Genre

Bazerman, C. (2011). Genre as social action. In J. Gee & M. Handford (Eds.), The routledge handbook of discourse analysis (p. 226-238). London: Routledge Taylor and Francis Group.

Author: Charles Bazerman, professor Dept. of Ed. @ UC – Santa Barbara; PhD from Brandies University – English and American Literature ‘71, current (2012) editor of Reference Guides to Rhetoric and Composition. Sees writing as a major medium in society and promotes its importance in all areas of life. Interested in the science of and relationship to writing and writing instruction within socio-historic contexts. http://www.education.ucsb.edu/bazerman/ and bazerman@education.ucsb.edu

Date: 2011

Research Questions: .doc p. 2 “By what processes can these frail symbols bear so much weight of meaning and coordination?”

Context (need for study): Consider people in interaction, locating worlds of created meaning. Necessity of identifying “the processes by which language users create order and sense so as to align with each other for mutual understanding and coordination” (p. 1 of .doc). Difficult script or unfamiliar language is biggest indicator of problems aligning “over limited clues”.

Methods: “Discourse analysis” perhaps context analysis? essay

Findings: “The answer proposed in this chapter and the kinds of work reported here is that the problem of recognizability of meaning is in large part a matter of recognizing situations and actions within which the meanings are mobilized through the medium of the signs. Meaning is not fully available and immanent in the bare spelled words” (p. 2 on .doc).

            Children find their utterances corrected and refined until both parties (at least the one in power) feel that both sets of needs are met.

            Genre is a “typified response to a typified situation” (p. 4 on .doc). This relies on society. “Once upon a time” invokes a certain level of expectation. Activity systems provide stability, not the genre it and of itself. Genre, however typified, is only a partial account of reality. Cool!

            Groups of people validate themselves by sharing documents and all the rules that go into what is more important and who gets to handle what and in what order – this is seen in court when establishing scientists as expert witnesses. The documents don’t speak into the court, but people who have read the documents can become verified as holding the knowledge that is valuable for presentation in the court.

            Language study is only studying the “residue of complex psycho-social-cultural processes” but the “orders of discourse are to be found in the dynamics of life processes” (p. 11 on .doc).

Discussion (my connection): Language works through individuals during social participation, constantly calling on social and cultural resources, but meanings come to individuals based on perception of situation and role within it. Bazerman describes the “thinness” of writing – transmission of mental images, the imaginative and ethereal really, “must be carried through the arrangement of the few letters of the alphabet in words, sentences, and larger units--along with punctuation, graphic elements, and materialities of the medium” (p. 2 of .doc).

            Attention to language is attention to detail! (and orientation and perspective and habit) Be explicit with students about the “organization and dynamics” of situations in order for them to know orientation of goals as well as best use of options. There is a connection between school and other life settings.

            “All language is an approximate indicator of meaning, with some situations having narrower tolerances for accuracy and alignment than others” (p. 4 on .doc).

            Bazerman repeats an idea on the fourth page, citing three prior times he has used this terminology, that a powerful text needs multiple dimensions within cultural settings in order to remain meaningful. Success depends on recognizability – the audience has to know some of what you know, some of what the writer/speaker is doing and why. Similar to the child who knows how to give a good show and tell report – the person who works within genre well is validated.

            There seems to be a great possibility to think deconstructionally about all this…    

Reiff, M. J., & Bawarshi, A. (2011). Tracing discursive resources: How students use prior genre knowledge to negotiate new writing contexts in first-year composition. Written Communication, 28(3), 312-337.

Author: Mary Jo Reiff, Associate Prof. Dept. of Engl. Univ. of Kansas, PhD from Kansas; mjreiff@ku.edu, textbook and other publications along with Bawarshi. Focus on audience theory and rhetorical genre studies, currently on public petition as a genre that is culturally built for social action.

Anis Bawarshi, Professor in English, Director of Expository Writing at Univ. of Wash., PdD from Univ. of Kansas ’99. Selected publications on website focus on genre, ex: Genre and the Invention of the Writer: Reconsidering the Place of Invention in Composition, USU Press 2003. Interested in rhetoric and composition studies as well as running academic writing programs. Enjoys studying the complex relationships of cultural production, social practices and relations, as identities that the different organization of writing (and writing communities) work together to produce.

Date:          2011

Research Questions: How do students access and make use of prior genre knowledge during encounters with new writing projects in 1^st year comp courses?

            On page 317: What genres (written, oral, digital) do students report already knowing when they arrive in FYC? How do students use their prior genre knowledge when they encounter and perform new writing tasks in FYC? What seems to predict why and how students transfer prior genre knowledge into new writing contexts? To what extent will be be able to see, as Perkins and Salomon predict, both low-road and high-road approaches in students’ use of prior knowledge, and what seems to predict their choice of approach?

Context (need for study): Much attention to outcomes and transfer to other courses from first year composition (FYC) courses. Gap ins attention to ncomees, to “discursive resources students bring with them into writing classrooms” and their use of them in 1^st year comp classes (p. 312). Attempt at dissecting facets and processes students use when negotiating and crossing discursive boundaries. Surbeys to 15 sections at UT and 33 at UW. Students self-selected providing 52 and 64 responses.

Methods: Cross-institutional study at UTennessee and UWashington, using genre as conceptual lens because of Bazerman (2009, p. 283) calling it a “tool of cognition” (p. 314). All set within study of knowledge transfer. Surveyed (including 40 genres in order identify genre used before; to find student attitudes) students to report on previous literacy experience, discourse-based student interview (asked students to talk about what they thought they were to do with assignments and the knowledge they drew on to make their decisions), and analysis of course work and instructor syllabi. Use of in vivo (as opposed to a priori) coding – using students’ terms when coding and reporting

Findings: Students use prior knowings in a variety of ways: from analysis and repurposing while others maintain known genres (?) (p. 312). Genre knowledge, as Beaufort (2007) and Tardy (2009) identify, is a framework for analysis and bridge from social to rhetorical knowledge situations (p. 314).

            50% at UT reported previous writing in 27 of 40 genres, and 50% at UW reported 34 of 40. Students expected their experience with different genres would help them succeed in FYC. In school, top % for UT students was research paper and 5 paragraph essay for UW. Out of school for both was email writing. Report of felt sense of accomplishment and perceived success based on college-prep or AP experience.

            Domain overlap is limited, most extensive writing is in school and work. Letter writing seems to be the biggest out of school genre recognized. Confidence in own process and use of multiple genres or strategies are indicators for corsssings.

Discussion (my connection): Knowledge transfer was big with Dr. Dethier. If that is an ultimate purpose or aim, it will come out in the ways writing programs are set up, considering Dethier and Bawarshi are both program directors – this probably has some influence because this is generally a program that is “accountable” to the whole of the rest of the university. Students are funneled through, or given a key out of, FYCs and the program directors have to answer to the provost, deans, or presidents about it.

            Students’ understandings of genres may not be the same as a FYC teacher’s, but the focus on knowledge transfer triggers. The perception that they have already accomplished, mastered, or even just attempted a “research paper” in high school might give a false sense of security for attempting it in an FYC.

            The researchers talk in terms of boundary crossers and boundary guarders who deal in high- and low-road transfer. They include low confidence, a range of genre strategies, and “not” talk about what genre their writing is not as the crossers while those with high confidence seemed to be low-roaders. I get that there is a sense of having been through it before that would give confidence (perhaps I feel that all too much), but I am surprised that those without confidence are willing to cross the boarders, but it is the limited strategy use for low-road boundary guarders that makes sense to me.

The point seems to be that those who are more successful in approaching new genres are reminded of multiple strategies, and that takes exposure. The five-paragraph can’t be the only thing students do. It comes back to alertness – as Grandmother would say, “We need more ‘lerts in theworld.”

Wollman-Bonilla, J. E. (2000). Teaching science writing to first graders: Genre learning and recontextualization. Research in the Teaching of English, 35(1), 35-65.

Author: Julie E. Wollman-Bonilla (now just Wollman), prof. Dept. of Elem. Ed. Rhode Island College at time of writing, as of June 1, 2012 is the first female President of Edinboro University, jwollman@edinboro.edu; PhD in Elem Ed from NYU ‘91. Most recent book publication (2000) Family message journals: Teaching writing through family involvement. Recent work focusing on administration and team building. Interesting to look at (2003) “Email as genre: A beginning writer learns the conventions” in Language Arts.

Date: 2000 – No Child Left Behind is on it’s way. Not a reality just yet.

Research Questions: p. 39 To what extent can the messages composed by first-grade, emergent, and beginning writers be characterized as science writing when analyzed for conventional structural and lexicogrammatical features? How might children appropriate the conventions of science writing and recontextualize these for the purpose of communicating with families in the context of Family Message Journals?

Context (need for study): National reform in education emphasizes that students do science and science texts work in general, present characteristics. Discipline-defined ways of thinking and writing.

Methods: Qualitative, case study of 4 1^st-graders’ messages to family members, analyzed for conventional structural and lexicogrammatical features. System of Family Message Journal in context influences understanding of genre of science writing.

Findings: Participants were consistent in composing “texts in which they appropriated the linguistic conventions of science and…seemed able to use these conventions flexibly, recontextualizing the genres to fit the task of a written dialogue with their families” (p. 35).

            Four categories of science writing (% of FMJ in this category): report (60%), experiment recount (20%), experiment procedure (6%), or explanation (14%).

Discussion (my connection):

Australian genre movement seeks to empower “child writers by introducing them to socially valued genres” (p. 38). This is not child-centered, necessarily. It thinks about what is good for students to be “successful” in the dominant discourse and promotes the status quo, but it promotes the status quo – an indoctrination of sorts, but if writing is social, then that’s what happens more often than not.

The Australian view of mastery first before flexibility matches how I used to (am still getting over) think about grammar and formalities rules.