Whitney Lewis October 1, 2012 Mr.

Borrero ENGL 1101 Genre Defense The genre I decided to pick happens to be different types of genres. The three genres I decided to use for this project were pictures, poems, and music. At first I was going to just use a picture book that was kind of like a scrapbook, but then I decided that the book would not be a genre but something to just hold my genres together. I had realized that I could not just describe everything about my literacy experience without using many genres that have helped me become me. My fist genre was to put pictures in the book. I chose to put pictures that I feel could give a visual description instead of just writing it all out. Pictures can be a great way of expressing yourself without having to write anything. Pictures can also have words in them that can give you a mental picture of what you are reading and seeing. A picture is worth a thousand words is what I believe. I have always had experience with pictures throughout my whole life. To me pictures are more helpful than just reading the words right off the page. Pictures have helped me be able to understand things more than I would just read something. I am a visual learner so I tend to not really understand something unless I physically seeing or can make a mental picture of what the meaning of it should be or how I should work something out. Pictures have taught me to take different perspectives when I am reading. I feel that pictures have

changed my view of writing by letting me know that just reading stuff is not the only and best way for someone to understand something. The purpose of the pictures in my book is to show people the visual way of my thinking and to show that you can show what you mean or feel through not only words but with pictures too. The conventions for this genre is to be open minded so you can have different views of a picture other than just one basic view. The limitation for this genre is that people may get a different view of what I intended for them to get. A pro about this genre is that it will get the reader thinking and wondering what I was thinking when I put the picture. Poems are the second genre I used in my little book. Poems can be just expressive as words and pictures. To me they speak a different language that not everyone can understand. With poems you can go through what the writer was feeling and their thoughts without actually being there. My first sponsor, Mrs. Swiderski, used poems to teach her students. For her she would use poems half of the time and then use just regular readings and writings. Poems, for me, give me a better understanding of what I am reading. Not only did we read poems but we also wrote them. This truly helped me improve on my flow in writing. Writing a poem is difficult if you cannot flow with your writing. Poems just flow together and the more you read or writing them the more you realize how to make your writing flow. At first I would just writing things with no order or structure at all but then when I started working with poetry I began to be about to keep my thoughts together with each other and not just go on a tangent conversation. The purpose of the poems is to not only show what Mrs. Swiderski showed me but to show that poems have structure and that you can get meanings and feelings out of just reading a poem like you read a regular book. The convention of a poem is to be able to flow with what you are writing. If you cannot make the poem flow them you are just writing a nonstructural

piece. The limitation for this genre is that not everyone can understand stand poetry so how will they know what you are meaning to say. The pro for this genre is that with the poem it has a natural flow to it that keeps thoughts together. My third genre is music. Music is a different type of literacy that again not everyone can understand. Music is literacy where the words are the notes and the dynamics. Music can tell a story without having to have words read or spoken. When you play a piece of music you are going through a journey of what the person was feeling or thinking at that moment. When you first see a piece of music you may think this is not literacy but truth to be told to a musician this is their book, this is their way of expressing feelings, this is their way of expressing themselves. I have an everyday experience with music because I am a music major. Music has impacted my life by showing me the different emotions and ways of expressing yourself in literacy. It has taught me to just go with the flow of the reading and try to picture what the person was feeling and thinking at that time. I feel as though music has open my emotional state of my so that I am more expressive in my writing and that I try to make the reader feeling what I am feeling at that point of time. Music has changed my meaning of writing being boring and non-expressive to when you write it should have feeling and emotion. The purpose of me putting music in my book is to try and show a musical way of my journey of literacy, plus it expresses me more than writing or reading. The convention for this genre is to be able to read music and play it. The limitation for this genre is someone may not get a clear understanding of what they are hearing if they are not truly concentrating. The pro for this genre is that if you listen to the music you can get a sense of what the persons emotion was. With this project I wanted to explain my personal history of literacy and try to make the reader understand me as a person and my way of thinking. I wanted to explain how I was and

my views before my sponsors. Then I wanted to show who or what my sponsors were. At the end I wanted to show how my sponsors have influenced my thinking of writing. The limitations of the project I chose to do are that people may not understand if they think inside the bow, and people may get different views of the quotes. The strengths for this project is that it is artistic, expressive, it can be understood on a different level. Pictures can really show emotion, quotes can express thinking, and it is different. I feel this is logical because it is simple but not to simple that you will not have to put work into it. With this you can be expressive and put most of what you want in it and not just have your standard paper. With the genre I chose I feel I could express my literacy history the best and I feel as though I came close to my expectations.