While written expression usually focusses on finding the “voice” of the homeschool student, in high school the student must also learn the four different types of writing styles that are expected in different types of academic assignments. The four different styles of writing are Expository, Descriptive, Persuasive and Narrative. Let us take a more detailed look at each type and see where these are to be used.
Expository
This is a subject oriented writing type whose main purpose is to explain more details about the topic. It deals with presenting facts and figures, but does not allow the author to share his own opinions on them. it is logical and sequence based. This kind of writing is used in text books, how – to guides, news articles and
Descriptive
This deals with describing characters, situations, events, places and more in great detail. There are a large number of adjectives pointing out the special qualities of whatever is being described. It is often poetic and the author gets to visualize everything with all five senses in the writing. This kind of writing is used in poems, journal or diary entries, and descriptive phases in fiction books.
Persuasive
This tries to convince the reader that the point of view that the author is sharing with him is the correct one. The author is at liberty to share his personal opinions and views at great length and support it with whatever facts he can to justify his opinion. It is used in complaint letters, recommendation letters, advertisements and commercials, marketing pitches, cover letters, and newspaper editorial pieces.
Narrative
This basically is about telling a story. The author may choose to tell the story as a narrator giving an over all view of what is happening with different characters in the tale or he may chose to describe what’s happening from the point of view of one of the characters in the story, also known as first person narrative. Used in novels, short stories, biographies, jokes and anecdotes and even in some poems.
Your high school student has to be taught how to write in each of these different styles in the home school classroom.
