1. Dirk presents a few examples of a ransom note written in different genres to emphasize the importance of selecting the correct genre for your purpose and audience. Do you have any ideas for an activity that you could lead in your class that serves the same purpose?
2. Devitt argues that a "major strain of recent genre theory which connects genre to purposes, participants, and themes derives from the notion of genre as a response to recurring rhetorical situation" (Devitt, 576). With this definition in mind, do you think it is necessary for our students to understand the idea of the rhetorical situation that Bitzer defines in his article before they can fully understand genre?
Hi Samantha,
ReplyDeleteAnswering your second question, I think no, you can understand genre first before understanding the idea of rhetorical situation. I'll again go back to the fact that I understand a lot of concepts by looking at it through a film lens, so for me I understood what genre meant through film and books before I ever understood what the rhetorical situation was.