My take on this ENG101 class was the purpose of learning how to think “outside the box” of standard English writing procedures.  We were told to focus on looking beyond “grammatical snobbery” (GRWJ article) to studying the different types of genres.  We also learned to see every form of writing as a different type of genre.  Society has placed socially construed constraints on every genre from text messaging to sidewalk chalk messages to novels. (Unit One) We discussed the wedding toast’s characteristics as the example for this. The wedding toast has a certain time during the reception that it occurs, it is usually done by a specific group of people in attendance, it is usually spoken –but has thoughts written on notecards to help with the giving of the speech, as well as many other characteristics like these.  Even though there is a standard make-up to each genre and a specific method that is used to send the message (i.e.: phone, computer, speaker, paper, etc.) there can always be exceptions.  Exceptions must have logical and justifiable reasons in why they are straying from the typical method or format.” (My UNIT 1 half-way blog)  Also in Unit1, we learned how to write a rubric for and then create a newspaper article.  I learned to see the grammatical and visual elements that make up articles. (“With the rubric, I did a good job at dissecting all the different parts of visual and grammatical characteristics that made up the genre of newspaper articles.” (Unit1 final blog)  Peer reviews were also experienced in this unit, and we learned how to make constructive criticism that wasn’t too generalized.

Since we learned how to see each form of writing as a different genre in UNIT1 with socially construed characteristics, we did a project on manipulating a genre in UNIT2.  The purpose of manipulating the genre was to see how people would react to the change.  My biggest take away from UNIT 2 is as follows: “The project gave the results that I expected- that people would have a reaction to the genre when it was in a different context. I did come to realize though that we are able to assume that because people had such an adverse reaction to our one altered genre, that they may react to any genre that is altered.  However, we are not able to generalize that finding as a fact - due to the fact that we do not have enough research to back it up.”  (Unit2 final blog) I also learned the following: “I actually see all writing as writing genres, and I am able to contemplate their construed constraints. Before this unit, I only saw school work or book and poems as genres.” (Unit2 final blog)

In Unit3 we had to discuss our process of learning a genre based on what we had learned the last two units. I wrote about Audio Descriptions.  I described my learning process while trying to create my own creation of this genre.  It was interesting reading others paper s in the peer review sessions to see what kind of struggles they had.  The purpose of this was to fit the GRWJ format.  So, we had to study the other articles in order how to write our own.  We as a class made up a general rubric for the “GRWJ article” Then we wrote our own papers fitting this format.

I learned this semester how to see all forms of writing as different genres with socially construed characteristics.  I also learned how there is a time and a place for grammatical snobbery – many times there are more important things in the writing that focusing on that.