In our discussion work this week and next, I’m asking you to think about genre and what shape your final project will take. You’ve got a lot of latitude here to decide that shape, and it’s worth thinking some more about how genre connects to audience and purpose as you do so.
First off, while it’s useful to think of genres as different types or categories (such as we use for sorting movies or music into meaningful ‘buckets’ or groups), genres are not static. Rather, genres are adaptive and organic. The pop music of today does not sound like the pop music of the 1960s. The circumstances, expectations, and preferences have shifted, and what is popular now is different from what was popular then.
Secondly, while genres have conventions and expectations (people come to a particular genre of movies expecting them to follow certain ‘rules,’ for example), these genre conventions aren’t written in stone. Users challenge them all the time, bending these notions to come up with something new. Think about the film Get Out–it was a comedy right? or was it horror? or was it something else altogether?
When it comes to writing, I think it’s helpful to think of genres as usable responses to recurring writing situations. Need to apply for a job? A cover letter gets the job done. It’s not fancy or exciting, but it contains the elements that a hiring manager would want to know, and in a pretty usable way that lets the reader go about their work efficiently. That didn’t just happen–the genre evolved as this situation (people applying for jobs) kept happening, and people kept responding in pretty consistent ways. Over time, this type of text took on a pretty predictable form. Now, people know what to expect from it (the writers and the readers), and that makes it pretty functional for the readers.
It’s important for writers to consider their readers’ needs as they write. This is all the more true outside of a classroom setting. A teacher reader has to read students’ texts–that’s literally their job–but outside of the classroom, readers seldom have that same requirement. Instead, we make choices about what, whether, and how well we read. When we bump into texts that don’t seem to meet our needs and interests, we often just don’t read them. Or we only skim them.
In your project proposal (due Sunday), your task is to settle upon an objective that you think matters–you’ve learned information that you really want to share with people whom you think need it, and if you’re going to accomplish that goal of information delivery, then you need to think carefully about what your reader will expect, value, and want in a text. That’s why you’ve got so much latitude to determine the genre you use, and it’s why you’ll need to think carefully about it.
As you’re settling on a genre, it’s really valuable to look for examples of that type of text that you think work really well, and then to read them closely, paying attention to things like
- what kind of tone does this author use
- how long is this text
- how does the writer talk about/point to evidence
- what role do graphics play here
- what kinds of style and syntax does the writer employ
- how formal is the voice
- what level of detail does the text provide
- what sorts of word choices does the writer make
So start poking around to look at some of your options. For next week’s readings, you’ll be looking at sample texts in a variety of different genres, but I’d like you to keep looking for models, as well, so that you can see the above considerations in action and be able to draw lessons for yourself. Next week’s discussion work will ask you to share something you’ve found, so start looking now.