ENTRY #12 : DANCING THROUGH THE GENRES

This semester I really felt like I was immersed into different genres through the Genre Expert Workshops. The workshops have really opened my eyes to different directions I can go when I teach the genres to students, and ways that I can support my students in some of the challenges they might face. When I started this semester I thought I knew the biography, and persuasive genre pretty well but I have developed a greater understanding of due to the way I was engaged during workshops. When I had dived into the genre of biography's I had found how complex the genre can be for students to write, specifically into the autobiography and memoir aspects of biography writing. In order for students to write about themselves they really need to be able to not only pick out the significant moments in their lives to write about but use the language that will help their reader visualize and become a part of that scene in their life. My understanding now of the impact and use of descriptive writing in memoir and autobiography, will help me to support my students. Depending on the age it could be helpful to have students use their five senses in helping them describe the event, for older students focusing on not only five senses but word choice will help them create pieces where their reader is immersed into the text. 

During Makayla, Sam, & Taylor's workshop on the persuasive genre, my eyes had opened to the way that we can immerse students into the genre. One of the activities that really had me thinking about how students can engage in the genre is analyzing digital or print advertisements. Students know a days are online frequently, and come across persuasive texts multiple times a day, even if they don't realize it. I think incorporating this activity into my classroom one day during persuasive writing workshop can really help students to understand the purpose of persuasive writing and how it's used in our society. The activity supports our students in understanding pathos, logos and ethos as well because they can make those connections based on how the text tried to persuade the reader to partake in, buy a product, etc. 

During this semester the analyzing of mentor texts has supported my knowledge by allowing for me to see how the authors format the genre, and the specific characteristics that are included in the texts. For example in the persuasive genre, I had read the book "The Day The Crayons Quit". I had never read this text before but it was directed towards persuading a kid why they shouldn't use as much of that color crayon, using pathos and logos. Students could analyze the text for how the crayons were trying to persuade the kid, to help write their own piece, using their knowledge of what are affective ways to persuade. It was interesting to see how genres can support other pieces of writing as well since this text was in the format of a letter, I think that when students can see the interrelationship between the genres their writing becomes stronger because they have developed the parts of the authors craft already. The use of mentor texts this semester has also allowed for me to have ideas of texts that I would like to use with my students while teaching the genre. During the letter genre, I had read the book "Diary Of A Worm", I thought that this would be a text that would be really supportive to my younger students. One, because they have the background knowledge of what a worm is, and its function in life and two, the text formats each page with a date the worm is writing and writes the letters directed towards a specific person. Text like these for younger students helps them to think about how they should write their letter but also understand the message of the text.