Class Notes November 18, 2013

Romeo and Juliet Sock Puppet Video

– Different contexts, different modes (how its presented, type of communication)

– Instead of speaking like they did in the play, they changed everything to fit laundry terms

– Changed the genre to a comedy instead of a tragedy

– Mode was different because instead of a play they changed it into a video

Thanksgiving Mad Lib

– Same modes amongst the classroom, but they all came out differently

– You would assume since we were all given the same sheet with the same blanks, we would have came out with similar stories, but instead every individual created something different

– We didn’t know the context so we couldn’t determine what would have sounded ‘better’

Free Write

– Have to tie the 7 characteristics of genre into the way you try to define genre

– Mode could also change a drama

Handwritten letter vs email

Handwritten can be personalized, perfume, hearts on i’s, however you’d like to fix it up

Email can attach videos, but cannot doodle or add your own touch in that way

Free Write: November 18, 2013

Do you agree that mode, genre and literacy are not easily defined? How do these three connect?

I do agree that mode, genre and literacy are not easily defined because with literacy for example, you can not simply say it is reading and writing. It depends on the context in which you use the terms and whatever you are trying to prove or show through your work. These three connect because they all vary depending on one another. You may be literate in a specific mode or genre of something, but then if it is presented differently it could change the way you respond to it. Depending on the mode of something the genre can change, just like in the Romeo and Juliet Sock Puppets, and then instead of it being literature that would typically be defined as literacy, it is in a video form which is indeed a different type of literacy.

Class Notes: November 13, 2013

Topics in Class

• D/discourse
• literacy
• context
• genre
• culture
• power
• technology
• language
• aquisition
• conventions of appropriateness
• modes (ways of communication)
• textual media
• academic D/discourses

– literacy  is contextual + dependent on Discourses + proper grammar (set of rules that people agree on)

– there is no formula for writing

– no set way to communicate

– composition & writing is very fluid, doesn’t seem  like there is a concrete way of looking and understanding it

Portfolio needs to show how we relate to everything we’ve learned and looked at ^-Show growth and struggles

*Adaptation? taking one form into another, reading Shakespeare –> an actual play. Take a concept or piece of work from the class and putting it into another form.

try to incorporate and hit on every topic  ^ find a way to tie everything together and just bring everything into one idea

don’t necessarily address the audience as incoming uncc students, just a more general student

So, what IS a genre?

After reading Dean’s Genre Theory, I now question what I thought was a genre before. I always thought of genre as the generic subjects of writing. I never really thought to apply it to anything other than literacy. The passage describes genre as a type of social rules, such as manners, that we follow in different situations. This description reminds me of Discourse, and peaks my curiosity as to how genre and Discourse are tied together. Just like literacy, genre can not be defined in one simple phrase. Instead Dean describes what genre is not and then goes on to describe it’s traits and characteristics. He uses characteristics such as social, rhetorical, dynamic, historical, cultural, situated, and ideological. Genre ties into each one of these characteristics in different ways that help us to understand the way a genre fits into a community.

If genre is social rules and guidelines you follow to interact, wouldn’t that tie it to Discourse and ‘being the right who and doing the right what’? From the text I gathered that genre is involved in everything we do, just like Discourse. This leads me to believe genre is very similar to Discourse, but maybe in a different sense? Instead of being how we fit into social groups, it is the options we have in social groups. I’m not too sure honestly, but I feel like the passage brought my attention towards a new perspective on how to view and understand genre.

We were told that genre would be one of the last things we would talk about in class and that it would also be the most difficult. After reading this passage and reading over all of the different theories and complexities involved in genre I am really interested to discuss it in class and see how everything goes hand in hand like we did with Discourse and literacy.

Genre Theory Notes