Writing Genres

In Writing Genres, Amy J. Devitt examines genre from rhetorical, social, linguistic, professional, and historical perspectives and explores genre's educational uses, making this volume the most comprehensive view of genre theory today. Writing Genres does not limit itself to literary genres or to ideas of genres as formal conventions but additionally provides a theoretical definition of genre as rhetorical, dynamic, and flexible, which allows scholars to examine the role of genres in academic, professional, and social communities. Writing Genres demonstrates how genres function within their communities rhetorically and socially, how they develop out of their contexts historically, how genres relate to other types of norms and standards in language, and how genres nonetheless enable creativity. Devitt also advocates a critical genre pedagogy based on these ideas and provides a rationale for first-year writing classes grounded in teaching antecedent genres.

How do we make writing meaningful to students? A leading educator and a popular novelist present a refreshing exploration of how the challenges of professional writers can give students new insights into writing. The Write Genre presents a balanced approach to writing workshops in grades 3–9. It provides hands-on activities that focus on all stages of the writing process, with teacher-directed assignments and self-selected writing lessons that emphasize writing to learn. These unique lessons are designed to help students write with a concrete purpose and audience in mind and complete assignments that are more focused and authentic. Organized around six writing genres, more than fifty mini-lessons deal with specific skills that help students write effective fiction and nonfiction in such genres as: personal memoir— from techniques involving a personal memoir timeline and organizer to great ways to start, create powerful paragraphs, and cut the clutter; fictional narrative— from character, plot, and dialogue to point of view and conflict resolution; informational report— from strategies for reading nonfiction and K-W-L-S organizers to adding voice and style; opinion piece— from loaded words and other persuasive writing techniques to business letters and topical issues; procedural writing —from incorporating visuals and interviewing experts to techniques for writing imperative sentences; poetry – from teaching the "tools" and specific forms of poetry to creating a poetry anthology. For easy classroom implementation, the key elements of many mini-lessons are also presented in reproducible pages, including frameworks, organizers, prompts, checklists, and grids. The book offers chapters devoted to the writing process, writing workshop, and using rubrics for instruction and assessment. The concluding chapter pulls all the threads together with a multi-genre project that involves students in using the skills they have learned throughout the school year.

In this classroom-tested approach to writing, Brock Dethier teaches readers how to analyze and write twenty-one genres that students are likely to encounter in college and beyond. This practical, student-friendly, task-oriented text confidently guides writers through step-by-step processes, reducing the anxiety commonly associated with writing tasks. In the first section, Dethier efficiently presents each genre, providing models, a description of the genres’ purpose, context, and discourse; and suggestions for writing activities or “moves” that writers can use to get words on the page and accomplish their writing tasks. The second section explains these moves, over two hundred of them, in chapters ranging from “Solve Your Process Problems” and “Discover” to “Revise” and “Present.” Applicable to any writing task or genre, these moves help students overcome writing blocks and develop a piece of writing from the first glimmers of an idea to its presentation. This approach to managing the complexity and challenge of writing in college strives to be useful, flexible, eclectic, and brief—a valuable resource for students learning to negotiate unfamiliar writing situations.

This volume showcases the efforts of real teachers using the teaching events from real middle school classrooms. Included is the work of eight hard-working middle school teachers who are convinced that the form and function of genre is a way to teach writing across the middle school curriculum. Each chapter contains sample lessons, protocols, classroom instructional materials, and assessment tools to provide middle school teachers with an approach to explore rigorous expository writing instruction in their own classrooms.

One of the twentieth century’s enduring works, One Hundred Years of Solitude is a widely beloved and acclaimed novel known throughout the world and the ultimate achievement in a Nobel Prize–winning career. The novel tells the story of the rise and fall of the mythical town of Macondo through the history of the Buendía family. Rich and brilliant, it is a chronicle of life, death, and the tragicomedy of humankind. In the beautiful, ridiculous, and tawdry story of the Buendía family, one sees all of humanity, just as in the history, myths, growth, and decay of Macondo, one sees all of Latin America. Love and lust, war and revolution, riches and poverty, youth and senility, the variety of life, the endlessness of death, the search for peace and truth—these universal themes dominate the novel. Alternately reverential and comical, One Hundred Years of Solitude weaves the political, personal, and spiritual to bring a new consciousness to storytelling. Translated into dozens of languages, this stunning work is no less than an account of the history of the human race.

From memes to resumes, fairy tales to researched arguments, in a striking full-color visual design, The Bedford Book of Genres invites students to unpack how genres work in order to experiment with their own compositions. After capturing the imagination of instructors and students in its successful first edition, the second edition incorporates extensive reviewer feedback to better teach students the rhetorical analysis skills they need to read and compose in any situation. To start the text, the Guide now includes a new Part One that lays out the book’s key concepts--rhetorical situation, the elements of a genre, and multimodal composing--and a substantially revised Part Two with examples arranged by academic, workplace, and public contexts. Throughout the text, Guided Readings provide opportunities to analyze the rhetorical situations and conventions of common public and academic genres, while Guided Process sections follow the decisions that five real students made as they worked in multiple genres and media. With a range of readings from short visual arguments to longer, more complex pieces, the Reader gives students a wealth of sources, models, and inspiration for their own compositions. Now available with Launchpad for The Bedford Book of Genres, the second edition offers a compelling digital option with a complete, interactive, assignable e-book.

WHAT IS THE STORY GRID? The Story Grid is a tool developed by editor Shawn Coyne to analyze stories and provide helpful editorial comments. It's like a CT Scan that takes a photo of the global story and tells the editor or writer what is working, what is not, and what must be done to make what works better and fix what's not. The Story Grid breaks down the component parts of stories to identify the problems. And finding the problems in a story is almost as difficult as the writing of the story itself (maybe even more difficult). The Story Grid is a tool with many applications: 1. It will tell a writer if a Story ?works? or ?doesn't work. 2. It pinpoints story problems but does not emotionally abuse the writer, revealing exactly where a Story (not the person creating the Story'the Story) has failed. 3. It will tell the writer the specific work necessary to fix that Story's problems. 4. It is a tool to re-envision and resuscitate a seemingly irredeemable pile of paper stuck in an attic drawer. 5. It is a tool that can inspire an original creation.

Based in current genre theory, this guide helps writers make more informed rhetorical choices and participate more effectively within academic, workplace and public contexts. This text illustrates how to use genres to assess, understand, and write within different scenes or writing situations. Discussions of writing for academic contexts cover writing analysis, argument, and research-based genres. Public and workplace writing is illustrated though discussions of other genres—letters, resumes, proposals, reports.