John Moore

Rieman, fall 2014

Reading Response to Navigating Genres
1. Please print this article and annotate by hand. How different is this from
reading on-line? Reading in print is a whole different dynamic than
reading online. The main difference for me was that my eyes didnt
start hurting when I read it. I am staring at a computer screen all day
long so the change is welcome. I feel that I absorb the material a little
better when I read online, but either way is fine with me.
2. How does this article work? What rhetorical moves is the author making?
Write a rough outline of what Kirk is doing here and why. For example: Kirk
begins the essay with a joke about country music songs. This helps introduce
the idea of genre I think this article works through the writer being
very personal, relaxed, and informal. He tends to capture the audiences
attention through his use of comparison and relatable content. A rough
outline could be: Kirk spreads his knowledge of navigating genres
through his skillful examples of how we use genres in our everyday
lives. His friendly tone and relatable attitude captures the attention of
his audience and holds it throughout the article. His main point is that
we conform to templates of certain genres every day, and have free
reign to create our own templates if a new genre arises.
3. Share three quotes from this article that helped you understand the concept
of genre and note why they were helpful to you. What did you learn from
them? (Include the quotes here, with quotation marks and note the page
number in parentheses afterwards. Like this: I connected with this idea that
genres develop, then, because they respond appropriately to situations that
writers encounter repeatedly (252).

The authors idea of genre really clicked in my head when I read

this: Think about George Washington giving the first state of the
union address. Because this genre was completely new, he had
complete freedom to pick its form and content. (252)
This idea helped me understand the purpose of genres: I
imagine that you would probably not share a risqu joke with
your mom, send a Hey Buddy email to your professor, or
update your Facebook status as X has a huge wart on his foot.
(253)
I appreciate how the author is really forming his own genre as he
writes, perfectly embodied by this statement: And because the
genre of this essay is still developing, there are no formal
expectations for what this paper might look like (251)

John Moore
4. Dirk writes this about how genres evolve: something new happens that
requires a response, someone must create that first response. Then when
that situation happens again, another person uses the first response as a
basis for the second, and eventually everyone who encounters this situation
is basing his/her response on the previous ones, resulting in the creation of a
new genre (252). Write about three types of writing that have developed in
the last five years where you imagine a new genre has been created.
a. Writing in the lyrics of Dubstep- Dubstep is a fairly new genre of
music and along with this new type of a bass thumping,
electronic music sensation comes a new genre of lyrics. The
genre of lyric writing in dubstep is extremely basic and
repetitive; it also can become very melancholy at points.
b. Writing on social media- With the rise of twitter in the last year, a
new genre has been created that requires users to write a post
with at most 140 characters.
c. Writing through text messaging-It may have started a little more
than 5 years ago, but it has become incredibly mainstream
through the past 5 years. The genre formed for text messaging
has been very broad, but is usually extremely informal and
relaxed, sometimes mixed with emoticons.