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The Four Modes of Discourse

The Four Modes of Discourse. “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about.” -Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. The What?. Mode refers to a method or form used Discourse is the technical term for conversation.

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The Four Modes of Discourse

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  1. The Four Modes of Discourse “Find a subject you care about and which you in your heart feel others should care about.” -Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

  2. The What? • Mode refers to a method or form used • Discourse is the technical term for conversation. • Therefore, a mode of discourse is simply a method a writer uses to have a conversation with a particular reader/audience.

  3. What do you need to know? • Exposition: writing that explains/informs • Narration: writing that tells a story • Description: writing that appeals to the 5 senses • Argumentative/Persuasion: writing that presents a position in hopes that the reader will accept an assertion

  4. What is the form used? • Last night I took the train into the city a couple of old friends to see Herman Overact as the lead in The Crucible at the Humongous Theatre, and we had a terrific time. • Herman Overact’s performance in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible is an acting event not to be missed. • Overact is playing the lead rold in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible at the Humongous Theatre for the next 6 weeks. • Last evening, the sold-out audience buzzed with excitement as it stared wide-eyed at the stage in rapt anticipation of the appearance of Herman Overact in Miller’s The Crucible.

  5. How Could You Tell? • Each sentence contained information. • Each sentence assumed the reader would accept what was written. • Most of the time, writer’s use multiple forms of discourse in a single paper – but there is always a dominant form. • That dominant form is decided by the writer’s purpose.

  6. What is my Purpose? • Purpose – why the author composed each of his sentences. • Answers: 1. Narration, 2. Arugment, 3. Exposition, 4. Description

  7. Practice: • Gertrude Stein liked to say that America entered the 20th century ahead of the rest of the world. In 1933, in The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, she put it more strongly-that America actually created the new century. - R.W.B. Lewis, appearing in The Writing Life

  8. Practice • My other hangout, strategically located near the front door, was under the porch, behind the blue hydrangeas. I could see the postman’s hairy legs and black socks, the skirts of my mother’s bridge friends, and sometimes hear bits of forbidden conversation… -Frances Mayes, Bella Tuscany

  9. Practice: • …we should not be surprised to find that (certain contemporary historians) have overlooked a tremendous contribution without which European civilization would have been impossible. -Thomas Cahill, How the Irish Saved Civilization

  10. Practice: • I, myself, was having a terrible time reading the paper, so yesterday morning, I went to Birmingham to get my eyes checked, and lo and behold, I had on Wilbur’s glasses and he had on mine. We are getting different colored ones next time. -Fanny Flagg, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe

  11. Homework: • Decide on a topic. • Write a sentence for each of the modes of discourse about this topic. • Expository • Argument/Persuasion • Description • Narration

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