Ahh the joys of facebook... and text messages.
Today, we got started examining just what "genre" means as well as what some constraints or rules that we/society/culture place on these vairous written/spoken genres that most people are not even aware of. For instance, a wedding toast seems pretty harmless initially. But we examined some common characteristics and found that the characteristics of this particular genre seem very set in place--almost like rules really. For example, this little speech is almost always done during dinner; there's very little variation here. The words themselves (although we didn't analyze one) usually follow a pretty set pattern: a random thought about how he/she isn't a good speaker/hates doing these things, some thoughts on the couple, that speaker's role in their relationships, some funny quips, and the sentimental (but moreso for women, of course) ending. Yet, who says this genre needs to be done like this? Where are those written rules? There is just those set customs that most people then deem as "correct."
We spent the second half of class today breaking into groups and beginning to construct some rubrics/guidelines for facebook statuses and text messages. On Monday, we will continue this discussion. Unit 1 will also be more fully introduced.
Have a great weekend and be sure to do that STV250 folder thing (the previous blog post)!
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