By Marina Bydalek
I designed this genre awareness activity as a primer for my class’s deep-dive into genre, genre analysis, and genre research. You can think of it like a check-up—we all have genre awareness, but we still need to dust off that shelf in our brain every once in a while. Because of this, I place this activity at the beginning of the second sequence of my class, in which students have the option to compose in the rhetorical genre of their choice for each assignment. By that point, we have already discussed the rhetorical triangle and rhetorical strategies at length as they apply to the course outcomes. This activity marks the beginning of a broader exploration into the utility of these strategies as they apply to different genres.
The goals of this activity are three-fold:
- To show students that they already have genre awareness
- To practice composing in and identifying different rhetorical genres in a low-stakes, fun way
- To introduce students to genre analysis and genre research
Instructions
To scaffold this activity, I start with a review of rhetorical genre and an explanation of what genre awareness is. Students are then put into groups of 3 or 4. The whole class is given the same “situation” to write about, so all of their topics will be the same. However, each group is assigned a different rhetorical genre to write in. I use a collaborative Google Doc with one page for each group. They can add images, graphics, emojis, or any other elements, as long as
they adhere to their genre. After everyone is finished, we come back together and each group reads their writing out loud. Depending on modality and time, either the whole class will guess what the genre is, or the group justifies their decisions and adherence to their assigned genre.
Situation: The official mascot of UW, Dubs II, has disappeared!
Dubs II is an Alaskan Malamute with white and black fur. He was last seen outside of Loew Hall playing fetch with his guardian; he ran off to fetch the ball, but never came back. Dubs is known to frequent areas on campus such as Husky Stadium, the HUB, and the quad. He responds to “Dubs,” “Dubs the Second,” and belly rubs. Known enemies include the WSU mascot, Butch T. Cougar, who was also spotted on campus the same day as Dubs’ disappearance.
Rhetorical Genres
- Clickbait Article
- Missing Poster
- Conspiracy Facebook Post
- Group Chat Conversation
- UW Daily Article
- UW Crime Alert
Thoughts for Transferring into Your Course
This activity can be “reupholstered” and applied to whatever course theme, teaching modality, or time requirements you have. My course is focused on true crime, which is why I wrote a crime-related situation (purely hypothetical, I promise!). If you do change the situation, make sure that the rhetorical genres still make sense with that prompt (e.g. you wouldn’t want to have a “missing poster” as a genre for a situation about the climate crisis, for example).
Modality can also affect the logistics and post-writing activities. I’ve done this activity both in-person and remotely. Both were successful, but they played out differently. If you’re in a synchronous Zoom meeting, you can put students into breakout rooms, where you can assign their genre and let them work in secret. That way, when everyone is done, you can have the whole class guess the rhetorical genre of each group. This keeps all of your students involved and provides additional practice identifying genres. If you’re in-person, it’s harder to maintain the same level of secrecy, but it is possible. Passing out slips of paper with their assigned genre or letting some groups work outside of the classroom are just a couple of options. If confidentiality is not possible, you can instead have each group explain to the class how they adhered to their genre and what choices or discoveries they made.
Finally, the length of their passage can vary depending on how much time you have. If you have a whole class session, they can write longer, more complete passages, but if you only have 20-30 minutes, you can adjust the length to one paragraph.
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