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Up until the publication of Alexander Bain's English Composition and Rhetoric in 1866, most American college textbook rhetorics were organized around belletristic discourse classifications; that is, they divided up the subject of writing into established literary forms such as orations, history, romance, treatises, sermons, and the like. Bain's textbook brought about what we now, thanks to Thomas Kuhn, refer to as a paradigm shift, sweeping away these belletristic schemes and substituting five forms-Description, Narration, Exposition, Persuasion, and Poetry-that, with the exception of Poetry, have survived up to the present in Freshman Composition and are known in the trade as the Modes of Discourse. 1 In recent years, however, another paradigm shift has been taking place, and Bain is now often held responsible for the impoverishment of rhetoric in the late nineteenth century.2 Regrettably, in the campaign to undo the damage he did, little attention has been paid to his intellectual milieu or to the question of why he did what he did, with the result that the true historical importance of the modes has been obscured. The most noteworthy feature of Bain's English Composition and Rhetoric-and the reason perhaps for its popularity among his contemporaries-may be its reliance upon the scientific thought of the day. During the previous century in Bain's native Scotland, Adam Smith, George Campbell, Hugh Blair and Joseph Priestley had sought to redefine the basic aims of rhetoric, largely in an effort to accommodate the increasingly prestigious natural sciences. As Wilbur Samuel Howell has argued, the classical rhetorical systems offered little guidance to the scientist in presenting his discoveries to the learned community and to the public at large: they conceived of persuasion as an appeal to commonplaces rather than facts, they depended for methods of proof on the logic of deduction rather than induction, they encouraged the use of ornamental figurative devices rather than plain statements, and in general they were designed for popular exhortation rather than for disseminating fresh knowledge.3 In his Essay concerning Human Understanding (1690), Locke points the way to-

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I. A. Richards has said that we begin reading any text with an implicit faith in its coherence, an assumption that its author intended to convey some meaning and made the choices most likely to convey the meaning effectively.' As readers, therefore, we tolerate the writer's manipulation of the way we see the subject that is being addressed. Our tolerance derives from a tacit acceptance of the writer's to make the statements we are reading.2 When reading a textbook, for instance, we assume that its writer knows at least as much about the book's subject as we do, and ideally even more. When we read a newspaper article, we take for granted that the writer has collected all the relevant facts and presented them honestly. In either case, derives partly from what we know about the writer (for instance, professional credentials or public recognition) and partly from what we see in the writer's discourse (the probity of its reasoning, the skill of its construction, its use of references that we may recognize). The sources of writers' authority may be quite various. But whatever the reason for our granting authority, what we are conceding is the author's right to make statements in exactly the way they are made in order to say exactly what the writer wishes to say. The more we know about a writer's skill, the more we have read of that individual's work or heard of his or her reputation, the greater the claim to authority. This claim can be so powerful that we will tolerate writing from that author which appears to be unusually difficult, even obscure or downright confusing. For instance, our having read Dylan Thomas' Fern Hill with pleasure may lead us to work harder at reading Altarwise by Owlight, although we may not understand it readily and may not derive the same pleasure from reading it. As readers, we see this harder material as a problem of interpretation, not a shortcoming of the composer. Writers may, of course, compromise their authority through evident or repeated lapses, but, in general, Lil Brannon is an assistant professor at New York University, co-director of the Expository Writing Program, and coordinator of the Writing Center. She is completing a text entitled Writers Writing. C. H. Knoblauch, also an assistant professor at New York University, is co-director of the Expository Writing Program. He is a co-author of Functional Writing and has just completed a book on eighteenth-century theories of the composing process.

James L. Kinneavy's A Theory of Discourse: The Aims of Discourse (PrenticeHall, 1971) has contributed much to field of English. Evidence of its impact that it required reading for two NEH seminars-Edward P. J. Corbett's summer seminar at Ohio State and Dudley Bailey's year-long seminar at University of Nebraska. This evident concern and book's recent appearance in paperback (Norton, 1980) prompt a review of its strengths and limitations. Kinneavy clarifies need for order in English studies, but-to use his own term for characterizing field-his work preparadigmatic in that his categories are static and his approach too closely tied to literary criticism to be helpful in Though he intends to rescue from the present anarchy of discipline,' his theory unsatisfactory for many teach composition, largely because he fails to account adequately for rhetorical choices and composing processes. This review will focus on some of underlying reasons for limited success of Kinneavy's theory. Kinneavy seems aware of many of his presuppositions, including his assumption that he can side-step considering rhetorical processes. However, he does not always seem to be aware of implications of his methodological decisions. His decision to analyze the aim which embodied in text itself (49) based on a desire to concentrate on rather than composition. A theory of composition, he argues, would require attention to process of composing, a concern he concludes is not desirable for an analysis of aims (4). He prefers to deal with with the characteristics of text, with decoder, who primary element in any communication situation (49-50). Ironically, though he recognizes rhetorical significance of writer's audience, he fails to perceive that rhetoric, unlike discourse analysis, must deal with process by which texts come into existence. He thus sets out to establish the basic foundations of composition and to provide a framework of research for all areas of dis-

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Fred R. Pfister, Joanne F. Petrick, A Heuristic Model for Creating a Writer's Audience, College Composition and Communication, Vol. 31, No. 2, Recent Work in Rhetoric: Discourse Theory, Invention, Arrangement, Style, Audience (May, 1980), pp. 213-220

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This important and influential study is the first to cover the whole field of rhetoric and discourse theory, bringing together and analyzing such varied approaches as Aristotelian rhetoric, modern logic, linguistics, and literary theory. James Kinneavy explores the many and varied purposes of language, and relates these purposes to four discourse types: reference, persuasive, literary, and expressive. Each type is discussed in terms of its inherent logic, its characteristic patterns of organization, and its stylistic features, with abundant examples in support of Dr. Kinneavy's analysis. Readers are invited to sharpen their own perceptions through numerous, carefully planned end-of-chapter exercises, and through further reading in sources listed in chapter bibliographies. A Theory of Discourse is essential reading for scholars of rhetorical and discourse theory, and for teachers of writing and other communications skills. It can also serve as the core text in a course on rhetoric or the teaching of college writing.

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Teaching the Universe of Discourse appears in virtually every bibliography dealing with language and learning and is widely read and cited throughout the English-teaching world. It's a book that every experienced and beginning teacher should read (and read again).

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RHETORIC IS VERY LIKE an umbrella. Under its expansive shade, more or less comfortably, cluster a variety of subjects -semantics, logic, usage, style. Rhetoric is very like an arch. It spans widely, bridging psychology, linguistics, sociology, philosophy. Rhetoric is very like a dynamo. It is the machinery for generating the ideas and language of communication. Rhetoric is sometimes very like a whale, with its mouth open, sweeping the ocean. Rhetoric is also very like a jelly fish.

The goals of this course is to • help students to explore English grammar through a unique ’discovery ’ approach that encom-passes both critical thinking and text analysis • study English grammar from a theoretically/descriptively informed perspective? seek the right balance in our English grammar teaching between theory and practice • help (prospective) teachers to be able to apply this knowledge in various contexts. This course is ideal and useful for those interested in English education/language arts, English as a second language, and linguistics. The class will cover the basic grammar rules and major English constructions. After each chapter, students will have a writing assignment that tests the grammar rules covered in the chapter. Students who successfully finish this course will be able to apply their understanding of grammar structure to the EFL classroom. As usual, this class consists of two class hours as a unit. Students are required to read the main textbooks thoroughly and do exercises as homework. Main Textbook:

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Developing Critical Capacity: The Place of Logic, Semantics, etc.: The Report of Workshop No. 6, Section A, College Composition and Communication, Vol. 3, No. 4, Workshop Reports of the 1952 Conference on College Composition and Communication (Dec., 1952), pp. 16-19

Semantics in the Freshman English Course: The Report of Workshop No. 6, College Composition and Communication, Vol. 1, No. 2, Workshop Reports of the 1950 Conference on College Composition and Communication (May, 1950), pp. 22-23