Re-Thinking and Re-Teaching Genre

Just when I thought I had finally gotten this genre stuff all figured out, I read Devitt’s article “Generalizing about Genre,” and I realized that I had been as lost as my students. “Genre” sounds too complicated a term for something simply describing form, and, as it turns out, it is much more involved. I definitely have some explaining to do for my students who still believe that genre only means knowing the difference between an essay, a letter, and an e-mail. Actually, I think Devitt’s more encompassing definition of genre will make more sense. We tell our students that context (both textual and social), form, situation, purpose, and audience all impact writing, the writer, and the reader, yet we try to break up these integrated components into separate dichotomies. Devitt provides a way out of the corner that we have found ourselves facing. We do not have to choose between whether the context or the form determines the genre of the piece because they are both factors. When students learn that rhetorical situations are all about making well-informed choices rather than memorizing which form and style to use in every situation, they will become unburdened. Understanding genres allows students to tap into their previous experiences and knowledge about a particular piece of writing, without having to start from scratch every time they sit down to write out a grocery list or a research paper.
This semester in my 102 class we have discussed genre several times. I know that my students have heard this term in other classes, but the definition doesn’t stick with them. I think it is because they also realize that “genre” is a much larger concept than they are being taught. Starting next week, I am going to attempt to expand their view of genre by building on what I know they already know: that genre is connected to form. Since my students are much more familiar now with the idea of a discourse community and because Devitt uses John Swales’ definition of a discourse community to illustrate his own point, I plan on using discourse communities as a springboard for re-teaching the complete definition of genre. I will report back next week with the results of this in-class experiment.