Multiple Pedagogical Approaches to Genre

Part 2’s focus on empirical research—research into how genres are learned, how they function in particular contexts, and how they carry out communicative goals and reflect/reinforce ideologies—illustrates how research can inform our practices as writing teachers. Research into genre learning and acquisition has provided teachers with useful methods for situating learning and for fostering meta-cognition that connects new and already-acquired knowledge. In addition, research into genre knowledge and performance has motivated pedagogical applications that work to facilitate the transfer of genre knowledge and writing skills from one writing context to another, from first-year composition (FYC) courses to courses in the disciplines, and from academic writing to workplace writing. Finally, recent studies of how genres function socially and ideologically have led to increased attention to critical pedagogical methods and to approaches to genre grounded in critique and an awareness of genre difference and change. In order to examine the varied goals that drive differing agendas, this chapter will focus on a range of pedagogical approaches informed by genre research and scholarship, while the next chapter will focus on pedagogical approaches emerging from Rhetorical Genre Studies (RGS), as these have informed genre teaching in Rhetoric and Composition studies.