Genre Literacies Analysis Worksheet
Genre Literacies Analysis Worksheet
What role does this text (genre) play in your “community”?
Before answering the questions below, I want you to answer the above question. This will act as a kind of introduction to this final analysis of your text as part of our genre studies. We are looking at how this genre works in your field (economics, fashion, psychology, criminal justice, chemistry, international politics, etc.). Rhetorical Genre Studies scholars examine genre as typified social action. Again, what role does this text (genre) play in your community, your industry? Does it promote the industry, help create industry discourse, transform the community, initiate study, explain a project? Try to be specific with what you think this actual text does in terms of a social event, a specific event in your community. The more specific your answers are to all of these questions, the more successful is your essay or exploration of this study.
For each, remember the genre with which you worked.
- Explain how important it is for a student to consider the particular audience in the writing of this text. Who are the readers of this text and what is their role in this text? How should the writer consider the hierarchy of audience and writer? This helps clarify the circumstances in which this text is being written, the particular “”
- Explain how important it is for a student to consider the particular context in the writing of this text. Why is a text like this being created? What is going on culturally or socially that encourages this to be written/created? We can predict context by looking at a text like this, just as we can predict a text by looking at its context (the set of circumstances surrounding).
- Explain how important it is for a student to consider the particular content in the writing of this text. Some argue that this kind of knowledge represents true genre literacy. If you are teaching someone how to write your text, what would you describe as the kind of appropriate topics and relevant details that need to be included? Please consider the details here. How would you know if a text like yours is legitimate or if it is a “poser,” a weak attempt at writing such a text? How does the content give the text (and writer) credibility?
- Explain how important it is for a student to consider the particular values in the writing of this text. This text represents your genre’s professional community. This relates to the shared cultural values of readers and writers within a genre, the “ways of being in the world” of particular groups or communities of readers and writers. What values can you identify within that particular text? The values found in your text (genre) are the same as those found amongst the people you represented in that field (screenwriters, make-up artists, travel consultants, health professionals, football coaches, political advisors, child activists, etc.).
- Explain how important it is for a student to consider the awareness of intertextuality in the writing of this text. Individual texts are influenced by previous experiences of all kinds, with texts of the same genre and with texts and spoken discourses from outside the genre; these references very often strengthen the text. What does your text draw from and/or depend on, in terms of other texts and experiences in some related way? What outside sources support your text? We’re talking about actual references to these people or ideas, as well as more implicit influences. You saw these influences during student presentations. Inspirations, definitions, illustrations, research, etc. Teach a writer how to become aware of this element of your kind of text.
- Explain how important it is for a student to understand your text’s conventions in the writing of this text. This is critical. How would you tell them, specifically, how to organize, format, etc.? What sort of parts or “moves” does your text make? This might be more structural. How does someone build your text? Members of a community have come to expect certain features that enable community members to read and write with confidence. What sort of formal features do you observe?
- Explain how important it is for a student to understand your text’s language or register in the writing of this text. This is everything from the words used to the way sentences are constructed. Imagine the difference between a pop-culture website and an academic paper. If writers are not aware of that genre’s language “requirements,” they will sound off, uninformed, perhaps illiterate. Please consider the language element of your text.
