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The Future of Genre in L2 Writing [Pre-publication draft]
Fundamental, but Contested, Instructional Decisions
Ann M. Johns
[To appear in a special issue on genre in The Journal of Second Language Writing, 20
(1), 2011, pp. 56-68)
The purpose of this paper is to examine four contested topics about which decisions need
to be made when preparing for Genre-based Writing Instruction (GBWI), with a particular
emphasis on how these decisions relate to L2 contexts. The varied approaches to these topics
that appear in the literature or in textbooks may confuse novice students and uninformed teachers
who might believe, or have been taught, that there is one approach to genre-based pedagogies.
In fact, there are at least three1, each of which has something to offer to L2 pedagogy.
What genre will I employ in this paper? Despite my critique of current realizations of
“the essay” later in this text, I would still argue that the most appropriate term for this paper and
its purposes is an essay, not the modern version(s), but in its original, historical
conceptualization, as seen in the work of a number of French and British authors in the 16th and
17th centuries:
…[originally] derived from the French infinitive essayer, "to try" or "to attempt, “ In
English, essay first meant "a trial" or "an attempt", as well, and this is still an alternative
meaning. The Frenchman Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was the first author to
describe his works as essays; he used the term to characterize these as "attempts" to put
his thoughts adequately into writing, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Essay#History
My essay, which examines, and sometimes critiques, instructional topics in GBWI, includes a
brief history of text naming, intended highlight the confusion faced by L2 instructors and their
students about genre names. The three major genre “camps” identified by Hyon (1996), their
theories and related instructional practices, will be woven into the discussion that follows. These
1 Some would argue that there are at least four. See Bawarshi & Reiff (2010).
1. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
camps are “The Sydney School,” based upon Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL); the English
for Specific Purposes Movement (ESP), whose most famous contribution is Swales’ moves
analysis (1990); and the New Rhetoric School2, centered in North America, that bases its major
tenets upon rhetorical rather than linguistic theories. All with implications for L2 writing
instruction, these genre camps have been described previously (see Hyon, 1996; Johns, 1997,
2002, 2008; & Bawarshi & Reiff, 2010); thus, readers can consult the earlier work to read in
more detail about the camps’ nature and motivations.
Also mentioned in this essay will be the quite limited results of a survey sent to the
participants in the 2009 Second Language Writing Symposium, many of whom are practitioners
in EFL contexts3. The survey posed questions to those who teach or teach about genre, and
respondents were also asked to include class syllabi and assignments. Participants were asked:
•What is genre, in your view? How do you define the term?
• Can genre be taught? If so, should it be taught differently in L1 and L2 contexts or at
different proficiency or academic levels?
•How do you approach the teaching of genre?
•How do you teach teachers about genre, that is, how do you guide their instruction?
(Johns, 2010).
Drawing from these sources and my considerable experience in EFL and ESL contexts,
this essay will be organized in the following manner. Four fundamental instructional topics
related that influence GBWI will be presented, and the dichotomous, sometimes conflicting,
views on and decisions about each topic will be discussed. Genre theories and practices from the
2 Also called “Rhetorical Genre Studies,” See Bawarshi & Reiff (2010), pp. 78-104.
3 Of the 400+ participants, only 22 responded. Of these, ten were from international contexts. Results of
the survey were reported at the Second Language Writing Symposium in Murcia, Spain (May, 2010).
2. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
various camps will be integrated, when relevant. Finally, possible compromises for future
teaching of L2 writing in a GBWI framework will be proposed. Though each of the topics is
discussed individually, choices made by instructors or curriculum designers about one topic will,
of course, affect choices made about the other topics.
The first of these instructional topics is naming, that is, what practitioners name the texts
and textual examples in their classrooms. Text naming has been an interest of L2 curriculum
designers for many years; and throughout, this naming has been an important source of insight
into the theory of writing and texts to which practitioners subscribe. Naming may also influence
the manner in which students store schemata for texts in their long-term memories or relate their
understandings of genres in L1 to their approaches to genres in L2. This naming discussion will
also address how the current, confusing term “essay,” common to classrooms in North
America---and now, due to the proliferation of American textbooks and curricula, in some other
parts of the world---tends to limit a student’s ability understand in depth what the term genre is
said to imply.
The second topic relates to a pedagogical and theoretical divide between those teachers and
curricula that focus on genre acquisition and those that focus on genre awareness. Genre
acquisition requires the direct teaching and student learning of specified text types which are
considered by practitioners to be common exemplars of genres. Genre awareness, on the other
hand, is much more slippery. It refers to examining the relationships among texts, their
rhetorical purposes, and the broader contexts in which genres may appear. The third topic, the
major pedagogical focus of a GBWI curriculum, that is, where the curriculum begins and
students’ time and efforts are concentrated. As noted under the discussion of the first topic,
some L2 writing classes focus primarily upon specific written text types as examples of genres
3. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
and their attendant grammatical and lexical elements; alternatively, classes may focus first upon
the rhetorical contexts in which texts from genres appear4 and then proceed to the resulting texts,
sometimes viewing evolving genres more as processes than products, buffeted by the contexts
and on-going decisions made by writers. Though discussions and analyses of both texts and
contexts can be found most L2 literacy classrooms, practitioners must make decisions about
which will receive most emphasis and what will be the curricular core. The final topic to be
considered relates to ideology---and specifically to the question of how explicit a discussion of
textual hegemonies and other factors relating to the power of certain genres should be in a novice
classroom. Should novice or L2 students be “assimilated” into an academic or professional
community or encouraged from the outset to critique the texts and contexts with which they
interact and which may affect their lives, sometimes negatively?
Decisions about these topics are central, for they provide the focus for much of the GBWI
instruction, and, of course, influence what students practice, acquire, and store in their long-term
memories.
Issue I: Genre Naming
Naming Based Upon Text Structures
“Rhetorical modes” and naming.
There is a long history in L2 writing of naming texts based upon discourse structures, or
“rhetorical modes”5 that can be readily identified (see, e.g., Bander, 1971); and this interest in
linking text names to their structures as well as providing structural models continues today in
L2 writing for at least three reasons. One reason, certainly, is the importance of recognizing and
4 Devitt, Reiff & Bawarshi (2004) refer to the contexts as “scenes of writing.”
5
4. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
exploiting text structures for effective reading and writing in a second/foreign language (Grabe,
2009). A second is the continued proliferation of L2 textbooks and curricular materials based
upon what are often called “rhetorical modes,” e.g., comparison-contrast or cause and effect. A
third comes from some L2 instructors’ understanding of contrastive rhetoric and the long-held
argument that texts are structured in different ways among different linguistic and cultural
groups, initiated by Kaplan in 1966; thus, text structure is seen by many practitioners, and
students, to be central to a second/foreign language writing curriculum.
At the 2009 Second Language Writing Symposium, a group of EFL writing teachers from
Asia, themselves L2 speakers of English, argued that for less proficient students in international
contexts, texts should be named, structured, and assigned, based upon specific textual formats,
such as the rhetorical modes described by Silva (2001) in his history of teaching composition:
“illustration, exemplification, comparison, contrast, partition, classification, as so on” (pp. 14-
15). From these named text structures, they argued, teachers can develop a series of paragraph or
essay templates, thereby enabling students to learn, with confidence, the discourse structures of
English. In the survey that was distributed after the 2009 symposium, some international
teachers continued to argue for genre names based upon these identifiable text formats.
Essays and naming: Rhetorical modes
As many practitioners know, text formats (or “rhetorical modes”) may appear in writing
assignments, often called essays in L1 writing classes; and, as noted, this practice continues to
influence approaches to L2 writing. Thus, one finds a number of textbooks and on-line resources
organized according to essays in the rhetorical modes (see, e.g.,
http://images.search.yahoo.com/images/view/cause.effect). In literacy classes where specific
attention to rhetorical modes is not necessarily prevalent, the term essay may still be the word
5. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
used for all writing assignments. In a recent article discussing writing, rhetoric, and assessment,
Leaker and Ostman critique this practice as limiting, however:
We must reflect further on how essayistic literacy itself constrains, distorts, and even
excludes particular kinds of learning. As compositionists, we want to advocate not only
for other knowledges and other ways of knowing, but for alternative mechanisms for
articulated learning. (2010, p. 711)
Naming and essays: Assignments in the disciplines
One significant problem in disciplinary classrooms in many parts of the world is that
faculty, who may have specific genre names for their own valued work, tend to be much less
specific about their naming of assignments for students, often calling an assigned text, or a
question requiring a brief response on an examination an essay, though the written responses
required do not resemble the essays found in the students’ writing classes. Graves, Hyland, and
Samuels, in their study of undergraduate writing in a Canadian college (2010), found that essay,
term paper, or just paper were the most common names for a variety of assigned texts in the
disciplines, concluding that “instructors may not be giving sufficient attention to the issue of
assignment names” (p. 273). These casual practices with assignments also occur in EFL
environments. Here, for example, is what Paula Carlino says about Argentine post-secondary
faculty:
Literacy practices in universities are new and challenging to undergraduates, for they
differ greatly from modes of reading and writing required in high school; but in spite of
this, instructors in the disciplines do not make college-level expectations explicit;
guidelines are rare and feedback is minimal (2010, p. 284).
6. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
Why discuss rhetorical modes and essays, both of which are undoubtedly considered
passé for the informed genre theorist or practitioner? Because in the L2 classroom, this naming
of structured texts, and the inherent problems, can still play an important role. Those who are
concerned with the future of L2 GBWI need to take current practices into consideration as they
prepare curricula or write textbooks. In addition, these issues appear to be of particular concern
to teachers who have been L2 learners themselves and may feel most comfortable with a
curriculum in which named and fixed text structures of the type discussed here predominate.
Text structures and the Sydney School
A richer, more context-driven approach to linking genre naming to text structures comes
from the work of the “Sydney School” and is based on Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL),
first outlined in Michael Halliday’s Language as a social semiotic (1978). Much of the SFL
research and curriculum is devoted to providing diverse students at a number of educational
levels with access to the identified genres of the dominant culture, thus empowering students to
participate effectively in that culture (Kress, 1991, p. 10). SFL practitioners note that text
structures and language vary from context to context, but, importantly, “within that variation,
[there are] relatively stable underlying patterns or ‘shapes’ that organize texts so that they are
culturally and socially functional” (Feez, 2002, p. 53). Contending that the acquisition and use
of written discourses with stable textual patterns in appropriate contexts will successfully
socialize students, the Sydney School researchers and curriculum designers have identified eight
“key genres,” indicating the schematic structure and language (“register”) of these texts and their
major “stages,” or principal text functions, which are directly related, in the pedagogies, to the
social purposes and locations in which the texts appear. These key genres are recount,
information report, explanation, exposition, discussion, procedure, narrative, and news story
7. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
(Macken-Horarik, 2002, pp. 21-22). In addition, a “Teaching Learning Cycle” (Feez, 1998) has
been developed to facilitate student comprehension and practice as they work toward
competency.
The SFL experts have produced a popular, accessible, teacher and student-friendly
curriculum, one that, according to a 2009 SLWS survey respondent teaching GBWI in Spain is
“the only approach I know which makes explicit what is needed and why, and allows you to
make explicit your evaluation of student texts.” (IR2)6
There is no question that SFL curricula are both popular and accessible in various parts of
the L2 writing world and have contributed significantly to the discussions of the nature of genre
and genre naming, as well as the interaction of genres with certain contexts. As Bawarshi and
Reiff (2010) note:
. . . the research and debates within SFL genre approaches have been crucial in
establishing how genres systematically link social motives and purposes to social and
linguistic actions. By arguing for genres (and thus certain text types) as a centerpiece of
literacy teaching, SFL . . . scholars have debated ways in which genres can be used to
help students gain access to and select more effectively from the systems of choices
available to language users for the realization of meaning in specific contexts. (p. 37)
Naming as variable and contested
At the other end of the naming spectrum is the work of some of the North American New
Rhetoric theorists, a number of whom resist arguments for textual stability and a primary focus
on text structures. Prior (2007), for example, objects to the fact that “there remains a tendency
[among genre theorists and researchers] to freeze writing, as though it entered the world from
6 The researcher numbered the respondents. The IR2 = International Response 2, the second to be
analyzed.
8. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
some other realm, to see writing as a noun rather than a verb” (p. 281). One reason that “freezing
writing” is a problem for New Rhetoricians is because, in their view, there is no prototypical
scene or context for a particular text. In critiquing one theorist (Linell, 1998), Prior notes that
this writer “imagines a culturally prototypical scene of writing rather than studying the actual
scenes. In [some theorists’] scenes, the writer is always alone, the text is always permanent, the
reader is always somewhere else, making meaning on her own” (p. 282).
For Prior and some others in the New Rhetoric camp, then, all writing should be seen first
as a process, “a stream within the broader flows of semiotic activity” (p. 282). This “process” is
not to be confused with the Process Movement (see Johns, 1997) where writer cognition is
viewed as central; instead, it is a rich, sometimes overwhelming, contextualized experience,
“understood as historical and chaotic, as open and complex, and as evolving” (Prior, 2009, p.
283). Thus, rather than viewing texts from genres as fixed and structured, Prior, and others
(e.g., Russell, 1997) contend that genres that should be seen as multi-modal, process-based and
“fundamentally constituted in varied activities and artifacts involved in trajectories of mediated
activities” (Prior, 2007, 283).
Though this New Rhetoric view is challenging, it should give L2 writing instructors
pause; for as writers know from their own experiences with producing texts, there are many and
varied influences upon the text product, and a context, that may result from a chaotic and
extended writing process as well as from external, intertextual factors. This essay, for example,
began very differently from the way it appears here, principally because it was critiqued and
many suggestions for revision were made. In addition, I continued to be influenced by my own
reading and the writing experiences of my current EFL students as I attempted to revise. Useful
studies of those endeavoring to write in different contexts and under different conditions provide
9. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
evidence for the complexity and chaos that can be involved in producing a single text (e.g.,
Freedman & Adam, 2000 and Tardy, 2005).
Naming and the Future GBWI
Bhatia’s Inclusive Model
What, then, do we do about the core issue naming in the L2 writing classroom? Given
the emphasis upon, and the need for, an understanding text structure by L2 writers, combined
with the argument that genre should be viewed within a chaotic, multi-modal process, where can
curriculum developers turn as they create pedagogies? As in the case of the other topics
discussed here, I will suggest a compromise, one that takes into consideration writer processes,
systems of texts, and the varied contextual influences upon them as well as the need expressed
by L2 instructors to give students confidence through teaching them text format. Practitioners
can turn to the English for Specific Purposes Movement, which, by its very nature, is designed
be pragmatic and to “explicit[ly] address specific target needs,” (Belcher, 2009, p. 3), in this
case, the students’ need for scaffolded guidance using structures, combined with the importance,
in genre theory, of seeing beyond structures to what Prior or others in the New Rhetoric
Movement view as the chaotic nature of processing genres.
Using ESP as a mediating force, we can begin with the work of Bhatia (2002), as shown
in Appendix A. In this model entitled “Levels of genre description” (p. 281), Bhatia accounts for
the “rhetorical modes” that are so often linked with the paragraph or essay structures, calling
these modes “generic values,” that is, methods for developing ideas and arguments within larger
texts from a genre. Like many current genre theorists, Bhatia recognizes that authentic texts are
often mixed: they often do not follow a rigid format and tend to contain more than one rhetorical
mode. For example, a writer of a memo or legal brief may use definition, narration, and
10. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
comparison/contrast within the same text product. In Bhatia’s model, genres are named by a
“discourse community” (see Swales, 1990) that is, a group that shares valued genres in order to
communicate. What is also useful about this model is the mention of genre colonies: the view
that genres are related to each other through their purposes, intertextually and contextually, a
notion central to the work of many genre theorists, particularly in the ESP and New Rhetoric
Schools (see Bawarshi & Reiff, 2010, p.50). Bhatia (2002) and Swales (1990), in particular,
contend that what a text is called by those who both honor and make use of it within their
professional, academic, or cultural discourse communities is crucial to understanding the
character of genre and its social value.
Instructional decisions for the future of GBWI.
How can we take students from discourse modes or varied text structures, as discussed in
the “Sydney School” to the more complex nature of genres as evolving, contextualized artifacts?
Teachers can begin with the named texts in the students’ own languages and cultures. Many
students are already quite aware of what certain familiar genres from their own cultures, and they
can use these L1 genres to hypothesize about what the purposes of these genres are, the
occasions for which they are read or written, processes that might be used to read and write
them, influences upon the texts, their linguistic and structural conventions, and the elements that
make them uniquely suitable for the particular occasion where they appeared. For example, in
Johns (1997, pp. 39-45), suggestions for analyzing two everyday genres in the students’ first
languages and cultures, the wedding invitation and the obituary, are made. Once this analysis of
an L1 genre is completed, students can begin to analyze texts from comparable genres in their
L2, proceeding to other genres that they may need to recognize, read, or produce in their second
or foreign language.
11. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
To solve the problem of “the essay” or the “term paper” assignments within their
academic classes, two types of activities seem to be successful. The first is practice in extracting
from academic faculty the information they need to understand what a loosely-named assigned
text, e.g., and “essay,” in their classroom requires (Johns, 1997, pp. 48-50). Approaching
disciplinary faculty can be a daunting task, but providing practice in the L2 writing classroom in
interviewing faculty does assist students not only to approach their instructors but to reassess
their assignments. After students have analyzed their assignments with the help of faculty, they
can use Bhatia’s model as a guide for determining the “generic values” (discourse modes) they
might employ to organize their responses. A second suggestion focusing on naming develops
students’ metacognition: they reflect upon their assignments from various classrooms and their
writing processes, asking themselves questions such as: How is this “essay” different from this
one in my writing class? What influenced the writing of this essay? What happened as I
attempted to complete the assignment that changed my mind about what to write?”
These activities have the same goal: the assist students to ask questions about text naming
and what it implies within a community of readers and writers, and to apply their findings to a
specific assignment so that they can approach the processing and production of their responses in
a manner that is satisfactory not only to them but to their audience(s).
Issue 2: Genre learning vs. Genre awareness
A second instructional decision, closely related to naming and its relationships to text
structures and conceptions of genre, is whether students should be asked to learn text types and,
as some L2 writing instructors and “Sydney School” practitioners suggest, to relate these types
to prototypical contexts; or instead, whether they should be encouraged to develop genre
awareness, that is, view genres as much flexible and evolving. At one extreme of genre learning
12. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
is a classroom where essays or paragraphs with strict formats in the rhetorical modes are central
(e.g., cause/effect, comparison/contrast, extended definition) and structure is often taught as
fixed and almost universally transferable. One particularly popular approach to learning text
types as fixed is the Jane Schaffer Method with which L2 students may be familiar (see
http://ecs.ovhs.info/dsp.subpage.print.cfm?id=749 ). In the Sydney School pedagogies, though
presented in a much more sophisticated manner and allowing for more text variety, the eight key
genres are viewed as fixed and prototypical for certain contexts in the dominant culture, and the
assumption appears to be that they can be transferred not only to other English-speaking cultures
or EFL contexts, as well. If inappropriately presented, the eight key genres could be memorized
as rigid formats, rather than as problem-spaces or open to critique and change. According to
some cognitive theorists, “low road transfer” is what we can expect from the pedagogies that
encourage students to learn fixed text formats and apply them, as is, to writing contexts. This
type of transfer is described by Salomon and Perkins, as “[involving] the spontaneous, automatic,
transfer of highly practiced skills, with little need for reflective thinking” (1989, p. 118).
Some current research supports the Salomon and Perkins assessment. For example, in her
study of the use of model, “fixed” essays in a writing classroom, Macbeth (2009) found that
although the models “provided relief” to her novice L2 students, they were problematic for
instruction and transfer to other learning situations because “they offer formal, generic
representations of practices that are far from generic or formally structured. [Unfortunately], they
convey these practices as stable, reliable, and vividly so” (p. 45).
From their own work (see, Bawarshi & Reiff, 2010, pp. 173-208), it appears that the New
Rhetoricians would encourage students to develop “high road” or “far” transfer of learning,
meaning that they can “successfully apply old knowledge to a new problem” (Willingham, 2009,
13. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
p. 74). Thus, if genre awareness is approached appropriately, students should be able to “apply
what they learned in different contexts, and to recognize and extend that learning to a completely
different situation” (Haskall, 2001, p. 3), perhaps by completely discarding or revising a view of
texts developed in a previous writing context. Not surprisingly, Russell and Fisher (2009), like
other New Rhetoricians (e.g., Beaufort, 2007). make the distinction between pedagogies that
support genre learning/acquisition with the repeated analysis and practice of fixed text formats
and those that support genre awareness, described by Beaufort as providing “guidance to
structure specific problems and learnings into more abstract principles that can be applied to new
situations.” (2007, p. 151). These approaches could assist students in recognizing that
processing texts from a genre can often be complex (Prior, 2007) and that, in the end, “genres are
socially situated and culturally embedded [carrying with them] the beliefs, values, and ideologies
of particular communities and cultures” (Bawarshi & Reiff, 2010, p. 195).
Instructional decisions for the future of GBWI
If models of text structures and aspects of genre learning are important in supporting L2
writers, as has been noted by Macbeth (2009), how do we take students from these models,
perhaps based upon “discourse modes,” to high road transfer, that is, the ability to assess a
situation for a genre and make decisions about what is appropriate in a text? Two approaches
will be suggested here. One is implied by Michael Carter (2007)7, (See Appendix B), who
proposes that texts from genres in academic disciplines can be classified under four types of
macro-genres, and another, which adapted from Devitt, Reiff, and Bawashi in their textbook,
Scenes of writing (2004).
7
14. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
Carter’s work can assist L2 academic writing teachers by enabling them to produce a
curriculum that encourages rhetorical flexibility, yet classify texts according to their purposes
and macro-structures. Thus, for example, students can examine the structures of an academic
introduction for a text calling for empirical enquiry (see Swales, 1990), mapping these structures
into introductions in their first languages or to L2 introductions in the sciences, nursing, or the
social sciences. Their writing assignments can involve producing an introduction that varies
somewhat from what they have modeled and mapped, depending upon the situation in which
they are asked to write. Another Carter category, problem-solving responses, appear not only in
business, social work, engineering, and nursing, but also in less academic genres such as opinion
editorials. Using opinion editorials from their L1 or L2, students can be asked to discover where
a problem is discussed in the text, its causes, and the solutions, then approach analyzing, and
producing, varied genres with problem/solution responses in their disciplines. Again, they are
applying their prior knowledge of problem-solution structure to new texts that have traces of the
old, as is the case in many genres (see Berkenkotter and Huckin, 1993). L2 students do need
relief from what often appears to be new and unanalyzable texts from the target language
communities which they are attempting to enter. Thus, either moving from L1 or L2, students
can use Carter’s macro-structures in order to bring order to the apparently chaotic texts they
encounter in their classrooms.
Though a number of New Rhetoricians do not discuss pedagogical applications,
fortunately, there are those, such as Beaufort (2007), who do. This practitioner encourages high
transfer through assisting students to learn concepts related to genres, using them as “mental
grippers for organizing general domains of knowledge that then can be applied to local
situations” (2007, p. 151). Bawarshi and Reiff suggest how these “grippers” can be instantiated
15. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
as students begin to work with an assignment or a text from a genre they have collected. Their
list of “grippers,” in bold, below, has been augmented here with questions that my students use
that relate directly to an assignment in one of their disciplinary classrooms:
1. Relationship(s) to the Carter macro-structures. You have been studying and writing about
the four general types of textual responses in academic classrooms. In what discipline has
your assignment been made? Does the assignment name any of the academic genres related
to the macro-structures in the Carter list? For example, is your assignment a case study, a
project report, a business plan, or a proposal? If so, your response may follow a problem-
solution structure to which you have already been exposed. Later, ask the faculty member
who gave the assignment what it is called and how it should be organized.
2. Task problem space: Does this task remind you of other tasks you have completed, either
in your first or second languages? How is it similar to this previous task? How is it
different?
3. Task specifics: Further,
•What content is valued in this assignment? What concepts appear to be important?
•What sources should you be using and how should these sources be cited? (See
Hyland, 1999). Are classrooms readings and lectures to be integrated?
•What referencing style (e.g., APA, MLA) does the instructor prefer?
•What will give the text coherence, e.g., headings or transition words and phrases?
That is, what will you do to be writer responsible (Hinds, 1986), leading the reader
through the text?
16. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
4. Writer’s role and purposes: In this writing task, who are you as writer? Is your role
“student,” or do you have another role? What are your purposes as writer, e.g., to draw from
sources to make an argument?
5. Audience: Who is the audience for the assignment?
•If it is the instructor, how will you appeal to that audience? What do you know about this
audience, whatever it is, that you can use to guide your writing8?
•How will the instructor evaluate this paper? What are the criteria upon which s/he will
depend?
6. Language and writer’s stance:
•What language register is important to this assignment? For example, should you
“hedge” your claims? (Hyland, 2009)
•What stance can you take about the content—and what will that stance look like, in terms
of language? Will you be reporting, critiquing, evaluating?
7. Process: You may have learned one “writing process” in your previous writing classes;
however, different texts and contexts may require different processes.
•Is there any indication in the assignment of what writing process you should use here?
•Where will you begin? With a model for a successful text? With class notes, readings,
other sources?
•What, or whom, should you consult as you process the text?
•How much time do you have to complete this assignment? How will you parcel out this
time?
8 Daniel Melzer (2005), who studied more than 800 undergraduate writing assignments in the
United States, found that in the vast majority, the instructor was the students’ audience.
17. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
•If you draft all or part of the assignment, when can you see the instructor to determine if
you are following the right path towards the product?
•Is there any opportunity for peer review by fellow students?
Drawing from research in cognitive psychology, Willingham (2009) argued that students
need continuous, distributed practice of the skills and abilities that are central to high transfer,
which is encouraged by these questions. As shown here, students can draw from their past
textual experiences and practices to create what Devitt, Reiff, and Bawashi (2004) call a
“problem-space.” Then, they can use the topics and questions posed to explore and to reflect
critically upon the assignment---and upon their own processes as readers and writers. During,
and after, their processing of writing tasks, then, they need to consider, through reflection,
questions such as the following:
•How are my writing processes in completing this task the same as, or different from, the
processes I used in previous tasks? What sources and people did I draw from? How did
these people, or sources, influence my revisions? On what features of this task did I
devote most of my time? Why?
•What will I do differently with the next assignment? For example, what questions might
I ask of the instructor? Who else will I listen to as I complete the assignment? How much
time and effort will I devote to various sub-tasks, like searching for sources, revising, or
editing?
L2 writing instructors, in particular, need to encourage questioning of a task and critical
reflection that augments student “mindfulness” or metacognition (see Beaufort, 2007, pp. 151-
152.), leading, if possible, to high transfer of their thinking to new, or evolving, genres, writing
processes and writing contexts.
18. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
Issue 3: Pedagogical Focus
In a paper entitled “Genre in the classroom: A linguistic approach,” Flowerdew (2002)
suggested that there are two general approaches to theorizing about and teaching genre, the
“linguistic” (SFL and ESP) and the “non-linguistic” (the New Rhetoric). Though he has modified
his argument considerably, making it more complex and suggesting that the New Rhetoric and
ESP may be converging (see Flowerdew, in press), the issue of pedagogical focus continues to
be relevant and contested, as conference participants found when experts from the various
theoretical “schools” appeared together on a American Association of Applied Linguistics panel
I chaired (see Johns, Bawarshi, Coe, Hyland, Paltridge, Reiff & Tardy, 2006).
The contestedness relates directly to the curricular core: whether text, however described,
or processes and contexts should be the major focus, a question that has been implicit in the
discussion of the two GBWI topics, naming and acquisition/awareness presented so far.
Representing the ESP School with a “linguistic” orientation, Hyland begins with large corpuses
from a variety of disciplinary texts (2004, 2009) and argues that a great deal can be surmised
about a genre, a writing context, or a community of writers from features of the community’s
valued genres. In his contributions to genre studies, Hyland investigates, among other things,
disciplinary citation practices, reporting verbs, hedges, self-mention, directives, and lexical
bundles (2009). In his ESP pedagogies, then, Hyland begins with textual corpora, arguing that
Genre-driven courses…will take texts as the starting point but provide opportunities for
learners to develop text-generating strategies. The guiding principle is that literacy
development requires an explicit focus on the ways texts are organized and the language
choices that users must make to achieve their purposes in particular contexts. Genres
19. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
offer a focus for understanding the types of texts that students will need in a given
situation… (2003, p. 75).
Systemic Functional Linguistics (the “Sydney School”) also begins its pedagogies with
texts, called “configurations of meaning that are recurrently phased together to enact social
practices” (Martin, 2002, p. 269). The Eight Key Genres have been identified by social purpose
(e.g., retelling events to inform), by social location (e.g., personal letters), by schematic structure,
and by stages (orientation, record of events, reorientation). (see, e.g., Mackin-Horarick, 2002).
Because these Key Genres are central, they are reenacted continuously, and the classroom
becomes a “cline of apprenticeship” (Martin, 2002, p. 272) as students move to more complex,
staged texts that are avenues to gaining power within a culture.
Not surprisingly, the text-driven pedagogies from ESP and SFL are critiqued by those
who focus first upon evolving processes and contexts. Richard Coe, representing a number of
New Rhetoricians, is suspicious of the “linguistic” approaches (ESP and SFL). He has
commented that “I have grave doubts about research and pedagogical practices that, after
defining genre as the relationship between text type and recurring situation, proceed by inferring
situation from textual features” (2002, p. 197).
Thus, New Rhetoricians, who concentrate much more on the writing situation than, for
example, language register, begin pedagogies with analyses of genres as a “mediated interactions
within a context”; for, as Bawarshi and Reiff (2010) note “genres situate and distribute cognition,
frame social identities, organize spatial and temporal relations, and coordinate meaningful,
consequential actions” (p. 95).
Activity theory and, by extension, Prior’s multi-modal, process-based “mediated
activities” (Prior, 2009, p. 283) take the historical and sometimes chaotic contexts for genre
20. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
production to new heights. Genre becomes “an ongoing, dynamic, accomplishment of people
acting together with shared tools, including---more powerfully---writing” (Russell, 1997, pp.
508-509). The end result is a successful text produced for specific situation, by a purposeful
writer who is constrained by his/her processes, role vis-à-vis a particular audience (e.g.,
teacher/student, manager/employee) and previous experiences with genres.
Instructional decisions for the future of GBWI
Which of the pedagogical choices is most widely circulated among L2 contexts? The two
“linguistic” pedagogies that begin with, and often concentrate upon, text and language register
are the best known and the most successful in reaching their goals with L2 populations, as
indicated in the survey of 2009 SLWS participants. For the SFL (“Sydney School”) camp, the
populations are, for the most part, novice and L2 learners, especially in public primary and
secondary educational systems. For ESP, the considerable successes and most of the research,
have taken place among graduate students (see, e.g., Swales & Feak, 1994) and professionals
(see e.g., Bhatia, 1993).
The New Rhetoric approaches from North America appear to have had limited success in
achieving their goals among the populations where this camp is best known: in first year writing
courses in North America. From all indications, they have not made many inroads outside of
North America, either. There could be a number of reasons for this: the pervasive nature of “the
essay” in North American L1 and some L2 literacy classes, despite the views of the experts; lack
of training among the inexperienced instructors who, in many cases, actually teach the courses
and find text-based (“rhetorical mode’) curricula more accessible; and, of course, the difficulties
posed by the abstract nature of a genre awareness curriculum.
21. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
How should future teaching of the text/context issue be organized? It appears from the
comments by professionals in L2 contexts that responded to the 2009 SLWS survey and from the
successes of ESP and SFL, that curricula should, in fact, begin with texts and their structures,
particularly among novice students; but then, using some of the suggestions made by the New
Rhetoricians, move towards an integration of theories and practices that value analysis of
context, complex writing processes, and intertextuality. Research into high road transfer
suggests that students should view texts as both temporarily structured and evolving, that they
should draw from prior knowledge of texts but be open to the demands of a new situation or
assignment. Carter’s contribution to our understandings of textual macro-genres and Bhatia’s
(2002) levels could enrich this emphasis upon textual variety, rhetorical flexibility, and, one
hopes, varied processing, reflection, and high road transfer. Bawarshi and Reiff (2010), who
speak of genre as “a rich analytical tool for studying academic [and other] environments”
describe pedagogies (pp. 189-210) which may require some adaptation to L2 writing contexts but
are worthy of our consideration. What is being suggested here, then, is to begin with text
structures and then to move rapidly to viewing genres as socially-mediated entities, something
this writer has discovered to be best accomplished in academic contexts in an adjunct
environment (Johns, 2001).
Issue 4: Explicit/implicit ideology
Is the teaching of genre inherently ideological? There are experts in applied linguistics
and writing students that would answer “yes” to this question. Benesch (2001), for example, has
argued that English for Specific Purposes approaches are ideologically “accommodationist” in
that they promote the textual hegemony and the learning of certain genres that, in turn, exclude
L2 students from the academic cultures that they are attempting to enter. Luke, extending this
22. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
critique to include the other “linguistic” theory, SFL, contends that text-based, accommodationist
approaches can only lead to an uncritical assessment of a particular discipline (or profession).
(1996, p. 314). Thus, these experts would argue, the text-based approaches of ESP and SFL are,
at best, accommodationist ideologically and, at worst, assimilationist. They allow for little or no
critique, resulting in “a socially situated product perspective” (Casanave, 1992, p. 82) and even
the memorization of a list of acceptable text features.
There is research among those that stress ideology that indicates that L2 students can
suffer academically, culturally, and personally from accommodationist approaches and the
textual hegemonies of the university or professions. Casanave (1992), for example, described a
Latina student who, with much sadness, left her sociology graduate program, and its genres,
because it was separating her from her family and culture. Richard Rodriguez, a bilingual child
of immigrants to the United States, also speaks with some sadness, in Hunger of Memory (1983),
of his eventual social and psychological separation from his family as he became initiated into
English-speaking academic discourses and cultures.
In contrast to the “accommodationist” or “assimilationist” text-based, linguistic instructional
approaches, some New Rhetoricians seem to take on critical pedagogy with vigor. Richard Coe,
et. al., in The rhetoric and ideology of genre (2002, pp. 6-7), promote classroom inquiry that
leads directly to student critique of powerful genres. Questions from the introduction to this
volume have been revised for this essay to be more appropriate for L2 novice students. In a
critical activity, students might ask:
•What does this genre we’re studying constrain against in terms of communication? What
purposes does it serve as part of this assignment?
23. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
•What are the values and beliefs that this genre seems to perpetuate? Do these values
seem to reflect the discipline or profession that underlies the class in which you are
enrolled? Are these your values? Why or why not?
•In real life (that is, outside of the classroom) who is permitted to use this genre? Who
cannot use it? [Note: This is one of my students’ favorites, particularly in terms of on-
line genres.]
•Who are the audiences for this genre [in real life]? How do you know? What language,
text structure, visuals, or other clues do you have to the nature of these audiences?
•How could you negotiate this genre (and the assignment) to make it more responsive to
your needs and interests, if at all?
Instructional decisions for the future of GBWI
For L2 students, it seems most appropriate to begin with considering how a text from a
genre might be structured, how it relates to other texts, where it might appear, what writer
processes might be involved, and what other contextual elements (e.g., the writer’s role, the
audience, the influences of other texts) might be central to understanding the nature of text
products from a genre. After students have completed these analyses, they can, and probably
should, turn to critique. This argument parallels the one made for student completion of a
summary or paraphrase of a text so that they understand it, and its contexts and purposes, before
beginning their critique. In my experience, some novice students tend to critique a text or a
situation before they understand it thoroughly.
Conclusion
When I began writing this essay, I had intended to report on my survey of literacy
instructors conducted at the 2009 Second Language Writing Symposium. However, the survey
24. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
responses were few and the results were, for the most part, predictable. L2 instructors in EFL
contexts argued, for the most part, for the teaching of fixed text structures, either through the
traditional rhetorical modes or through SFL or ESP. Thus, I turned to exploring the on-going
concerns about issues relating to teaching of genres in L2 classes that in most academic
publications continue to take the back seat to other, perhaps more interesting pursuits such as
corpus studies, qualitative studies of graduate student writing, or theorizing about genre as
metaphor. All of this is important work, of course. Particularly useful to the L2 instructor have
been the case and qualitative studies (e.g., Prior, 1998; Tardy, 2009) which give insights into
what may be involved in high road transfer.
However, there has not been sufficient concern about, or research on, the L2 novice
students and the GBWI that is appropriate for them, instruction that draws from the best in the
various theoretical schools and is true to the complexity of the concept of genre. To assist in that
discussion, I have attempted here to present a true essay---one that explores and suggests
decisions about instruction that should be considered, particularly in L2 environments.
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___________________________________________________________
Appendix A::
Appendix B:
Disciplinary Macro-genres
31. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
Levels of Generic Description (Bhatia, 2004)
advertisements sales letters job applicationsbook reviewsbook blurbs
Promotional Genres
giving shape to product like
evaluationdescription explanationnarration instruction
achieved through rhetorical/generic values of
……
…
…
Genres
identified in terms of
communicative purpose
RHETORICAL/
GENERIC VALUES
GENRE COLONY
GENRES
1. A Problem-Solving/System-Generating Response
Disciplines: Business, Social Work, Engineering, Nursing
a) Identify, define, and analyze the problem,
b) Determine what information and disciplinary concepts are appropriate for
solving the problem,
c) Collect data,
d) Offer viable solutions, and
e) Evaluate the solutions using specific discipline-driven criteria.
Genres: case studies, project reports and proposals, business plans.
2. A Response calling for Empirical Inquiry (An IMRD Paper)
Disciplines in the Sciences, Nursing, and the Social Sciences
a) Ask questions/formulate hypotheses,
b) Test hypotheses (or answer questions) using empirical methods,
c) Organize and analyze data for verbal and visual summaries,
d) Conclude by explaining the results.
Genres: lab reports, posters, a research report or article.
3. A Response Calling for Research from Written Sources
Disciplines in the Humanities: English and other literatures, Classics, History
a) Critically evaluate the sources “in terms of credibility, authenticity, interpretive
stance, audience, potential biases, and value for answering research
questions,” and
b) Marshall evidence to support an argument that answers the research
question.
Genre: “The quintessential academic genre: the research paper” (MLA style)
4.A Response Calling for Performance
Disciplines: Art, Music, Composition (writing)
a) Learn about the principles, concepts, media, or formats appropriate for the
discipline,
b) Attempt to master the techniques and approaches,
c) Develop a working knowledge and process, and
d) Perform and/or critique a performance.
Adapted from Carter, M. (2007). Ways of knowing, doing, and writing in the disciplines.College
Composition and Communication, 58, 385-418.
32. Future of Genre: Unresolved Issues.
