Carrascosa 1

Tracy Carrascosa
Professor Megan Keaton
ENC2135
3 August 2016
Genre
Genre, a word that I used to define as just being a movie or reading category, is now a
word that has much more meaning to me now than it did before the beginning of this course.
Genre to me before was just fiction, nonfiction, horror, romance, comedy, etc. To demonstrate an
example of how clueless I was, the first tableaux we ever did in class had to do with genre, that
can be accessed by the following link:
{https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B81zNbT_A29rT3dzTi12NFREZ3M/view?usp=sharing}. Now
genre means so much more. Genre now means the form of writing to me. Throughout the
duration of this course, I have now defined genre differently. Genre, to me now means, writing in
a particular form. The first instance that I came across genre was from the course reading,
Navigating Genres by Kenny Dirk. The course reading can be accessed through this following
link: {https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B47B6qjaRKbHYnRlMU8zWnJsLXM/view?
usp=sharing}. This course reading gave me more of an insight to the real meaning of genre from
the point of view of someone whos voice was relatable and inviting. Throughout the duration of
this course, the first project we ever had was Defining and Analyzing Genre. Genre was a term
that was extremely new to me, not even in high school had I been exposed to it in a definition
like I know now today. Thus being said, project one helped me understand genre, and facilitated
the course for me a bit. The paper was hard for me to compose at first, due to the fact that I had
no prior knowledge. After getting the hang of what genre really means especially from the course

Carrascosa 2
reading by Kenny Dirk, the process became much easier for me to compose. The finalized
project can be found by accessing the following link:
{https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B81zNbT_A29rblh4S3NjNWcwcU0/view?usp=sharing}. The
project helped me understand due to the research that had to be conducted for the project on the
true meaning of genre in a college classroom setting. Although I gained an insight of what genre
really meant, it was only just a glimpse. I realized genre was more than what I had just learned
though the first course reading that gave me that glimpse. Another course reading that furthered
my knowledge into the meaning of genre was from the Bedford Book of Genres by Amy
Braziller and Elizabeth Kleinfield. This course reading can be accessed by clicking on the
following link: {https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B47B6qjaRKbHdEdld3pSZ29OR0E/view?
usp=sharing}. The reading helped me understand that there are further elements that make up
genre. There are elements such as style, design, and sources. Once a writer identifies these, it
makes the writing process much smoother than it could have ever been before. The genre is not
just what type of text it is, but the lesser components that make that genre up. Style, for example,
is the way we communicate in the given genre. For example, the tone that the genre is in. All the
elements that make up the genre have to be done carefully and based on the audience you are
composing to. Design, can revert back to the visual features and components that have made up
the genre. Lastly, sources are the people, conversations, and documents that made up the genre in
which is being composed. All these are features of genre that I would not have known otherwise
if it was not for the assigned projects, course readings, and the course in general.