2. “Too many classrooms lack a
colorful, compelling context
for reading and writing.” Nell
Duke
3. Why Teach Genre with a purpose?
• Our natural predisposition to learn and use genre
• Advances in Genre Research and Theory
• Genre serves purposes (advertisements convinces us to buy something)
• Genres are part of a larger social conversation (language is inherently social)
• Genres comprise all text
• Genre can be oral or visual (speech genre, toast at a wedding) (graffiti
symbols, hidden picture books)
• Genres evolve within cultures (continuously changing)
• Reading and writing are genre specific
• Readers and writers engage in different processes to different degrees when
reading different kinds of text
• The same student can be much better at comprehending or composing one type
of text than another
• Different genres have different features
• Some effective approaches to reading and writing are tailored to specific genres
• The release of the Common Core State Standards
4. Five Basic Principals to any Genre we
Teach:
1. Design compelling, communicatively
meaningful environments
2. Provide exposure and experience
3. Explicitly teach genre features
4. Explicitly teach genre-specific or genre-
sensitive strategies
5. Offer ongoing coaching and feedback
5. Audience
• Students in other classrooms studying same topic or a
related one
• Students in younger grades who are interested in the topic
• New teachers who will be teaching unit
• The larger school community
• Local businesses relevant to the topic
• Local nonprofits relevant to the topic
• Electronic or paper pen pals
• Readers of websites
• Book authors, publishing companies, entertainers, website
authors
• Family and friends or even teacher’s family and friends
6. How will Teaching Genre with Purpose
Change my Teaching?
1. I will move away from stock assignments that don’t work
2. I will move beyond the constraints of “genre study” (genre
is learned through projects, large and small that employ
one or more genre for real purposes)
3. I will motivate and engage my students
4. I will empower my students with reasons to read and
write better
5. I will move students away from cookie-cutter texts
6. I will balance the genres I teach and ask my students to
use
7. I will help students use genres for their own purposes
7. Teaching Narrative with a Purpose
• Family History Project: Read different genres and texts: fictional
stories, written and oral nonfiction narratives, family trees, wall
placards linked to set up a quilt museum. (Keeping the quilt by
Patricia Polacco) Video tape oral history interviews (parents
involvement) The Whispering Cloth By Shea) Teach features of
narrative, format of and purpose of placards using models
• Write and illustrate modern day fairytales, personal narratives, or
other children’sstories to share with younger children. (can donate
books to pediatrician’s office)
• Create comic strips on www.MakeBeliefsComix.com and enter in
the Facebook wall competition . Post on to classroom blogs
• Write history books of community or other historical events and
place in public library, school library, local bookstores.
8. Teaching Biography with a Purpose
• A class-authored biography to inform rest of students and
faculty about the person for whom the school is named
• Group created biographies of community members whose
lives exemplify important character traits to be used to
teach younger students about character development.
• Individual biographies that document the lives of students’
favorite family member that they can give to that person
• Group created biographies of people students know that
have made a difference in the lives of others to be posted
on website encouraging other children to become
advocates for their community
9. Teaching Procedural Genre with a
Purpose
• Earth Day How to Books to be written and sold at stores to raise money for a
recycling program for the school.
• How to organize your desk
• Students write reader-friendly technical manuals about how to use a particular
technology. (Could be used for younger students to use as a reference, books to be
used in the computer lab)
• Write procedural texts for a school event
• Collect and publish procedural texts on things their families know how to do-
hobbies, cultural traditions, technical skills, collect family recipes and publish in a
cookbook
• Research craft projects and write how to and publish in a school newsletter
• Create, collect, and publish texts that teach classmates a favorite hobby
• Students write a manual of classroom or school procedures to give to new
students (lunchtime procedures, the words to school pledge, map of the
school, school rules etc)
• Create board games and instructions featuring the regions of the United States
and have other students play their games. (keep them for indoor recess)
10. Teaching Informational Genres with a
Purpose
• Books Hope: www.booksofhope.org Create
books for students in foreign schools that
provide English-language instruction
• Need to know books…. Flu season, book on
germs? Upcoming field trip
• Human Body Texts
11. Teaching Dramatic Genres with a
Purpose
• Putting on plays (www.playsmagazine.com)
• Writing one act plays
• Public Service announcements, soap
operas, newscasts, documentary films
• Readers Theater
www.teachingheart.net/readerstheater.htm or
www.timelessteacherstuff.com
12. Teaching Persuasive Genre with a
Purpose
• Television commercials
• Advertisements
• Editorials (supporting a political position)
• Blog postings (urging people to think in a particular way)
• Proposals for funding or policy change
• Formal letters (convince local businesses to donate bins for a recycling
project)
• Oral presentations (convince 3rd graders they are going to love 4th grade)
• Magazines (convince young people to make healthier choices)
• Create videos (issues such as peer pressure, bullying, preventing the
spread of illness, not smoking etc)
• Book Reviews
• Speeches (lobby principal, administrators, the district or school board for
programs that students want to save)
13. Genres to Explore
Advertisements Letter comic
Brochure/Pamphlet eulogy memoir
How-to-book newspapermagazine
Editorial book review novel
Opinion column parody poetry
Script commercial speech
Skit photo-essay obituary
public service announcement children book
14. So Now what?
Based on my inquiry, I am excited to be teaching
writing in the fall. I have many new ways for
students to have an authentic audience to
motivate them to write. One thing I learned is
that students will care more about their final
writing piece if they know that someone other
than the teacher will be reading it. My favorite
way that this will change my teaching is students
will feel empowered to read and write better, and
that is my ultimate goal. In addition students will
develop the habits of mind while writing.
15. Resources
• http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-
resources/lesson-plans/writing-motivating-students-
write-871.html?tab=4#tabs
• Duke, Nell, Caughlan, Samantha (2012). Reading and
Writing Genre with a Purpose in a K-8 Classroom.
Heinemann.
• Andrew-Vaughan, Sarah, Fleischer, Cathy (2009).
Writing Outside Your Comfort Zone: Helping Students
Navigate Unfamiliar Genres. Heinemann
• Routman, Regie (2005). Writing Essentials: Raising
expectations and Results While Simplifying Teaching.
Heinemann.
