Entry #11 Genres

Throughout this semester I have gained an incredible amount of new information on the different genres.  As Alyse stated “I KNEW about the genres but I didn’t KNOW”, as a teacher I thought I had a good base of knowledge about the genres but in actuality there were so many pieces I was missing.  There are distinctive features that belong with each genre and that is an area I needed some fine tuning in.

At the beginning of the semester I felt as though I had a decent understanding on using the biographical genre.  After this particular presentation I expanded my knowledge and what I had previous thought about this genre.  Although I have had practice with using this genre throughout elementary and high school I realize I was just completing an assignment, I wasn’t really taking time to understand what I was doing and the meaning behind it.  Now that I have learned about the different types of biographies as well as the distinctive features for each I am looking forward to incorporating this genre in my own future writing as well as in a future classroom.  For instance when it comes to autobiographies I never thought about digging in deeper and using different techniques such as life boxes or bio bags.  In a future classroom I would definitely incorporate using something such as life boxes to gain a better understand each other.

Tomkins states “one reason that children are so successful in writing personal narratives is that they can draw on what they know best-themselves” (p. 231).  I feel as though I am emotionally involved with this genre because it is a genre I know I can be SUCCESSFUL using.  I feel as though students are drawn to this particular genre for that exact reason, how can one be wrong when they can use what they already know.

I was the least knowledgeable about the descriptive genre.  Tompkins states, “too often, students’ writing is limited to one sense-sight: They describe something as though their writing were a home movie without sound” (p,139).  I relate to this statement because I feel as teachers we continually do this while planning lessons.  We’ve become so accustomed to the way we do things it becomes repetitive.  Being future literacy specialist it is important that we remember to teach with all of our senses but especially sound, this can be a difficult change.  The hands on activities in this particular presentation were great and could easily be shifted into using for future lessons.  Because there are so many distinctive features within this genre, I am going to continue to engage in reading more descriptive literature.