Workshop Proposal: 

Building on the success of 2012’s featured double session, “Genres in Transition,” we are proposing a workshop that addresses current knowledge and gaps in genre theory and practice. At last year’s session, participants struggled to connect what we know about...

B. Workshop Overview

Workshop leaders will divide into three main working groups. Each group will build on the previous one, with the overall goal being to help participants move from what we know based on genre research to addressing pedagogical practice and institutional constraints. These themes are drawn from many of the conversations that took place at the 2012 Genres in Transition Roundtable.

1. Historical & Cultural Genre Research

Workshop leaders in this section will share their expertise and findings from studies of genre theory and criticism. This includes studies of genres in workplace settings (such as hospitals, accounting firms, etc.), in specific historical periods, and/or in other extra-institutional spaces (such as online discussion boards). These kinds of studies help to demonstrate how genres emerge, change over time, fulfill audience needs, and are imbricated in relations of power.

2. Institutional & Pedagogical Genre Research

Workshop leaders in this section will share findings and key practices for institutional and pedagogical genre research, drawing on historical and cultural studies and genre theory. For example, these researchers examine how students draw on prior genre knowledge to compose, or how genre awareness allows for transfer beyond the first year composition course. These kinds of studies help to measure the effectiveness of genre-based instruction.

3. Placing Research in Institutional & Pedagogical Practice

Workshop leaders in this section will share practical ideas for how to implement the knowledge generated by genre research in historical, cultural, institutional, and pedagogical settings. This includes navigating writing programs, addressing staffing and training issues, managing curricula, and designing syllabi and writing assignments. This implemented knowledge challenges researchers to reconsider the assumptions that we make about institutional status (research institutions versus two year colleges), the kinds of genres we study and what that reveals about our class presumptions (engineering reports versus welfare applications), students’ motivations to learn genres, or the very assumption that genres give writers power (as opposed to limiting it).