Linking Movies and Music to Genres of Writing
Purpose: This exercise helps students understand that writers use genre to reach a variety of different audiences (themselves, friends, peers, instructors, employers, parents, and more) with lots of different expectations. To reach an audience effectively, writers need to be flexible -- they need to be able to analyze and make decisions about how to approach any writing situation. Developing genre knowledge prepares students to assess the writing situations they’ll encounter in college and beyond.
Description: Students work in small groups to identify conventions of various movie genres and discuss audience expectations. Each group presents the conventions of their genre to the class, and class discussion allows for identification of similarities/differences/connections between genres. The discussion shifts to genres of music, where conventions are identified but also the “blurriness” of genres is discussed. All this discussion about the familiar – movies and music – gets students to identify what a genre is, how we might define it or at least qualify it, and finally what an audience expects from a particular genre. Students have some confidence about the concept of genre for the next step, the discussion of the less familiar writing genres. In groups, students identify conventions of various genres of writing – the academic essay, a text message, a newsletter, a poster, a web site, a lab report, an obituary, a magazine article – and report back. The class then discusses what these genres include, how they might be defined, and what audiences expect from each genre.
Suggested Time: 30-50 for exercise; plus 20 minutes suggested for journal writing which can be assigned in–class or as homework
Procedure: Divide students into small groups. Assign each group a movie genre (horror, romantic comedy, drama, action, thriller, comedy, documentary, or other). Have students answer the following questions:
Genre: What are the conventions of your group’s movie genre?
Audience: Who goes to/rents/watches this type of movie?
Audience Expectation: What does an audience expect to experience/feel/learn/see from this genre?
Evidence: Provide 3 examples of movies that fit this type and explain why they fit.
Move to class discussion – ask each group to present their genre while you note their points on the board; once all groups are done, engage in class discussion to add more conventions or expectations, draw connections between genres, and allow students to come up with genres and conventions you did not originally assign.
Next, ask students to look at their iPods or phones or wherever their music is stored. Ask for some favorite songs and write them on the board. Then ask students to define the genre of each, or ask in which genre the song is categorized in their iPod? Continue class discussion by asking for other genres of music, with conventions and song examples. Ask the class to come up with a “genre bleeder” or song that is difficult to categorize (i.e. Jimmy Buffett’s “Margaritaville straddles country and pop, Black–Eyed Peas’ “Boom Boom Pow” straddles R&B, Hip Hop, and Pop, Kid Rock’s “Roll On” is a country song often categorized as Rap because of the artist’s other work). At this point, the instructor may choose to move back to the movie discussion to identify “genre bleeders” but only for a minute or two so the discussion can move to writing.
Next, move the class into a discussion of genres of writing. Ask them to identify different types of writing – from class reading assignments, to writing they do every day, to writing they see in public. Then organize into categories – genres and subgenres – on the board. This exercise often requires more prompting than movies and music – students don’t always think about writing genres when they encounter them. If necessary, break them off into small groups again to identify as many types of writing as they can in 2 minutes. Then come back together.
On the board, as you categorize writing into genres and subgenres, ask students to direct you. Prompt them to consider which genres are parallel and which are subgenres of another. Be sure to ask them for a wide range of examples – genres of fiction, genres of professional writing, genres of personal writing (they never see texting as writing so it’s a good one to start with), etc. As they begin to make sense of writing genres, they will offer more examples. The board should become crowded with examples and arrows drawing connections between genres.
Ask students to identify the one element that is always a factor in deciding on a genre to compose in, whether you are composing in writing, in music, or in film: Audience.
Finally, ask students to complete a journal, in class or as homework. The following prompts can be used:
How do you define genre?
Does your definition hold true for movies, music, and writing, or does it differ between media?
What makes a genre definable, or what makes us able to categorize a genre? Provide an example of a genre of writing and illustrate its categorization.
List 10 genres of writing you use here at FSU regularly, both in and out of class.
What are the audiences for the genres you mention above?
What genre are you writing in now? Define it and identify its audience.
What is the role of audience in considering genre? Why does audience matter?