This class has made me think about my experiences in
elementary school a lot over the semester. It has made me think about not only
how I was taught to write but what we would write. After reading Tompkins and
Hicks, it amazes me the experiences or lack of I should say, that I had. I
remember that we would do a lot of writing as our end of unit project to show
what we have learned however every writing piece would either fall into the
narrative genre or the descriptive genre. I was taught about some of the other
genres however I never had the chance to write in them.
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| A poster with some of the genres written on it |
Throughout Tompkins book, she mentions multiple different writing
genres. She goes on to explain how each genre can be taught and used within
elementary classrooms. When I was asked in the beginning of this class what
genres I thought I knew pretty well, I immediately wrote down narrative and
descriptive because that was all I knew. Even though I knew about the persuasive
genre, poetry genre, nonfiction genre, and bibliography genres; I wouldn’t say
that I knew them well enough to present on them. I think that there is a strong focus in
schools to teach the narrative genre to students. I felt like while my teachers
did teach the other genres, I didn't really learn anything about them because the
unit was so fast.
I was assigned the nonfiction genre to do a presentation on
as an expert which was very beneficial as it helped me to get a deeper
understanding of the genre. At first I thought the nonfiction genre was all
about information and being able to recall certain information from the story.
The only time that I would read nonfiction was when I needed to do research for
a project in school. I was never interested in reading a nonfiction book for
fun, but I think it had to do with I never really knew how to read the genre.
Through my research, I learned that there are specific text features within the
genre that when you take the time to look at them, they will help you to understand
the book that you are reading.
One genre that Tompkins talks about that surprised me was the
letter genre. I didn’t even know that letter writing was a genre. I thought
that letter writing was a type of writing activity that falls in the
narrative/persuasive genre. Even reading
the chapter on it, I was surprised to learn that letters can be broken down
into three type; friendly letter, business letter and simulated letters
(Tompkins, 2019). Even though I feel like letter writing is straight forward I
would say that it is still a genre that intimidates me. I just don’t know all
the aspects that go into to it. I am excited to hear Michelle’s presentation on
it and see how I can use it in my classroom.
Along with talking about the genres in class, we spent a lot
of time talking about different aspects of digital media and how one can ‘digitally
enhance’ (Hicks, 2013) their writing. I am terrible with technology and so
everything was brand new to me however now that I know what to do, I actually
find some of the aspects quite simple to use. I learned how to create digital web
texts by including pictures and hyperlinks to engage the reader as they are
reading. At first I didn’t know how to create a hyperlink within the text but
now I do it every blog post. The aspects that still intimidates are creating
both video and audio texts. I feel like I don’t know that much about the software’s
that would be needed to put a clip together. I would love to learn all the
different steps that it takes to create video and audio texts because those are
great activities to have my students do in the classroom.
After reading both Tompkins and Hicks, I now know what I
teach in my classroom when it comes to writing. I have to make sure that I am
giving my students the knowledge that they need in order to and time to write
in every genre. Tompkins says “Students
need to experiment with a wide variety of genres and explore the purposes and
formats of each. Through reading and writing, students develop a strong sense
of these forms and how they’re structured” (Tompkins, 2019, pg. 7). Since we are in such a digital world, students
need to be able to interact with technology while they are writing. The
students love when they can write in a different form and incorporate digital
media because that is when their creativity shines through.
Hicks, T. (2013). Crafting
digital writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
Tompkins, G. E.
(2019). Teaching writing: Balancing process and product (7th ed.). Upper
Saddle River, NJ: Merrill.
It is true that as theories come and go, at the moment letter writing is not considered it's own genre. As you pointed out, letter writing is often considered a sub-genre -- although typically considered a part of informational writing or persuasive writing, rather than narrative writing. Perhaps like description, even if we don't consider it an official genre, it is still a particular form of writing that students should become adept at using as well as using it in school as a tool for learning (i.e., simulated letters).
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