The purpose of this response is to help you develop an understanding of how genres function. By understanding the genre of a text you are reading or writing, "half" of the work is being done for you. As a reader, genres help you know what to expect from the text you read. For example, if you are reading a five-paragraph essay you expect the writer to tell you what s/he is going to say, say it and conclude by telling you what s/he said; this helps the reader understand your conclusion because they have been presented with an argument and the evidence that supports that argument. Or with a mystery, you expect the criminal or criminals to be revealed at the end so that the writer can keep the readers' attention throughout the story. On the other hand, if you are reading a memo, the expectation is that the conclusions and proposed actions will be in the first paragraph because the audience–who often has limited time–wants to read these first to determine whether they will read the rest of the document. Notice how the features of these documents serve a specific purpose. As a writer, genres help you organize a text in ways that your audience will be able to read them relatively easily.
First, read two selections from Search & Write: 1) Ways of Reading and 2) Academic Genre.
Ways of Reading provides you with recommendations for how to read academic texts. These suggestions will be useful beyond this class into your academic career.
Academic Genre gives you an overview of how genre function in academic contexts and provides descriptions of some typical academic genres.
Second, read through Colorado States's list of genres. Note that this is not an exhaustive list of written genres. Choose a written genre on this page (or one that is not if you consult the instructor first). For the purposes of this activity, it is recommended that you choose a relatively short genre (i.e., 1-3 pages) to give yourself time to do a thorough analysis.
Third, find three examples of that genre by going to the internet or finding ones that are publicly available.
Fourth, analyze the sample you have chosen using the concepts in the list below. Use specific examples from each text to illustrate your understanding. Your audience is not looking at these texts with you, so you have to provide enough detail to help them imagine each text. For example, a social networking status update is often relatively short; relates a past, present or future action or thought; and sometimes is accompanied by an image or a link. Be as thorough as you can. For a silly example of this work see Freddy Scott's This is a Trent Reznor Song; essentially the entire song lists the features of a typical Nine Inch Nails song, as well as some industrial and hard rock songs. For your example, you will want to list all of the features that the audience will expect to be in this type of text when they experience it. Below I provide five ways I want you to think about the documents' respective features.
Fifth, look at your analysis of each example and explain to your audience any patterns that you see about this specific genre.
Sixth, compose a 300-500 word document in which you analyze three examples of the genre and then draw conclusions about what features are expected to be in this genre. You may choose to present this work as a table in which you list all three of the document in columns and the five analysis points above in the rows (if you do this consider submitting your document in a horizontal orientation. Also a more sophisticated response will try to explain the function that these features serve for the writer and/or the audience.
On February 1, 2019, submit your work on the "Classwork" page for Response #5 in the Google Classroom