Rae Niebel - Journal 4

For the purpose of this journal, it is noteworthy that Amy Devitt supplied my favorite definition of genre in her blog post titled, “Genre Colored Glass.” In this post, she emphasized how genre is this big thing that, when closely analyzed, is composed of smaller parts. Therefore, I think that genre is not essential to the text; it is a means of categorizing our text, or even more so, is what the text ends up becoming. When I think of genre, I think of a library. With this visual, it is easier to understand that genre is a necessary means of categorizing a work so it is more easily attainable via our particular interests. As we create our texts, genre should only be taken into account as a response to our work, rather than our work in response to a genre. It is the difference between someone stating, “The market needs more autobiographies, I am going to write an auto biography” and “I have a story to tell about myself, it will take on the shape of an autobiography.”

Genre factors into the decisions we making during composition by definition. The easiest example of this is found in Amy Devitt’s blog, when she writes about the art of an apology. One cannot just go into a situation and say, “I’m sorry.” There must be guilt, regret, sincerity, exigence, context must be considered, and then there is the vocal aspect. As we compose a text for a particular genre, everything else must accordingly fall into place.

Genres are related to audience in the fact that they attract a certain audience by being that genre. If I am looking for a fiction love story, I am not going to go into the Civil War section in Strozier. I am going to go where that particular genre can be found. Therefore, genre attracts an audience by default. Genre choice impacts circulation process as well. If I have a story I want to share, there are many ways I can tell this story. Maybe it will be in a movie, a book, a nonfiction story, an autobiography, a blog post, in conversation, a text message, a newspaper, etc. It is obvious that all of these medias are circulated, produced, and shared in different ways. If I told my story through a movie, it would probably reach more people than through a one-on-one conversation. This is the significance of genre intertwined with the circulation process.