Work Text:
Peter listened to Stiles cackle as he worked on an essay for a homework project. It was their weekly Thursday night together. After dinner they would often watch something together but tonight Stiles wanted to finish an essay before they turned on the television.
"What are you doing?" Peter had to ask.
Stiles grinned as he looked up. Peter took a deep breath as he held in his own emotions. The laughter lit up Stiles' entire body and it made him look breathtaking.
But Peter held back. He was here to be a friend as Stiles went to college across the country from the rest of his friends and family.
"It's for that English Lit class I'm taking," Stiles giggled. "We're working on a section on literary analysis and the professor went on and on about the four types of discourse."
"Remind me," Peter replied. "What are they?"
"The official list is descriptive, narrative, expository, and argumentative," Stiles rattled off.
"Each of those is fairly broad and they could easily overlap," Peter replied thoughtfully.
"And few pieces of writing have only one form," Stiles added. "The best writing uses all the forms to their best advantage. Even a piece that is meant to be descriptive, for example, benefits from narrative. The description of an object, for example, is much more palatable if it include a story of how it might be used."
Peter nodded. "That's what I liked about the older edition of The Joy of Cooking that I have," Peter replied. "While it could be a fairly dry listing of recipes with direction on how to prepare the food, it also includes stories about what the food might be best for, anecdotes about preparations, and examples of how the food might be served."
"Exactly!" Stiles nodded eagerly. "My mom had that cookbook and I learned a lot from it."
"So what made you laugh?" Peter asked.
"Well, the assignment is to find a piece of writing that, from a general description, might be mostly one type of discourse," Stiles said. "That cookbook is actually a good example of that. But the assignment is to take a section or chapter and to break down the text, identifying the various types of discourse used in each section of the text. And, of course, why we think that is true."
"Okay, sounds like a pretty straightforward assignment," Peter said.
"It is, until I tell you that the book I chose was If You Give A Mouse A Cookie." Stiles cackled again.
----
The note back from the professor said: "Thank you for not doing Twilight or 50 Shades. That's been done to death."
Stiles earned an A in that course.