Response for April 25th Articles

The first article we read for today was titled ‘Navigating Genres’ by Kerry Dirk. The passage that stood out to me in this article was when she said “In other words, Bitzer is saying that when something new happens that requires a response, someone must create that first response. Then when that situation happens again, another person uses the first response as a basis for the second, and eventually everyone who encounters this situation is basing his/her response on the previous ones, resulting in the creation of a new genre”. This passage really helped me with the concept of genre. It described it in a different way than just giving a book definition. It gave an example that was easy to follow and helped in grasping the concept.

The second article we read for today was titled ‘Teaching Critical Genre Awareness’ by Amy Devitt. The passage that stood out in this article was when she stated “With genres understood today as actions in social contexts, genres become embedded in the assumptions, values, and beliefs of the groups in power as any genre emerges, develops, and changes. To teach a particular genre is to teach that genre’s context”. This article basically is laying out the fact that in order to teach someone about a particular genre, you have to first know yourself what the context of that genre is and be able to accurately explain it. Also, it is saying that genres develop and change so a person must thoroughly know about it in order to be able to teach someone else about it.

These articles have honestly helped me to better understand the concept of genre. Genre, in my own words, is basically when someone does something that is of importance to others and others begin to do the same thing, it creates the definition of genre. It is pretty much what everyone knows to be that genre. The example that Kerry Dirk gave about country music helped me to better understand the concept greatly. Dirk’s article seemed to help me more so than Devitt’s article did. Dirk’s article was written in a more understandable student tone, while Devitt’s article was harder to pick up on and understand.