Prompt 6: Genre

There is a tendency, especially in an English Department such as ours that focuses more on literature and creative writing, to think of genre as something related to creative writing and literature (see Merriam-Webster & Dictionary.com). However, genre is a lot more than that. Wikipedia does a better job describing genre and here is a brief overview of genre I created some time ago. I really like this description of genre on Wikipedia: “Genres are formed by conventions that change over time.”

Some key readings that I think will help you understand genre:

·         Rhetorical situation

·         Ecology of Genre

·         Audience

·         Chapter 1: Assessing Audience and Purpose

Some key points to take away from your reading: Bitzer argues that the situation controls the type of rhetorical response (the genre) that takes place. Bawarshi uses the metaphor of an ecosystem to describe genre and its relationship to community.

Check out this video about rhetorical situation.

As Wikipedia notes, “genres are not always precisely definable,” but understanding genre is essential to your role as professional writers because “genre considerations are one of the most important factors in determining what a person will see or read” and genre “creates an expectation.” Your understanding and execution of the purpose, form, and conventions of a particular genre for a particular rhetorical situation will reflect on you individually, the group (business, organization, community) you represent, and the achievement of your purpose and goals.

Think about how horror fans might feel about this story:

From: http://media.photobucket.com/image/recent/laurajosephsen/Genre.png 

Does it meet the expectations and conventions of the genre?

Short video about genre and rhetorical situation.

When you join a new community you will need to learn the genre conventions and expectations of that community. You can do this by studying artifacts (examples), talking with other writers, and getting feedback from representatives of your intended audience.

Prompt 5: Networking

Last week we talked about community and genre, but this week I want to talk about what is perhaps the single most important tool in your professional arsenal – networking. I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “It's not what you know but who you know that makes the difference,” in some form or another. I could tell you story after story after story about how networking has impacted my life, but I don’t want to bore you. Instead I want you to think about the two key ways that I believe networking provides advantages to you – information and opportunities.

When I was an active journalist and freelance writer my network played an important part of my daily work. It was important for me to cultivate relationships with key people in my regular beats. Sometimes those key people were important leaders (the mayor or town supervisor, for example) but often times it was more important that I maintain good relationships with administrators or secretaries. As a reporter it was also very helpful to know people who keep their ears open. For example, my brother-in-law Patrick is a friendly guy. He will talk with anyone, anytime, anywhere. He knows a lot of people and he knows a lot about what is happening in his town as well as surrounding towns. If you want to know the inside scoop on something go talk to Patrick and if he can’t tell you then he can point you to a person who can. My neighbor is another person. I honestly don’t know why we take our local newspaper (misplaced sentimental loyalty?) because Jimmy always knows all the real news – and a lot sooner and with a lot more detail and history. If you want to join a particular community and you want to write in/for/about that community then you need to begin developing a network. Not only to provide important facts and information, but also to help you understand how information is exchanged within the community. As a writer I have always found that I cannot know everything about everything, but if I know a lot of different people who are experts in specific things then I will be just fine.

Your personal networks do more than provide information. They can also provide opportunities. I cannot tell you how many jobs (full-time and freelance) I have gotten throughout my career simply because of my personal network, but it is a lot. Sometimes it meant a friend contacting me about an opening they know about and sometimes it is an employer contacting me because of a personal recommendation. I have found that we really do live in a small world. I really do believe in the concept Six Degrees of Separation.

So how do you build a network? You have to join a community and as we talked about last week that may be a lengthy and challenging process. Some communities are more eager and open to welcoming you than others, but usually you will have to prove yourself in some way and usually you will have to give something to the community as well as the specific individuals in your personal network. This is usually some kind of goods, services, and/or information. You need to be sincere and you need to share/give of yourself. This is a quick article about making connections.

Your next assignment will require networking so this week I want you to think about the network(s) necessary to help you complete your project. The email assignment is about contacting someone to help you explore your topic and understand the needs it will address as well as what others know about the issue.

Prompt 4: What is community and why does it matter?

I created this video about Community and Genre for my Eng 200 class last semester and I think this is an useful place to begin our discussion. At around the same time I wrote this blog post – Community: Jumping to become a full-patch member which further extends my argument.

Links from the video (if you want to learn more):
Genre
Memo
Discourse Community
Gangland
Wolfpack

Reflect on this idea of joining a community. What communities have you joined and how has this process been similar or different from the one I describe?

I also want you to begin thinking about the ways that the web has made the process of learning about a community – and joining it – much easier (or perhaps more complicated?). This can help you with your proposal as well as your project.

Look for the web site of a business or organization that relates to your project topic. For example, Teach For America has come up in our goals discussion. Read up about the organization’s mission, goals, and history. How easy will it be to join this organization? What are the steps to becoming a full-patch member?

I also want you to investigate some hashtags (read this post to learn more about hash tags: The Twitter Hash Tags if you still aren’t clear about them) that relate to your topic (and intended community). Here are a few that I suspect will be helpful for you:

#appalachia

#rescue

#teaching

#writing

As the post above describes, hash tags develop organically rather than systematically so you have to play and experiment a bit to find the most appropriate and relevant hash tags. Once you have found a few that will work for your project then investigate the Twitter stream for that hash tag and check out the links that people Tweet. You will often find great resources, blogs, and interesting folks this way. Tell us about them!

Prompt 3: What comes next?

While writing a grant can be challenging, the work does not end with the submitted request. After you receive a grant then you of course have to implement the programs (which frequently involves various marketing and communication efforts that involve professional writing). But more importantly if you want to keep your current grant(s) and possibly receive more grant(s) then you must file the necessary reports. Sometimes those reports are financial and/or accounting in nature (ie. we spent this much on this thing and here is the receipt) but frequently granting agencies want to know a lot more about the details of your implementation of the project you promised. They want to see what they are getting for their investment and that you are delivering what you promised.

This week I'm going to share more of my National Writing Project work by sharing our 2012 Site Report, but first a little background. Check out the National Writing Project web site to learn more about NWP. 

In the past, our funding from NWP and the Kentucky Department of Education was rather automatic. NWP had a line item in the federal budget and occasionally that amount went up. Similarly, the amount we would receive from KDE was fairly stable. We created (as a site) three documents that we submitted to NWP each year. These were a site profile (reporting on activities and programs as well as who attended those); budget report accounting for every dollar spent (that means a description/narrative with almost every line item); and a Continued Funding Application that was a sizable document which was part grant request (for the new year) and report on what we accomplished (for the old year). Also, NWP likes to see lots about the challenges you faced and what you attempted to overcome those challenges as well as details about the outcome and what you learned. The CFA would include a proposed budget for the upcoming year and that budget would have to be approved by KDE and MSU as well.

For most of my tenure as site director for the Morehead Writing Project, however, our state funding has gradually diminished, but we were able to adjust to those changes. Then almost a year ago NWP lost its federal funding. Read more here. This has changed our report cycle as well. We still submitted a site profile and budget report but instead of a CFA (as there is no continued funding at this time) we are submitting a much shorter Site Report and something called a Continued Association form. The Continued Association form simply confirms that we want to continue as an NWP site. I would imagine that there are a number of sites who won't be able to do so because they do not receive the state funding that we do here in Kentucky or the institution support that MSU provides. The form also asks about interest in future funds for specific projects. NWP has told us that they will likely not have large unencumbered funds to give us as they have in the past but do expect to have funding for smaller and more specific projects.

Of course, I believe (based on my experience as a site leader) that we need to make the case for why our site should be eligible for those funds in our Site Report. Unlike the Big Read grant, which I primarily wrote myself, the Site Report is a collaborative effort of our Leadership Team. We need to submit a Site Report by next week and my Leadership Team is sending me their contributions this week so I will share (just as I did with the Big Read grant) in the discussion board when I can. In the meantime, you can begin with journal posts about the Site Report and its purposes. Learn more here.

I also hope you will continue to think about possible project ideas and draw inspiration from MWP's work. For example, our main goal is improving the teaching of writing and our main work toward achieving that goal has been professional development but we have extended our work to so much more than that to include writing conferences, writing camps (much more planned for this year), and the Big Read.Think about your passions and interests and goals. What can you do to extend and improve upon existing programs? What do people need to know or how can you improve understanding about important issues? What problems currently have no good solutions? For example, if you want to improve the plight of homeless and abused animals is the need for more shelters and adoption programs or is to raise awareness, promote adoptions, and increase funding? Your projects can propose solutions or simply investigate options or some combination of the two. You can seek out grants and write proposals on behalf of organizations if you want to do that as well. I need to work on your assignment sheet but may not get it done until tomorrow but as long as you keep thinking about it then you'll be fine.