blog iv

Chapter 1 of the Bedford Book of Genres begins to finally explain what a genre actually is. Since the beginning of this class, I have been confused as to what a genre is, in literary terms, and how to write for a genre using its conventions. The BBG explains that a genre is “a composition’s category.” A genre can be anything from a letter to a blog post. You would not write a formal letter in the same manner that you would type your blog post for Mat. While both are conveying important information, there are different ways to accomplish getting your point across in each genre.

I think the best way for me to understand genres and genre conventions is to relate them to our weekly blog posts. Our audience is Mat and our other classmates for each blog, though the purpose of each differs from topic to topic. For some students, the second blog post about “I Once Was Miss America” was written as if trying to persuade the audience to understand this piece in a certain way, whether it be the nostalgic view of the books, or the trials of living in suburban hell. Some write their blog posts to simply inform the audience about the piece that is being covered. For example, some posts from Blog 3 were informing the audience of what they learned from Chapter 5 of the BBG.

One thing I was unaware of was the importance of the mode and the media in presenting a genre. You can write an editorial that can be presented in text in a newspaper, or it can be presented as a digital copy on the newspapers website. Each mode and medium has a different effect on the reader.