Modes, Forms, or Strategies: Are We Confusing Students?

By Vickie Conner--(Based on Frank D'Angelo's "Nineteenth-Century Forms/Modes of Discourse: A Critical Inquiry" --pages 347-357 in Composition Studies text)

The term “didactic” concerns me in D’Angelo’s essay. It seems that modes of writing have always been a main focus in writing curriculums, and because these modes are concentrated on as classifications, especially with description, narration, expository, and argument, the definitions tend to be given the most emphasis in middle and high school language arts curriculums; however, do definitions need to be the main focus? Isn’t learning the process of writing myriad genres the main objective for the course?

If teaching the process of writing in any given genre is the objective, then we cannot fail students by offering merely classifications of writing. The writer’s thinking in attacking a piece of writing, in essence, needs to synthesize information from each genre with what the boundaries and expectations are for each genre attempted. Yet these modes, as we see in D’Angelo’s essay “Nineteenth Century Forms/Modes of Discourse,” are arbitrary. Several texts list different modes or use different titles for modes that seem to be similar from author to author, but calling one mode a mode and another a form or strategy is confusing.

Therefore, as D’Angelo states, “Like cause and effect or comparison and contrast, description and narration are strategies that can be used in the service of any of the writers’ aims (what we call “purpose”) and in any kind of discourse” (351). In other words, description is not a type; it is a strategy for writing based on the main purpose for writing. By listing narrative as a mode and chronological sequencing as a mode, students naturally do not put the two strategies together to create a narrative based on time lapse. Yet if students were taught to write down personal experiences, develop a purpose for writing the narrative, and which strategies to use, such as dialogue and sequential order, then the writing makes more sense to the author. The writing becomes a rhetorical situation with the readers and the topic and not a class for which to complete.

Modes of writing are arbitrary, and when they should be introduced and how they should be taught is even more so; however, most pieces in the educational setting should be considered didactic; of course, at different levels. In poetry, we have specific pieces meant to be read merely for pleasure or for auditory purposes, such as in Poe’s “The Raven” yet persuasion in argument, though didactic in nature, should be observed or analyzed for purpose and logic and not simply just as a type or mode of writing. When developing a subject, different strategies (compare/contrast, cause/effect, etc.) are employed based on the purpose of the writing. As D’Angelo said: “Description can be found in expository writing where the aim is informative, in persuasive writing  (such as magazine ads) where the aim or purpose, and in literary discourse where the aim is aesthetic (350).

Therefore, it might make more sense to have students, starting in primary grades, to analyze myriad genres and determine the mode rather than the opposite order of thinking. If students could study the factors of genre theory (purpose, audience, genre, style, and context) of each piece of text, it would be encouraging critical thinking and analysis into the process and aid students in replicating such a document. Furthermore, an opportunity to possibly blend genres to create new ones is provided, and opening the door to new, possible genres is excellent thinking in writing. In essence, scaffolding writing instruction according to elements of a genre, along with progressive text complexity, allows students to find new angles of writing and to practice writing these genres based on the five factors of genre theory.

According to Read, after the observation and synthesis processing of text and understanding the components and expectations of a genre, students are much more prepared to write independently (47). In this process, of course, genre has become more complex while the reading becomes more complex (for example, going from process to satire).

Ranking seventeenth in the world in reading scores, writing curriculum cannot be ignored. One of the misconstrued ideas implementing the Common Course Standards to K-12 curriculum is that more content needs to be added; however, the opposite holds true. Adding modes of writing to the curriculum is not necessarily imperative. Rather, it makes more sense to place greater emphasis on a diverse selection of genres and categorize them with the students based on specific elements that comprise each genre, as well as focusing on readers’ expectations to categorize or classify. It makes more sense to take specific genres and dissect them for the real purpose for writing.

I’ve always wondered why some K-12 textbook editors, especially those writers who edit for the primary level texts, decide to include abstract thinking activities, such as creating idioms in writing, in third grade basal readers who expect to invoke critical thinking and developing abstract ideas. Psychologists, of course, may want to question the knowledge of child development in these editors who claim to have Ph.D.’s in education, for this type of abstract thinking is virtually non-existent until about the age of 12.

Furthermore, D’Angelo makes another points out Jean Piaget’s stages of cognitive development: when given new information, it may be an arduous task to make sense of new information without any schema for which to attach information, and she points out the importance of connecting background knowledge to the new information. “Complex ideas are formed by repeating, comparing, and uniting simple ideas” (353); therefore, until the brain is fully developed formally (usually age 14), how do we expect students to understand these complex modes. These modes, then, need to be discovered and not explained through the process of deciphering the five factors of genre theory in any given assignment, whether it is a resume, a short story, or a poem.                  

                As John Watson stated: “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years (82).

This quote simply advocates the idea that we have control over what types of knowledge we can present to student; more so, we have fantastic control over how we present this information or the content we choose to present. Just fathoming this great power makes all the difference in what students learn and how they learn to do it. If modes are formulated through synthesis of a genre’s components, then the students can develop modes of writing, thus learning takes place.

Works Cited

Watson, J. B. Behaviorism (Revised edition). Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1930. Print.