes a look at different classifications of discourse through the 1800s, including Samuel P. Newman's in his text "A Practical System of Rhetoric", where he distinguished the difference between writings as "didactic, persuasive, arguementative, descriptive, and narrative ... didactic writing, as the name implies, is used in conveying instruction (perhaps technical or expository in nature?) ... when it is designed to influence the will, the composition becomes of the persuasive kind ... the various forms of argument, the statement of proofs, the assigning of causes ... are addressed to the reasoning faculties of the mind. Narrative and descriptive writings relate past occurences, and place before the mind for its contemplation, various objects and scenes."

This is the second time I've come across a definition of exposition as as type of writing that conveys instruction, which concerns me, as I've been told by others that expository writing (which I'm teaching next semester) is more like creative non-fiction. But I'm still early in the stages of defining what expository writing is, so I'll let the definitions lie for now.

Connors points out that rhetorical study in America "was transformed after 1860. In tandem with the shift in the structure of higher education from a preponderance of smaller private colleges to a preponderance of larger institutions with more varied and scientific curricula, the study of rhetoric mutated from a traditional (that is, classically derived) analysis of argument, eloquence, style, and taste into a discipline much more concerned with forms" (446). He believes that the turning point for the modes of discourse came after the publication of Genung's "The Practical Elements of Rhetoric."

Connors believes that the modes of writing were abandoned after 1950, after exposition had its hey day, and that the modes are no longer thought of as special types of writing (452). However, I think I disagree with him there. I teach "Expository Writing" and "Analytical and Persuasive Writing"; I've taken a class in my undergraduate creative writing major labeled "Narration and Description". So I think the modes are still very much practiced. Whether or not this is for the good of a writer is up for debate.