Written Genres: A
Practical Introduction in the context
of the HKCEE and HKAL
Examinations.
Session 1:
Introduction to the 4 Genres.
Monday 17/5,
Session One:
Teaching Writing through Genres.
A genre is best described as
writing done for a specific purpose.
The purpose
is the key, because the same text type, a letter for example,
can be written in different genres. We might write
a letter to persuade a
friend to do
something, in which case it would follow the rules of the
argumentative genre. Our letter might take the form of a
proposal to solve
a common problem, which would place it in the expository
genre. It might
even run through the pros and cons of a particular
course of action, in which
case it's discursive. If the letter recounted
something which had recently
happened to
us, it would follow the generic rules of narrative.
There
are a lot of text types, from letters to essays to reports to reviews to news
articles, so teaching all of them is impossible
and frustrating for both the
teacher and the taught. But because people only
really write for a handful of
purposes, the number of genres is much smaller,
and therefore more teacher-
student
friendly. If we teach a student how to construct an argument, they
will be able to write a successful text, because
all arguments follow the same
generic pattern, whether that text is a letter,
essay, or debate speech.
As we
are primarily concerned with giving our students the skills they need
to succeed in the exams, we need only concern
ourselves with four key
genres:
Argumentative (are gyoo MEN tuh tiv) writing aims to
persuade
the reader that one viewpoint on an issue is
correct.
Discursive (diss KER siv) texts outline both
sides of an issue, and
may reach a conclusion as to which of them is
preferable.
Expository (eks POZZ uh tree) writing informs.
Common patterns in
exposition include cause-effect, problem-solution,
and lists.
Narrative (NARR uh tiv) writing seeks to entertain
by telling a
story. Stories based on personal experience belong
to this genre, but are
called recounts.
The aim
of teaching genres is to allow students to learn a standardised
approach which they can apply to all texts within
a genre. With teacher
guidance, modelling and repeated practice, they
will be able to write more
organised, fluent and less-error prone essays.
|
The first thing I do
with my form 6 students is teach them to identify the genre of any given
topic, so that's where we'll start, too. Here are the 2004
HKCEE topics: 1. Imagine that you
won a competition in a film magazine and the prize was
spending a weekend with your favourite movie star in America. Now
the magazine wants you to write an article describing what you did together
with the movie star and how you felt about him/her (even the
EA doesn't know that 'them' can be used in the singular!) at the end of
your stay. The fact that this is
an article tells us nothing about how to write it. There are many different
kinds of articles, belonging to different genres. There are two ways to attack
this task. It could be written as a recount or as an exposition. 2. The government wants to know what students
think about the following
problems they sometimes have at secondary schools in Hong Kong: -
having no one to talk to about personal problems - unfair treatment
from teachers -
peer pressure from classmates - too much homework You
have been asked to write a report on at least two of these problems and
suggest ways in which they can be solved. This one is expository.
Problem-solution is one of the most common expository forms. The
fact that the question specifies a report is not significant, as
reports take many forms. 3. Your aunt and uncle
recently went away for the weekend and they asked
you to look after your six-year-old cousin. This was your first experience
of looking after a young child. You took him out for a walk, but
after answering a call on your mobile phone, you turned round to find
he had disappeared. Your
parents have asked you to write a letter to your aunt and uncle explaining
how you lost and found your cousin. Apart from being
patently ridiculous (wouldn't he or his parents, or his cousin already have told them
in person?), this is obviously a narrative. The fact that it's a letter has
little bearing on the form of the text. Once you have
identified the genre, planning the task becomes a matter of following a set
formula. |
Here's a
selection from the last decade for you to categorise:
1. The HK
Police Force would like to improve its public image in HK
(where else? The EA obviously enjoy a bit of redundancy). It has asked
young people to make suggestions
about what events or activities could
be organized to help the public learn more about the work of the Police
Force.
2. You are
Chris Wong. Your best friend Pat has been dating a schoolmate
called Sandy for several months . . . unfortunately you think you have
also fallen in love with Sandy.
One day at school you find a note:
Dear Chris
There’s a party
at the weekend and I
really want to
go with you. How about it?
Let me know.
Sandy
Write a reply to Sandy explaining
your feelings and saying what you
think both of you should do about
the situation.
3. You are
taking part in a school debate on the following motion:
. That pop singers
and film stars are paid too much
money, as they do
nothing useful for society.
Write one speech either supporting or opposing the motion.
4. Modern
equipment would have made life easier for Stone Age cavemen
and cavewomen. Which three pieces of equipment do you think would
have been most useful?
5. It was your
friend's birthday last week. To celebrate, you took your
friend (the EA don't like pronouns apparently) to a new restaurant for a
meal (what else? another
redundancy)... Write a letter of complaint to
the newspaper (why not the
restaurant?) describing some of the
problems you had and how you felt
at the end of the evening.
6. Recently
you visited a zoo in China. You were horrified to see the
terrible conditions in which the
animals were kept and the way some of
the visitors behaved. You have
decided to write a letter ... you should
briefly describe what you saw.
You should also write about at least two
of the following:
- how to improve conditions
- how visitors treat animals
- alternatives to zoos
|
Rationale Many of our students
find writing longer texts very challenging. There seem to be two main reasons
for this: 1. A lack of exposure
to a wide range of model texts, 2. Concentration on
word-, phrase-, and sentence-level structures, at the expense of larger
structures. Many of our students
are unaware that different types of writing follow different patterns;
that these patterns rarely change; and that they can be learnt and reproduced
with a little practice. This situation is
common to all students from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds. As
Australian teachers now face ever more culturally varied classes, with students
of disparate ability levels, an approach to teaching writing which caters
to the needs of all students is essential. The genre approach has
proven successful with students from native and ESL backgrounds. Explicit
teaching of genres and their features demystifies writing for students. It
shows them the patterns which different types of writing follow, and
allows them to reproduce these in their own writing. My experience at this
school with students in Forms 6 and 7 has shown that they are receptive to
this approach, and -given sufficient exposure to suitable models and enough time
for practice and consolidation- show marked improvement in their writing skills. |
Terms
There
are many definitions of genre, but in this paper, it is used to refer to
a
type of writing which aims to fulfil
a particular purpose. As the purpose
style='mso-font-kerning:0pt'>changes, so does the genre. A text which aims to
entertain, like a short story,
belongs to a different genre to one which aims to
persuade, such as a letter to
the editor.
Every
text within a certain genre will share:
- a
common purpose
-a set of
parts presented in a predictable order
- key grammatical features.
These shared elements are called generic features.
It is
important to distinguish here between genres and text-types. A letter is
not a genre, it is a text-type. The way that
letter is written depends on its
purpose, and the purpose determines the genre. A
letter persuading a friend
to stop smoking will follow the conventions of the
argumentative genre.
Another letter,
perhaps complaining about a bad restaurant experience,
would best be written as an exposition. A letter
discussing a pregnant friend's
options would be discursive.
The core
genres for the examinations, based on a survey of the last ten years'
papers, and in rank order are as follows:
HKCEE Expository HKAL Expository
Narrative
Argumentative
Argumentative
Discursive
Discursive*
*(i only, 2003)
Implementation
There is
much talk of our overcrowded curriculum, but the simple truth is
that we have the students for five years before
they sit for the HKCEE exams,
and another two before the A levels. This is
longer than a degree in Medicine,
and certainly long enough to do a very thorough
job of teaching a few key
genres.
When
teaching a genre, it is important to follow the procedure outlined below.
This is similar to Glasser's well-known model for
effective lesson design
("Excellence in Teaching"). I prefer to
go through this process for each part of
the genre separately rather than to push the
students to produce a whole text.
Spending a week on Introductions is very
worthwhile if the students produce a
competent text at the end, and carry the requisite
knowledge and skills
forward. Many of our students do not understand
how the different parts of a
text differ in purpose and form, so it is well
worth dissecting whole texts into
more manageable parts.
Stage 1: Immersion
Students should be exposed to a large number of model
texts from
the genre being taught.
These can be drawn from:
the work of previous students
published sources
the teacher themselves
During this stage, students should be encouraged
to identify
common features. For example, lower, form students
looking at
famous
people read a lot of short biographies. Having read
several of these, students will notice (or be
guided into noticing)
that they follow the same structure.
Stage 2: Guided Reading:
In class, the teacher leads analysis of a good
model of the genre. If
the genre was biography, the text in Appendix 1
could be
displayed on overhead transparency or power-point
to enable the
teacher to model reading and annotation of the
text. Students
would have their own copy.
With teacher guidance, students identify the
following features,
which they have noticed in the texts they have
read in the
immersion phase:
Orientation: name of person and why they are famous
Body: chronological sequence of events from the person's
life
Re-orientation: restatement of why the person is famous,
and explanation of their influence today.
and these language points:
Language features: verbs in past tenses;
signal words
showing sequence; signal words showing cause and
effect.
Contextual factors: formal tone; no
personal pronouns for
writer or reader.
For an older class learning about Expository
writing, the handout
in Appendix 2 would be given to the students as
exemplars of the
Introduction. Despite the deliberately different
styles, students
can identify the two phases necessary in an
introduction:
Background: Identification of issue, explanation
of its
importance and relevance to the reader.
Language Features: Use of present
perfect/continuous tenses
to indicate timeliness of the issue. Movement from
generality to specificity.
Contextual Features:Absence of personal pronouns to
show universality and create authoritative tone.
Preview: Advising reader of purpose and
contents of essay
to follow. Link with topic sentences.
Language Features:Common use of future tense to
refer to
contents of essay. List of essay elements. Verbs
indicating
mental processes (analyse, examine, consider,
illustrate,
etc.)
Contextual Features: Impersonal tone. Absence of
modal
verbs to create confident, definite tone.
Stage 3 Modelled Writing
On the blackboard, with a new topic, but in the
same genre as the
model used in the guided reading, the teacher
composes a new
text following the notes from the guided reading.
An OHT with
the annotations already in place could be used.
Emphasis here is
on making the construction process explicit.
Students should be
made aware
that the teacher is drafting, so perfection is not
necessary. As such, teacher could cross out, make
changes, etc.
Stage 4 Joint Construction
Teacher and students compose a text together.
Teacher elicits
student help in recalling generic features and in
composing
suitable text. For beginner or less able groups,
teacher might
prepare cloze or incomplete texts to prompt
students. A successful
text might be cut/mixed up for students to return
to its original
state.
The students should be familiar with the content
matter, so pre-
reading and teacher guidance on concepts and
vocabulary will be
essential.
Stage 5 Guided Writing
Students work
in pairs, small groups, or individually, depending
on their levels of ability, preferably with a
scaffold to base their
writing on.
Teacher's emphasis at this stage is not on writing
errors, but on adherence to the scaffold.
Successful examples
should be
read out to the class to show peer proficiency.
Stage 6 Independent Writing
Students compose their own text in the new genre.
As students
and teacher have invested a great deal of effort,
expectations on
both sides should be high. The later stages of the
writing process -
further editing, proofreading, correction, should
be followed to
produce an exemplary text for each student.
Stage 7
Continued Use
In their subsequent use of the genre, students
will have their own
notes, drafts, and final version to refer to.
Teachers may supply a
checklist, and should use detailed criteria sheets
to provide
feedback.
When introducing a new text-type within the genre,
the same
process will be repeated to familiarise the
students with the
features of
the specific text=type. This is a relatively quick
process, as the students already have the
fundamentals of the
genre under control.
Note: To
help classes or individuals who experience difficulty at any stage, it
will be necessary
to revisit the preceding stage for further practice.