Read/review Navigating Genres

Navigating Genres

Read/review Navigating Genres (an essay we read last semester in English 102) and “Obama’s Speech at Howard: Becoming King.” As you read, highlight or underline key sentences or passages, and write comments in the margins with your insights, reactions, questions, etc. Look up the meaning of words and also write these definitions in the margins. Especially take notes on the connections you can make between the two essays, in particular how Dirk’s explanation of genre can help you understand the genre of a rhetorical analysis as your read Post’s essay.

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After reading, answer the following questions, as thoughtfully and clearly as you can. Your response should be, at minimum, 500 words in length. If you use any direct quotes from the reading (which you don’t need to), do so sparingly and briefly, and explain them in your own words.

— Explain your understanding of “genre” after reading the Dirk essay. On page 250, Dirk explains that the concept of genre goes beyond a simple discussion of type. What does she mean by this? Discuss how this is true. How is this different from how you’ve thought of genre in the past?

— Post’s essay fits within the genre of what is referred to as a rhetorical analysis. Because rhetorical theory is so rich, and has so many elements, the genre of a rhetorical analysis can actually take a wide variety of shapes. However, based on what you now understand about both genre (Dirk) and rhetorical theory (Wardle & Downs; Covino & Jolliffe; Grant-Davie), explain some of the ways in which Post’s essay is adhering to the genre of a rhetorical analysis. What are some of the specific things Post says and does in the essay that make her essay a rhetorical analysis?