Thlog: Week 1

My first week in Writing 2 has been interesting and eye opening. In our introductory class, Z introduced us to the notion of genre, and how each one is affiliated with varying conventions. In particular, we focused on the country genre, and compared a couple of different country songs with conventions. For instance, the class collectively mentioned beer, trucks and acoustic guitars as a convention of the country genre. Some conventions were affiliated with the country genre, but many were often not present in each country song. These particular conventions are what makes the country genre unique. In addition to the country genre, we touched base on the horror film genre, and discussed the affiliated conventions. Like the country genre, I was intrigued at the way in which I viewed the selected films, because I became more aware of the familiar conventions of a horror film genre. It wasn’t until I carefully listened to country songs and clips from horror films, talked in small groups, and shared brainstormed thoughts with the class, until I realized how many different conventions each genre can have. 

Kerry Dirk’s Navigating Genre’s explains how we subconsciously participate in various genres in everyday life. These genres’ outcomes are predictable in their rhetorical function. For instance how a joke should generate a laugh. The joke itself isn’t recognized by the formal features, but rather because of their perception of the rhetorical action that occurs. Dirk also describes the difficulty of categorizing a text into a genre, because two texts in the same genre can look extremely different. Finally, I learnt from Dirk that genres enables us to make more efficient decisions whilst writing, as we can see how other people have approached the similar situations before.

After reading Peter Elbow’s Teaching Two Kinds of Thinking by Teaching Writing, I learned a new approach to thinking. Elbow suggests there are two different kinds of thinking; first order thinking and second order thinking. First order thinking is creative thinking that comes naturally without fear of judgement or criticism, whereas second order thinking the critical more analytical thinking. For instance, I use first order thinking when I’m writing in my diary, whereas I use second order thinking when I’m revising a speech for a tennis fundraising event. However, implementing both of these is difficult at the same time because one must be abundantly inventive yet tough-mindedly critical.

We finished the week revising a couple of ‘Letter of Recommendation’ requests, where I realized how this specific genre has conventions that are present in each example letter. However, some conventions were more present than others, and influenced the effectiveness of the letter respectively. I realized that I’ve used many of these ‘Letter of Recommendation’ request conventions before, and correlates with Dirk’s explanation on recognizing how other people have approached similar situations before, and using the template accordingly.