Entry #11

I can’t believe that we've already gone through all of our genre presentations in class. I always forget how quickly the spring semester seems to fly by. To focus on each genre in this entry, I would like to do something a little bit different (and hopefully fun!).

Descriptive

This juicy genre utilizes a copious amount of extravagant words. Some writing may appeal to the five senses the way that warm, gooey chocolate chip cookies right from the oven appeal to our stomachs. The descriptive genre does so in order to paint an especially specific, tremendously terrific picture. An important focal point is figurative language, which is like the glue that holds descriptive writing together. Not to forget about is the use of dialogue in this writing, and as I’ve said before, “Who doesn’t love dialogue?!”

Persuasive

What would you do if you wanted to get your way but did not know how to do it? Why, learn about the persuasive genre, of course! The persuasive genre is one of the most important genres that we learned about. One of the reasons why it is important is that we would never be able to get our way without it! If I did not know how to persuade someone in writing, then I most certainly would not have gotten cookies from the persuasive group’s presentation, would I? Another reason why the persuasive genre is important is because I would be swayed far too many times to buy useless products if I did not know how to avoid propaganda. Most importantly, I know that the persuasive genre is important because I took time to learn about it; I am practically an expert.

Biography

The biographical genre has been around for a long time. Its offspring include autobiographies, memoirs, and personal narratives. Although all are very unique, they remain part of the biographical genre. Although the biographical genre is selfless and often talks about others, its offspring generally talk about themselves. Autobiographies love to talk about themselves, and they are often pretty lengthy. Memoirs also love to talk about themselves, but they normally cover a smaller time period. Autobiographies and memoirs are fraternal twins; they are very similar, but look a little different. Finally, personal narratives also talk about themselves and normally follow a typical timeline of events. The biographical genre and its offspring currently reside in a number of places including John Edgar Wideman’s Brothers and Keepers and Jeannette Walls’s The Glass Castle.

Expository

The expository genre normally gives information about a topic; however, it can also tell the reader how to do something, among many other things. It has five typical text structures: description, comparison, problem-solution, sequence, and cause-effect. Each of these structures has a different purpose, but a text is not limited to the use of only one text structure. When writing in the expository genre, authors typically utilize nonfiction text features like a table of contents, headlines, and a glossary to help readers as they go through the text. Expository texts are typically high in vocabulary, and present some difficulties to students just learning how to read. Taking this into consideration, it is still important to provide experiences with expository texts throughout a child’s life, so that they may become more familiar with the structure.

Poetry

Poetry is elaborate.

It can be structured.

                        But it doesn’t have to be.

Sometimes the meaning will BOP a reader on the nose.

Other times, it will hide between the lines.

You can write about anything.

Like an elephant who likes to sing.

Poetry is scary like a tiger,

But it gets better with practice.

Those are the genres as I see them. I recognize that there is still a great deal that I need to learn about each of these genres. I am especially interested in how to incorporate technology into all of these. Tompkins outlines some ways in which technology might be used to write in each of these genres, and I would like to test them out. Considering which genres I still find the most difficult, I would say expository and biography. I say expository only because I still find it kind of boring. I don’t ever see my students getting excited because they get to write about the truth. (At least in my mind, that’s how I see it. Obviously, this is something I need to work on.) With biographies, I think that I just still don’t see when I will have my students write in this genre. I understand personal narratives, but obviously memoirs and autobiographies won’t be used. At the same time, even biographies don’t seem to be an appropriate thing to have my students write. I think that I need to dive deeper into these genres in particular in order to better my understandings of them.

Overall, I feel that I understand each genre much more than I did at the beginning of the semester. I feel more comfortable teaching each, and explaining some of the benefits to using each genre.