Genre Awareness

As I began to write this blog entry, it literally took me a good 20 minutes to even think of the introduction sentence. The idea of writing something that calls for an academic response in blog form confused the heck out of me. I couldn’t understand how to make this sound like a blog entry rather than an academic essay. Then, I thought, why not just share my trouble with writing this, I think that sounds blog-ish. The very fact that I had a bit of difficulty beginning to write this speaks to the ideas Devitt explains in her article. She explains in the very beginning, that “Even within composition, teachers often see the power of genres to inhibit creativity more than the power of genres to reveal constraint” (337), and I completely get what she’s saying. Genres and their ideologies automatically stick us in a box. It doesn’t really have anything to do with creativity being stunted by genres. As a matter of fact, I don’t even think that you can stunt creativity with genres because you are given everything you need from the beginning. You already know exactly what you are supposed to do, and stepping out of that box, goes against the ideology.

An ideology, according to Merriam-Webster, is a systematic body of concepts; a manner of thinking characteristics of an individual; integrated assertions, theories or aims. So basically, it’s all of the ideas that pop into your head when you think of a certain subject, or genre, in this case. When thinking of SDSU and genres in the same sentence, I automatically think of academic writing because that’s the kind of writing that I do most of the time. Devitt states that “when writers take up a genre, they take up that genre’s ideology. If they do it unawares, then the genre reinforces that ideology.” (339) <<< That is basically what we do all the time which is why we have genres in the first place, I guess. No one even thinks about what they need to do when they encounter a specific genre, they just do it. This in turn completely backs up the genre’s ideology and sets it in stone, so to speak. For example, when I write an academic essay, I know that the reason I’m doing it is 1) for a grade, 2) for a grade, and 3)…for a grade. No, but seriously, in order to get the grade that I want, I better write that essay for the gods! Academic essays serve the purpose of seeing if the student follows instructions and does what is asked of them by their instructor (like formatting and prompts). I also makes sure that the student is able to understand ideas as well as convey them through rhetorical strategies, and research. You don’t write an academic essay with the intent of selling a story, as you would if you were writing a fictional narrative.

Another genre we all use…texting. We do it every day. This is another genre that comes with its own ideologies. There are many purposes of texting. Maybe you need to talk to someone but you just don’t wanna hear their voice, maybe you can’t talk on the phone because the time is inconvenient, or maybe you just know that the person you might be texting is long-winded and you can just stop texting back if you don’t want to continue the convo…then say your phone died. I’m kidding! Mostly. Who knows why we text? However, the sole purpose is so that you can talk to someone without actually having to call them. When we text, we don’t think about writing academically, or grammar, or punctuation. Well, the punctuation thing is really subjective because I definitely use punctuation when I text. Anyway, we try to keep it short and sweet. Sometimes, words aren’t even used, just emojis. The point is that the ideologies associated with this genre are clear as day. No one goes to write a text, or open one for that matter, expecting to see a 5 paragraph essay.

Admittedly, I’ve never heard of teaching critical genre awareness, so all of this is pretty new. I had begun to read the article prior to class yesterday and confused isn’t even the word for what I was. I was 5 pages in and had no clue what I was reading. It became one of those moments where you end up reading one particular paragraph like 10 times and still don’t understand. I did make significant progress though! Albeit, it was after I read the Teaching Critical Genre Awareness blog…but that’s not the point. After finally reading Devitt’s article, however, I do understand the necessity behind it. Being aware of genres allows for better understanding of the ideologies attached to the genres as well as helps to influence the way you think, communicate or approach a certain genre (347).