Where Do Genres Come From? Week 4, Session 2 Teaching and Learning New Genres Carolyn R. Miller.

Where Do Genres Come From?

Week 4, Session 2

Teaching and Learning New Genres

Carolyn R. Miller

April 10, 2023 2

Class schedule

Final papers are due Friday 10 August.

I will return second papers by tonight.

April 10, 2023 3

Today’s agenda

• follow-up on plagiarism discussion

• discussion of teaching issues with new genres (Brooks and Palmquist)

• break

• work time for final assignment

• questions about final assignment

Plagiarism and originality

teaching strategies

• make it a topic

• talk about context-specific practices

• specify the relationship between the old and the new, tradition and “work to be added” for each assignment

Plagiarism detection services

• New comparison just published by EDUCAUSE

• “a nonprofit association whose mission is to advance higher education by promoting the intelligent use of information technology”

• http://www.educause.edu/ir/library/pdf/SER07017B.pdf

Teaching & learning new genres

• new issues for students

• difficulties and resistance by students

• role of genres

Brooks: rationale

• goal of teaching hypertext is to encourage associative and visual thinking (349)

• hypertext writing emphasizes structures (mirrorworld, sieve)

• genre is appropriate for teaching hypertext because of the remediation of print in the new media

• genre in teaching avoids “paralysis of open spaces” (345)

Brooks: strategies

• Have students understand that all texts, including hypertexts, are rooted in one or more genres.

• Have students choose a genre that will meet their communicative needs.

• Encourage students to reinvent genres, to play with conventions, and to play with one or two texts as a way to engage a genre.

Brooks

• genres are familiar, hypertext is unfamiliar

Brooks

• genres are familiar, hypertext is unfamiliar

is it ever the case that …

• hypertext is familiar, genres are unfamiliar?

Brooks

Genres as …

• assemblages

• hybrids

• remediations

• bending, blending, blurring

• multimedia

Activity theory

• “An activity system is any ongoing, object-directed, historically conditioned, dialogically structured, tool-mediated human interaction” (346).

• genres as flexible tools

• genres in historical and social contexts

Intertextuality and imitation

• Brooks: “paralysis of open spaces”

• objectification of new technique: going through the motions, act as an end

• internalization of technique

• appropriation: using the motions to achieve something else; act as a means

• transcendence: ability to modify

Palmquist: issues for teachers

• new technologies, expanded choices, and changing landscape of web have worked against creation of stable genres (221, 224, 226)

• conventions of page design are emerging (224)

• lack of genre conventions both liberating and confusing for students (243)

• emphasize emergence to challenge students

Palmquist: student learning

• students had little sense of genre: “website”• students did have sense of effectiveness

(231)• students learned from models, both print and

internet• borrowed: code, style sheets, illustrations• incorporated strategies from antecedents and

models: table of contents, book cover, etc.

Palmquist: new for students

• structure linear, interlinked, hierarchical, combined

• navigation tools: access, surprise, direction

• illustration, multimedia

• page design

Break

April 10, 2023

Final assignment

Propose a research study or a teaching unit focusing on the emergence of a new genre—oral, written, visual, or any combination. Draw on your knowledge developed in this course as well as in your prior studies to delineate the research or teaching issue you wish to focus on.

April 10, 2023

Research study proposal

1. Research problemWhat is the research question? Why is it important and to whom?

2. Background (brief literature review)What is already known about this research question or areas related to it? What previous research will you draw on in answering the question? How will the answer to the question fill a knowledge gap or continue a research tradition?

3. Research methodsWhat data must be gathered? How will it be gathered? What analysis must be done? What concepts or theories will organize or inform the analysis?

4. BenefitsWhat will the project contribute to existing knowledge about genres? What are the benefits of answering this question?

April 10, 2023

Teaching unit proposal

1. Instructional objectiveWhat is the goal or objective for this teaching unit? Why is it important and to whom?

2. Instructional context (rhetorical situation of the teacher: exigence, audience, and constraints)What are the needs of the students? What is their level of knowledge and their interests and goals? What institutional and curricular constraints and resources exist?

3. Teaching strategiesWhat information must be given to the students? What materials and resources must be available? How will they be motivated? What activities will they engage in? How will they be evaluated?

4. BenefitsWhat will be the benefits for the students engaging in this instructional process? How will the instruction benefit the school, the curriculum, or Brazilian society?

Thank you and good-bye!

Obrigada e tchau!