Characterizing and Teaching Genre (An On-going Quest)

Characterizing and Teaching Genre

(An On-going Quest) Ann M. Johns

San Diego State University

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Why focus on the novice student?

•The teaching problem for more advanced academic students seems to have been solved for many contexts (See Swales and Feak, 2004).


We haven’t answered these questions about teaching novices:

• Are we qualified to teach an academic curriculum that is genre-based? •Are we doing an adequate job teaching academic literacies to novice L2 students?•Why do we continue to rely on formulaic texts, the “paint by number” approach? •Can we import texts into the classroom from authentic contexts?


Problem: How do we apply genre theory and research to the novice classroom in ways that:

•Are theoretically framed, but pedagogically sound and sufficiently coherent to be accessible to students?

•Do not ignore the complexity of genres and their varied realizations in real world contexts?

•Promote rhetorical flexibility and genre awareness among students, developing abilities to assess, and adapt a genre to, a situation?


Goals for a Genre Class (Russell & Fisher, in press)

•Goal 1: Genre acquisition/learning, actually acquiring the ability to produce a text in a given structure.•Goal 2: Genre awareness, developing an understanding of the conventions, and variations in genres. Learning to research a rhetorical context (Johns, 1997).


Defining and Contextualizing Genres

•Genres are both cognitive and social, representing mental schemas for appropriate textual approaches to situations (Bazerman, 1997; Grabe & Kaplan, 1996).

•Genres are “repeated social actions” (Miller, 1984), “purposeful strategies for certain types of situations” (Coe, 2006).

•Genres are situated: Texts from genres are written for, and in, specific situations.


Layers of Context (Samraj, 2002)

Academic Institution

Text

Academic Institution

Discipline

Course

Task

Student


What else characterizes genres?

•They are purposeful and/or responsive: In most cases, students’ purposes are to successfully respond to assignments made by instructors. •Genres are named by those in power: Naming is a controversial and unresolved issue in theory and pedagogy.


Some Genre Names Related to Purpose (Rose, 2006)

Name

Exposition

Discussion

Interpretation

Historical recount

Historical account

Purpose

Arguing for a point of view

Discussing several points of view

Interpreting the message of a text

Recounting historical events

Explaining historical events


Procedural Genres in Relation to National Training Board Levels in Science-Based Industry

(Rose, 1997, quoted in Martin, 2002)

conditional procedure

technical procedure

dutystatement

topographic procedure

co-operativeprocedure

simpleprocedure

oriented to technology

oriented to operators

oriented

to task

specialisedEnglish

technicalEnglish

NTB 1-2 NTB 3 NTB 4 NTB 5


Levels of Generic Description (Bhatia, 2004)

advertisements sales letters job applicationsbook reviewsbook blurbs

Promotional Genresgiving shape to product like

evaluationdescription explanationnarration instruction

achieved through rhetorical/generic values of… …

……

Genresidentified in terms of

communicative purpose

RHETORICAL/GENERIC VALUES

GENRE COLONY

GENRES


Genres are clustered or grouped…

•“Genre colonies” (Bhatia, 2004), grouped by purpose.

•“Families,” e.g., service encounter, technical procedure (Hasan, 1985).

•“Intertextual systems” (Chen & Hyon, in press).


Genre Conventions Reflect Effective Strategies for “Repeated Social Actions”

“Conventions” cover a variety of features: register (including author stance), content, text structure, non-linear text (e.g., graphs & pictures), fonts, paper quality…See work by Schleppergrell & Oliveira (2006) and Mohan & Slater (2006) on the language conventions of content domains.


… However, Genres vary considerably in terms of prototypicality (Swales, 1990), influenced by the nature of the genre itself and the centripetal and centrifugal forces that characterize the situation in which a text from the genre is written (Berkenkotter & Huckin, 1995).


Model of Genre Knowledge (Tardy, 2006)

Subject-matterknowledge

Rhetoricalknowledge

Proceduralknowledge

Formalknowledge

nascent knowledge

nascent knowledge

expertise




In the New Rhetoric:

•Context is central to conceptualizing genres: “Genres predict but do not determine the nature of the text that will be produced in a given context” (Russell, on activity theory, 1997).

•Genres are ideologically-driven artifacts of a discourse community.


Analyzing the Genre Scene (Devitt, Reiff, & Bawarshi, 2004)

•Select and gain access to a scene.•Identify and describe the situations of the scene (interactions, settings, people, topics).•Identify a genre from the scene and collect samples.

•Identify and analyze the patterns in the genre:contentrhetorical appealsformat sentence typesdiction


Consider These Rhetorical Issues (Devitt, Reiff, and Bawarshi, 2004):

•Who is invited to participate in the genre and who is excluded?•What roles of writers and readers are encouraged or discouraged?•What values, goals, and assumptions are revealed?•What actions does the genre make possible?



Genre Awareness & the Writing Process: Prompt Analysis

1, What are you supposed to do as a writer when you are responding to this prompt? Are you asked to make an argument? To inform? To describe or list? If your “doing” word is vague, like “discuss” or “describe,” what do you think it means?

2. What content are you supposed to discuss in your response? Is the content related in some way?

3. Who are you supposed to be in this prompt? An ordinary student or someone else? (Some prompts tell writers to “speak” in the voice of an editorial writer, a leader, or….)

4. Is your audience specified? If so, who is your audience? What will this mean in terms of the language you use or the content you include?


Additional questions about a prompt: Genre Awareness and Writing Processes

5. What is this text called? (Its genre name) What do you know already about this genre? How can you vary it to make it yours?6. How are you to use sources, if at all? How many sources should you use? What kinds? Does the prompt specify whether the sources should be primary or secondary? What genres are appropriate? (Magazine or journal articles? Textbooks? Newspapers? Full-length books?)7. How long should your paper be? What other specifications are given? (The referencing style? The font size? The margin width?)8. How will you organize your text? Why? On the back of this paper, write a draft plan for your response.

Johns, A.M. (2007) AVID College Readiness: Writing from Sources (inspired by Bawarshi, 2003).



Genre, Pedagogy, and English for Specific Purposes

• Swales’ “moves” in article introductions (1990). Text structures and functions. “Textographies” (1998).

•Hyland: Writer-reader relationships: metadiscourse (1999), hedging (1998), stance and engagement (2005).

•Bhatia: Genres and the professions (1993), genre colonies (2004).

•Paltridge: Pedagogies (2001);Ethnographies in contexts (2006).

•Samraj: Advanced students’ academic texts (2004).



SFL Academic Pedagogies(Christie, 1991; Martin, 1993, 1998)

•Focus upon the novice student: indigenous children and new adult immigrants, in particular.

•List key, and varied, academic genres: their social locations, schematic structures, and stages (See Mackin-Horarik, 2002).


And Practitioners following SFL:

•Present an accessible teaching-learning cycle (See Feez, 1998).

•Offer a new emphasis upon, and pedagogical plan for, the struggling reader (Rose, 2006).


Given these possibilities, what can we do to produce a pedagogy that

•Is theoretically framed, but sufficiently coherent and pedagogically sound to be accessible to students?

•Does not ignore the complexity of genres and their varied realizations in real world contexts?

•Promotes rhetorical flexibility and genre awareness, the novice writer’s ability to assess, and perhaps adapt a genre to, a situation?



An Interdisciplinary Learning Community (Johns, 2001; T. Johns & Dudley-Evans, 1980)

•All students are enrolled in the same literacy and introductory content classes (anthropology, history, economics, biology).•In the literacy class, students study the content class as an academic microcosm, frequently conducting research into its “ways of being,” its texts, and its disciplinary values.•Literacy and content faculty collaborate by designing a co-constructed paper, reflecting the disciplinary ways of being from the content class.•Students study the discipline by using the content classroom as the research site.



Way 1: Problem-solving/System Generating Response (Carter, 2007)

a) Identify, define, and analyze the problem,

b) Determine what information and disciplinary concepts are appropriate for solving the

problem and collect data,

c) Offer viable solutions, and evaluate the solutions using specific discipline-driven

criteria.

Genres: case studies, project reports and proposals, business plans.


Way 2: A Response Calling for Empirical Inquiry (IMRD Paper)

a) Ask questions/formulate hypotheses.

b) Test hypotheses (or answer questions) using empirical methods.

c) Organize and analyze data for verbal and visual summaries.

d) Conclude by explaining the results.

Genres: lab reports, posters, research report or article.


Way 3: A Response Calling for Research from Sources

a) Pose an interesting research question.

b) Locate relevant (often primary) sources for investigating the question.

c) Critically evaluate the sources “in terms of credibility, authenticity, interpretive stance, audience, potential biases, and value for answering research questions.”

d) Marshall evidence to support an argument that answers the research question.

Genre: “The quintessential academic genre: the research paper” (MLA style)


Way 4: A Response Calling for Performance

a) Learn about the principles, concepts, media, or formats appropriate for the discipline.

b) Attempt to master the techniques and approaches.

c) Develop a working knowledge and process.

d) Perform and/or critique the performance.

Genres: visual artifacts, written compositions, portfolios, critiques


Creating a Academic Genre-Awareness Pedagogy for Novice ELL/ESL/EFL and Gen 1.5

Students

•Establish class objectives related to reading, writing and analysis of genres as well as for academic vocabulary (e.g. mortar words), grammar (for deep learning).

•Introduce the four ways of knowing, and their related disciplines, to students.

•Draw from students’ experiences with these ways (and the related responses) to build prior knowledge.•Select two or three of the “ways” for the literacy curriculum, thus encouraging rhetorical flexibility.


Further steps in a Genre-Awareness Curriculum

•Select genres that realize the “ways” chosen.

•Interview faculty or advanced students about the “ways:” how, and why, they are realized in certain genres. Collect samples of the genres, if possible.

•Design prompts for each genre and tailored scoring rubrics to correspond to the prompts. Encourage prompt analysis.

•Scaffold students in their reading and writing in the genres, reminding them of the corresponding “ways.”

•Encourage student research, self-reflection, and self-assessment throughout.


Final Remarks

•“Genre” is certainly a slippery, if attractive, term. We should all use the term with care…and define it before use.

•For any curriculum, we need to decide, first of all, what we want the students to learn, to understand, and to be able to do when they complete their classes. Genre acquisition or awareness?


Final, Final Remarks

•Considering the slippery nature of the term, genre awareness and rhetorical flexibility seem to be fully as important as the learning of text structures, as novice students’ experiences with the Five Paragraph Essay have demonstrated.•But more curriculum design, research, and discussion need to take place before we can say with any degree of certainty what the best approaches might be---and with which groups of novices.


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Characterizing and Teaching Genre (An On-going Quest)