The Primary English Encyclopedia: The Heart of the Curriculum, Third Edition
See also under autobiography, biography, discussion text, explanation text, expressive talk and writing, faction, factual genres, fantasy, fiction, film, history of children’s literature, instructional texts, novel, persuasion, poetry (and sub-categories like epic, ballad, haiku and free verse), realism, recount, reports, television and literacy, text level work, transactional genres, transitional texts, visual literacy. For particular kinds of children’s books see under entries like adventure stories, animal stories, fairy stories, school stories, parables and traditional tales
Genres are types or kinds of text. The form of a text varies according to its purpose. At one time the term ‘genre’ was used to refer mainly to kinds of literature – novels, poems and play scripts and their sub-categories. Now it tends to refer to any type of text whether written, spoken or pictorial.
The National Curriculum English programmes and the 2006 Framework objectives are partly genre based; the assumption is that development in literacy is partly to do with controlling, as readers and writers, the kinds of texts valued in our society. Included are all kinds of fiction and non-fiction in a wider range of media than ever before – in addition to print (books, articles, newspaper letters, flyers, transcripts and posters) we have software, the Internet, CD-ROMs, electronic books, cassettes and video-film.
Underpinning the National Curriculum emphasis on genre is the work of a group of Australian academics and teachers who are referred to as ‘genre theorists’. Their classroom-based research studies found that teachers encouraged the writing of narratives much more than other kinds of writing like persuasive and explanatory kinds of writing. For essays by different genre theorists see Reid (1987) and for a critical analysis of the work of J.R. Martin, F. Christie and J. Rothery I recommend Wyse and Grant (2007).
Critics of the genre theorists often express concern about the formal teaching of genre their work has sometimes led to. It is also felt that genre is presented as too static a phenomenon. While the characteristic elements of a genre may be organised fairly predictably, we must remember that language is socially situated and dynamic – it changes as a culture changes. Think of the impact on writing forms of the new technologies – the e-mail is a developing form reflecting changes in our working procedures and resources. This more flexible approach to genre is found in the work of Wilson (2005) and Derewianka (1996).
Derewianka, Beverley (1996) Exploring the Writing of Genres published by the United Kingdom Reading Association (UKRA) Minibook Series.
Reid, I. (ed.) (1987) The Place of Genre in Learning Victoria: Deacon University.
Wilson, Angela (2005) Language Knowledge for Primary Teachers London: David Fulton.
Wyse, Dominic and Grant, Russell (2007) Teaching English, Language and Literacy London: Routledge-Falmer.
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