Genre. Mary Jo Reiff
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It matters, as we will describe, that the Sydney school genre approach emerged in response to a national curriculum aimed at K-12 students; that the English for Specific Purposes approach emerged in response to the needs of graduate student, non-native speakers of English; that the Brazilian synthesis has been energized by the Brazilian Ministry of Education’s National Curricular Parameters and the International Symposium on Genre Studies (SIGET), held since 2003; that the Rhetorical Genre Studies approach has been informed by rhetorical theory and sociology and has targeted college-level, native speakers of English. But what connects these various approaches is a commitment to the idea that genres reflect and coordinate social ways of knowing and acting in the world, and hence provide valuable means of researching how texts function in various contexts (the focus of Part 2 of the book) and how to teach students to act meaningfully in various contexts (the focus of Part 3).
The interest in genre study and teaching has been broad in scope and has been enriched by multidisciplinary and international perspectives. In their introduction to Genre in a Changing World, a recently published collection of twenty-four papers selected from the Fourth International Symposium on Genre Studies (SIGET IV), Charles Bazerman, Adair Bonini, and Débora Figueiredo describe genre studies’ global reach, with authors in the collection representing Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Finland, France, Portugal, the United Kingdom, and the United States. As Bazerman, Bonini, and Figueiredo explain, the concept of genre has been particularly useful in helping literacy educators respond to the demands of a global world and information-based economies (ix-x). Genre, they argue, by helping to “elaborate writing as a focused, purposive, highly-differentiated task,” helps us understand and prepare students for the increasingly specialized communicative needs of disciplines, professions, and everyday life (x). At the same time, genre can help provide “access to the benefits of advanced levels of education” to an increasing number of people around the world (x), as we will see in the case of Australia and Brazil. As Bazerman, Bonini, and Figueiredo eloquently conclude:
A world tied together by communication and knowledge, enacting increasingly complex cooperations on many levels, puts an increasing demand on the genres that share our meanings and knowledge, that coordinate our actions, and that hold our institutions together. A world being transformed by new technologies and media as well as new social and economic arrangements creates the need for rapid and deep transformation of genres. In a world where pressing problems require increasing levels of coordination and mutual understanding, forging effective genres is a matter of global well-being. In a world where increasingly high degrees of literate participation are needed by citizens of all nations, advancing the communicative competence of all, making available the genres of power and cooperation, is a matter of social capacity and social justice. (xiv)
In the U.S., and within Rhetoric and Composition studies, the concept of genre has begun to inform the study and teaching of writing in important and exciting ways. In the past few years, a number of edited collections and books that examine and apply genre theory have been published, targeting a mainstream composition audience; various composition journals have published scholarship in genre theory; the number of conference sessions devoted to genre at major conferences is on the rise, each drawing increasingly larger audiences; and several composition textbooks have recently appeared with genre as their guiding concept (we will discuss some of these in Chapters 10 and 11). Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that we are witnessing something of a “genre turn” in Rhetoric and Composition studies, one that is informing various aspects of the field’s commitments: from the teaching of writing at various levels and in various contexts to the study of writing as a form of ideological action and social participation to research on writing, metacognition, and transferability. In his 2005 College Composition and Communication essay, “Composition at the Turn of the Century,” Richard Fulkerson calls for an overview of genre scholarship within composition and rhetoric that can delineate the various genre traditions and applications.
Two recent books targeting secondary school audiences attest to the growing influence of genre on writing instruction in the U.S. Deborah Dean’s Genre Theory: Teaching, Writing, and Being introduces genre studies to high school writing teachers, arguing that a genre approach in the secondary classroom can teach students a view of writing as situated and can connect reading and writing, product and process. Cathy Fleischer and Sarah Andrew-Vaughan’s Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Helping Students Navigate Unfamiliar Genres, building on the work of Heather Lattimer (Thinking Through Genre) and Tony Romano (Blending Genre, Altering Style), develops a genre-based curriculum in which students select, analyze, and produce unfamiliar genres in response to various literacy tasks. This pedagogy, they argue, helps students develop the analytical, transferable skills to write in a range of genres and for a variety of purposes. Such a genre-informed curriculum is reflected in a 2008 policy research brief titled “Writing Now” produced by the National Council of Teachers of English. The research brief identifies genre as a key component in writing instruction, and proposes that “writing instruction . . . would benefit from deep study of genre considerations” (“Writing Now” 17).
The “Writing Now” brief is careful to acknowledge and to dispel myths of genre as formulaic writing, a concern echoed by Barbara Little Liu in “More than the Latest P.C. Buzzword for Modes: What Genre Theory Means to Composition.” Liu points out that while the word genre plays a key role in the influential Council of Writing Program Administrators’ “WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition” (“Write in several genres,” “Develop knowledge of genre conventions ranging from structure and paragraphing to tone and mechanics,” “Understand how genres shape reading and writing”), the concept of genre remains under-defined and not well understood (73). As such, Liu cautions that the “WPA Outcomes Statement for First-Year Composition” reintroduces genre into the mainstream discourse of Rhetoric and Composition without informing the concept of genre with new insights from recent work in genre theory, thus risking the possibility that a “genre-based approach reverts to a product-centered approach, and the writing process becomes a series of increasingly accurate attempts to replicate an ideal text rather than an engaged understanding of how writing and writers work within a complex world” (73-74). To address this concern, Liu calls for “an introduction to genre theory for nonspecialist composition instructors” (224).
This volume aims to provide a reference guide to genre for writing instructors and writing program administrators working in various institutional contexts, such as first-year composition programs, TESOL programs, graduate-level writing programs for international students, and writing in the disciplines/writing across the curriculum programs. The volume is also aimed at scholars, beginning and advanced, in Rhetoric and Composition and in related areas such as rhetorical criticism, applied linguistics, discourse analysis, cultural studies, education, and sociology, who are interested in theorizing, researching, and applying genre to the study and teaching of writing.
Overview of the Book
In the chapters that follow, we will provide an overview of genre theory, research, and pedagogy, tracing the different traditions that inform them in order to account for the variations and overlaps in genre application. We will present an historical overview of genre; describe and explain key issues and scholarship that have led to the reconceptualization of genre over the last 30 years and what such a reconceptualization has meant for the study and teaching of writing; examine current research and lines of development in the study of genre; provide examples of various methodologies for conducting genre research; and explore the possibilities and implications for using genre to teach writing at various levels and within different disciplines. In short, we will examine genre historically, theoretically, and pedagogically, in ways which we hope will be useful for new and experienced teachers and researchers who are interested in locating and exploring the scholarly and pedagogical possibilities of genre.
Part 1 (Chapters 2 through 6) of the book examines the various traditions that have informed current understandings and applications of genre. Chapter 2 traces genre study within literary traditions in order to describe how these have contributed to widespread attitudes about genres as either exclusively aesthetic objects or as impositions on the artistic spirit, and how recent literary and cultural studies approaches expand the scope of genre study in ways that align with linguistic and socio-rhetorical traditions.
Chapters