ENG 478 Lauri Dietz

Week 4

The Grammar of Genre

From Bill Cope and Mary Kalantziss Introduction: How a Genre Approach to Literacy Can Transform the Way Writing Is Taught. Powers of Literacy Pittsburgh, U of Pittsburgh Press) 1993.

A genre approach to literacy teaching involves being explicit about the way language works to make meaning.

Definition of Genre
Genre = Social Patterning + Textual Patterning Describes the relation of the social purpose of text to language structure. Genre [connects] the different forms text take with variations in social purpose. Texts are different because they do different things.

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer's lease hath all too short a date: Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is his gold complexion dimmed; And every fair from fair sometimes declines, By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed; But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st; Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st: So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

Problem of Traditional Grammar

The logic of traditional curriculum was to serve up a universal standard, with pretensions to factualness and cultural universality, pass those who found the standard and its underlying cultural logic congenial, fail those who didnt, and then ascribe the consequent differences in social and educational outcome to individual ability.

Why Teach Grammar in the Context of Genre?

Meaning is created through the social. Meaning is created through patterned predictability. Genres give writers access to realms of social action and interaction and realms of social influence and power. Learning new genres gives one the linguistic potential to join new realms of social activity and social power.

Genre Heuristic
What is the purpose or function? What is the context? How is meaning made? What are the structures? What are the lexico-grammatical features?

In pairs, share your findings from your Grammar Self-Assessments. Discuss your discoveries in relation to genre.

Exploratory Philosophy
Based on the assignment description, what lexicogrammatical features would you expect to find in an exploratory philosophy? Modal verbs Rhetorical questions First Person Subordinating Conjunction Coordinating Conjunction Action verbs in relation to outside texts Present tense to talk about texts

Revising Your Exploratory Philosophy

Identify a paragraph (or portion of a paragraph) for revision that could be fulfilling the genre expectations better. With a partner, take turns reading aloud your selected passage for revision. Take 15 minutes to revise your selected passage (either in Digication or another document). When time is called, take turns reading aloud your revised passages and providing each other feedback on the extent to which you are each achieving the purpose of the genre. Revised Exploratory Philosophies are due in Digication by Thursday, February 7 by 6:00 PM.

Literacy Narrative
The literacy narrative, like many first-person narratives, is an autobiographical essay about a time in your life when you your realized the power, value, limits, or nature of something about yourself that you will carry with you through the rest of your life (even the very nature of being a literate person). Your literacy narrative should describe one important time, experience, or significant person who contributed to your development as an enlightened/ educated person.

Literacy Narrative Concept Map

Past Event First Person Pronouns Current State

Temporal Sequence

Dependent Clauses

Present Tense

Future Tense

Past Tense

Sentence Adverbs

Demonstrative Pronouns

Providing Genre-based Feedback

Keeping in mind the best practices for commenting on student writing that we have studied so far, discuss with a partner strategies for providing revision-oriented feedback on this students literacy narrative. Be sure to address how you might connect lexico-grammatical considerations to genre.

CAT #16: Concept Maps

Concept Maps are drawings or diagrams showing the mental connections that students make between a major concept the instructor focuses on and other concepts they have learned.

Concept Maps
In pairs, use PowerPoint to design a lexicogrammatical concept map for your assigned genre. Before you begin, make sure to research about your genreonline how to guidelines, examples, etc. When time is called, join with another group to share and receive feedback about your Concept Maps. Make any necessary revisions. Email me (ldietz@depaul.edu) your final Concept Map and I will post in Digication.

Group Quiz!
The Quiz is multiple choice. You will work together to identify the correct answer. When indicated, hold up the card that corresponds to your answer. Teams may earn up to two points per round: one for identifying the correct term and one for identifying the author of the sentence. The winning team selects their Word Play Page topics first.

Round 1
Thoughtful comments create the motive for revising. What type of verb is create? A. Transitive B. Intransitive C. Helping D. Participle

Round 2
Errors must be defined not just as textual features breaking handbook rules but as mental events taking place outside the immediate text. Taking place is a participial phrase functioning as a(n): A. Gerund B. Nominal C. Adverb D. Adjective

Round 3
The more cognitively difficult the task, the more an examinees sentence structure breaks down. Down is functioning as what type of structure? A. Preposition B. Qualifier C. Determiner D. Particle

Round 4
Errors are conducive to a business persons making judgments about a writers credibility and capabilities. The subject of the sentence is: A. Errors B. A business persons making judgments C. A writers credibility and capabilities D. A business person and a writer

Round 5
Student errors are systematic and classifiable. Which sentence pattern does this follow? A. Indirect Object Pattern B. Linking Verb Pattern I C. Linking Verb Pattern II D. Linking Verb Pattern III

Round 6
When the teacher appropriates the text for the student in this way, students are encouraged to see their writing as a series of partswords, sentences, paragraphsand not as a whole discourse. The underlined portion of the sentence is a(n): A. Noun phrase B. Verb phrase C. Dependent Clause D. Independent Clause

Round 7
One is punished in the class, the other on the playground, but both are deficient in the same linguistic skill. The phrase is punished is which type of verb form? A. Active Voice B. Infinitive C. Passive Voice D. Conditional Perfect

Round 8
Yet many teachers lump all violations of their own stylistic pet peeves into the error category. Which type of conjunction is yet? A. Correlative B. Coordinating C. Subordinating D. Conjunctive

Round 9
And yet the fact remains that, in the broad cultural mainstream of millennial America, men do not wear skirts. In this context, what is do? A. An Auxiliary B. A Preposition C. A Modifier D. A Determiner