New technologies have led to a proliferation of new types or forms of discourse: newsgroups, home pages, listservs, email, blogs, wikis, online social networking, etc. Are these genres? If they are genres, how can they manifest recurrence and typification within the new technological environment of constant, rapid change? How are antecedent genres relevant? Should we understand new genres that are "imposed" differently from those that seem to arise spontaneously? In this course we will explore how to think about rapid genre change, with a special focus on the appearance of new genres and the interaction of antecedent genres, communicative media, and cultural exigence in their formation.
In the syllabus below, links to the readings are to a password-protected server so that only students enrolled in the course will have access to copyrighted material.
Download a PDF of this syllabus.
Tuesday, July 17 [ Download PowerPoint lecture 1 ]
[ PDF ] Bitzer, Lloyd F. 1968. "The Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric 1: 1–14.
[ PDF ] Vatz, Richard. 1973. "The Myth of the Rhetorical Situation." Philosophy and Rhetoric 6: 154–161.
Thursday, July 19 [ Download PowerPoint lecture 2]
[ PDF ] Miller, Carolyn R. 1984. "Genre as Social Action." Quarterly Journal of Speech 70: 151–176.
Assignment (group oral report, 10 min.): Describe the three components of two recurrent
rhetorical situations. Are rhetorical genres associated with these
situations?
Tuesday, July 24 [ Download PowerPoint lecture 3 ]
[ PDF ] Jamieson, Kathleen M. 1975. "Antecedent Genre as Rhetorical Constraint." Quarterly Journal of Speech 61: 406–415.
[ PDF ] [ LINK ] Bazerman, Charles. 2000. "Letters and the Social Grounding of Differentiated Genres." In Letter Writing as a Social Practice, edited by D. Barton and N. Hall. Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 15–29.
Assignment (individual written report, 500–700 words): How do we learn about genres from history? Describe
a genre with which you are familiar and its probable antecedent genres.
Thursday, July 26 [ Download PowerPoint lecture 4 ]
[ PDF ] Schryer,
Catherine F., and Philippa Spoel. 2005. "Genre Theory, Health-Care
Discourse, and Professional Identity Formation." Journal of Business and Technical Communication 19 (3): 249–278.
[ PDF ] Zachry, Mark. "Communicative Practices in the Workplace: A Historical Examination of Genre Development." Journal of Technical Writing and Communication 30.1 (2000): 57–79.
Assignment (discussion in class): How can we study contemporary, non-public genres? What are the research methods used in these studies?
Tuesday, July 31 [ Download PowerPoint lecture 5 ]
[ PDF ] Shepherd,
Michael, and Carolyn Watters. 1998. "The Evolution of Cybergenres."
Paper read at 31st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences,
6–9 January, at Maui.
[ PDF ] Yates,
JoAnne, Wanda J. Orlikowski, and Kazuo Okamura. 1999. "Explicit and
Implicit Structuring of Genres in Electronic Communication:
Reinforcement and Change of Social Interaction." Organization Science 10 (1): 83–103.
Assignment (group oral report, about 10 min.): What issues do the digital media raise for the use and study of genres?
Thursday, August 2 [ Download PowerPoint lecture 6 ]
[ PDF ] Cosio,
Maria González de, and Mary C. Dyson. 2002. "Identifying Graphic
Conventions for Genre Definition in Web Sites." Digital Creativity 13 (3): 165–181.
[ LINK ] Miller, Carolyn R., and Dawn Shepherd. 2004. "Blogging as Social Action: A Genre Analysis of the Weblog." In Into the Blogosphere: Rhetoric, Community, and the Culture of Weblogs, ed. L. Gurak, et al. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota Libraries.
Assignment (individual written report, 500–700 words): In one brief paragraph describe a digital genre (exigence, audience, constraints). Then in one paragraph each use two of these frameworks to analyze that genre: as regulated or regularized (Schryer & Spoel), extant or new (Shepherd & Watters), explicit or implicit structuring (Yates et al.). In a final paragraph, decide which framework is most useful for this purpose. Due by Saturday, August 4.
Monday, August 6 [ Download PowerPoint presentation 7 ]
[ PDF ] Bazerman, Charles. 2005. "Paying the Rent: Languaging Particularity and Novelty." Plenary address at the University of Michigan Sweetland Writing Center conference on “Originality, Imitation, and Plagiarism.” Also see the resources available at the U.S. resource for writing teachers called CompPile, in the CompFAQ section on plagiarism. EDUCAUSE has published a comparison of plagiarism detection services, summarized in this PDF file.
Tuesday, August 7 [ Download PowerPoint presentation 8 ]
[ PDF ] Brooks, Kevin. 2002. "Reading, Writing, and Teaching Creative Hypertext: A Genre-Based Pedagogy." Pedagogy: Critical Approaches to Teaching Literature, Language, Composition, and Culture 2 (3): 337–358.
[ PDF ] Palmquist,
Mike. 2005. "Writing in Emerging Genres: Student Web Sites in Writing
and Writing-Intensive Classes." In Genre across the Curriculum, edited by A. Herrington and C. Moran. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 219–244.
Final assignment (individual or team written report, 750–1000 words): Propose a research study or a teaching unit
focusing on the emergence of a new genre—oral, written, visual, or
any combination. Draw on your knowledge developed in this course as well as in your prior studies to delineate the research or teaching issue you wish to focus on. Download detailed instructions. Due Friday, August 10.