Genre


The "Genre in the Wild" article was both interesting and helpful to me in piecing together the experiences I have had this semester as I have moved into a new genre category. I think we all have had to learn to occupy a new genre and identify genre situations as proposed in the article. The first thing that stuck out to me in the article was this quote about genre situation, "The scientist doesn’t have to figure out whether she’ll write a report or if she’d rather write a song lyric. The Supreme Court justice writing for the majority knows that she will not write a haiku. In each instance, the situation calls for a particular genre. The writer in the situation knows this. So the writer takes up the genre and uses it to respond." For this class and the assignments included with it, I have had to compete with years of conditioned formal and critical writing. One of my biggest shifts in this semester was in realizing that the radio essay was at its core storytelling and as such, it should be written in a way to reflect that. I think this experience reflects some of what was said in the article about the writer knowing the situation and taking up the genre. This being said I also believe that the later comments made in the article relating to genre systems are also applicable. The process of learning the radio genre has been an expansion of earlier awareness of storytelling and fits into this earlier recognized genre system. As far as my experience was concerned this idea of working within a category of a system was apparent. The radio essay can be more serious in its focus but it is also crucial to employ storytelling tones and methods to create something that is appealing and not overly technical. Overall the experience of writing for this class has made me more sensitive to the ways in which writing can shift and how similar results can be achieved through different means. A radio essay, for example, can be just as persuasive, emotional, or compelling as a blog, poem, or research piece. As far as what I have learned is concerned one of the biggest things is this new awareness of recognizing and utilizing not only the situation but also audience and writing in such a way that the piece will be appropriate and engaging in its perspective setting. 
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