1. Do you agree with Dirk’s statement that, “learning about genres and how
they function is more important than mastering one particular genre” (259)? If
so, how would you ensure that your students understand how to approach all
genres when the course assignments only cover a select few?
2. “Just
as genres construct situations and situations construct genres, discourse may
construct communities and communities construct discourse” (Devitt, 582). Do
you agree that communities play a large part in the formation and understanding
of genre? How would you go about teaching genres while avoiding an un-learning
of culturally established genre constraints?
Hi Sydney,
ReplyDeleteTo answer your first question, yes I do agree with Dirk's statement because I think that it's a more expansive and inclusive way to think about writing and it enables students or anyone, for that matter, to see that genres shape situations as much as situations shape genre. It would be difficult to ensure that students understand how to approach all genres, given the limitations a teacher has to put on course content, but I would probably focus on developing this relationship by showing them an example of how, say, the ghazal (an Eastern/Arabo-Persian form of poetry) has changed as it has traveled to the West to reflect Western aesthetic and cultural sensibilities. I would further ask them to apply in an assignment their understanding of this interdependent relationship between genre and situation to other examples.