On Genre

The Rhetorical Situation

Genre in the Wild

My FYC students have responded well to Kerry Dirk's "Navigating Genres" and Mike Bunn's "How to Read Like a Writer."
Both are available via WAC Clearinghouse.

Devitt, A. J. (1993). Generalizing about genre: New conceptions of an old concept. College composition and Communication, 44(4), 573-586.

Genre Analysis: The College Essay

See: Students and Money,in Their Own Words

For a Course on Rhetorical Genre Studies

Institutional 
& Pedagogical 
Genre 
Research


From the Editors: 30 Years of Genre as Social Action: The Past, Present, and Possible Futures of RGS

Teaching Genre Theory and Activity Theory

Check out ISU!!!

They're doing some cool stuff, including a journal of undergraduate writing:

Grassroots Writing Research Journal

Top Five Books on Genre (from WPA-L)

Bawarshi, Anis S., and Mary Jo Reiff. *Genre: An Introduction to History, Theory, Research, and Pedagogy*. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press, 2010.

Bazerman, Charles, Adair Bonini, and Débora de Carvalho Figueiredo. *Genre in a Changing World*. Fort Collins, CO & West Lafayette, IN: WAC Clearinghouse & Parlor Press, 2009.

Berkenkotter, Carol, and Thomas N. Huckin. *Genre Knowledge in Disciplinary Communication: Cognition, Culture, Power*. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1995.

Devitt, Amy J. Writing Genres. *Rhetorical Philosophy and Theory*. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2004.

Swales, John M. *Research Genres: Explorations and Applications*. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

Teaching W/Genre

Possible Assignment:

Have students identify a genre they know well and have experience with. First have them analyze it and then have them teach it.

To analyze it, I might even have them draw on Pare/Smart:

• Regularities in Textual Features
• Regularities in Social Roles
• Regularities in Composing Process
• Regularities in Reading Practices

Other questions or organization...

• What is the name of the genre
• What is the social situation to which the genre responds?
• What are the various parts of the genre, the structure? Why?
• Please write a short introduction to this genre and address the following...

Genre articles

Artemeva, N. & Freedman, A. (Eds.). (2006). Rhetorical genre studies and beyond. Winnipeg, MB: Inkshed Publications.

Allan Luke's "Genres of Power? Literacy Education and the Production of Capital" (_Literacy in Society_308-38.)

Michael Carter's "Ways of Knowing, Doing, and Writing in the Disciplines." College Composition and Communication 58.3 (February 2007): 385-418.

Tardy, Christine. Building Genre Knowledge. West Lafayette, IN: Parlor Press,

forthcoming in 2009.