Blog #2: Genre Awareness

When I ask my lower division students to think about genre, they immediately think music, about music, about rock or country or rap or whatever genre of music they are most interested in. Then they remember that they are in a writing class, and they think of literary genres. Plays or poetry, novels or short stories. Romance. Science fiction. Fantasy.

That's not what I mean, but I don't mind. It helps them understand that each genre has its own characteristics. No one will confuse a rap song with a minuet. And no one will confuse a romantic sonnet with a science fiction short story. 

It also helps them to see that each of these genres has a different effect on its audience. We feel different when we are listening to rap than we do when we listen to baroque string quartets or heavy metal. The music does something.

In this class, I'm going to ask you to consider some different genres. These aren't really literary genres, but they are written forms of communication, each with a  unique set of characteristics. For example, a blog is a unique genre.

We expect a blog to be informal. Written in casual language. Way more casual than a formal academic essay.

It might be accompanied by images. It will probably discuss real world ideas, responses, emotions. It's personal. You get to know the person who is writing.

All of this is about audience response to genre. In her academic research article titled "Teaching Critical Genre Awareness" (2009), Kansas University writing professor Amy Devitt contends that not only does genre influence the audience, but that because each genre has its own "existing power structures and dynamics" (347), it also has the ability to do something to the author.

In music terms, the musician feels different to playing Mozart than she does playing the Grateful Dead. More pointedly, it feels different to write a waltz than it does a head-banging rock song, and if I write waltzes all the time, I'll be a different person than if I write rock songs all the time. 

Back to Devitt. Her claim is that it's not just what the author says that has an effect on the author, but the very structure of the genre influences the writer because the genre has a sort of ideology, a world view of its own. 

I want you to unpack these ideas as you read Devitt.

First of all, think about what Devitt means by genre. What kinds of writing genres do you encounter at SDSU? At your job? Your internship? Your life? How are each unique? What purpose does each serve? What is designed to do?

Next, think about what Devitt means by genre awareness. Why does she think genre awareness is so important? How might genre awareness and rhetorical analysis of various genres help you?

Early in the text, Devitt claims, "When writers take up a genre, they take up that genre's ideology" (339). What does she mean? How can an ideology have its own ideology?

Finally, what does Devitt mean by "existing power structures and dynamics" (347) associated with genres? Why does she think genres have so much power?

Devitt illustrates some of these ideas by discussing the five-paragraph essay, a genre you have quite a bit of experience with.  You could discuss that, or you might think of other real world examples of genres that you have used in the past or are using now.  For example, you might consider how writing a blog is different than writing a research paper for your psych class or writing a lab report. How is the purpose different? How does your style of writing change? How might using this style influence who you are?

In your blog, you can write about any of these things or go in another direction if you want.