3 Reasons To Teach Writing Through Genre

 I’m often asked about the best way to structure writing lessons/ units. E.g.:

• Should we base our writing units around genre? OR

• Should we base our writing units around the 6+1 Traits? OR

• Should we allow students to choose their own genres and topics?

In a previous post on teaching genre vs traits, I explained that writing should still be taught through the lens of genre, but this needs to be done more effectively than it usually is.  

Let’s use persuasive writing as an example. Historically, writing lessons in this genre focused primarily on teaching students the classic ‘introduction + 3 paragraphs + conclusion’ structure. There may be the odd lessons on persuasive devices, but most of the teaching and assessment focus on demonstrating the ‘perfect’ structure.

A more effective approach to teaching a persuasive genre unit would still focus on the structure of persuasive writing, but it would acknowledge, teach, and assess the other elements required to craft effective persuasive writing (E.g., compelling voice, word choice, sentence fluency, etc.).

Sometimes, schools misinterpret this advice to mean they should no longer structure their writing units around genre. This generally leads to them basing their units on either the 6+1 Traits or around genres their students choose themselves.

Here’s 3 reasons you should teach writing through genre.

1) Teaching writing through genre is easier to manage.

Spinning plates are a management nightmare for teachers.

You create extra spinning plates every time you split your class into smaller groups.

Two groups = two plates.

Four groups = four plates.

Everyone gets to choose their own genre and topic = countless spinning plates.

What happens when the circus clown adds too many spinning plates to their act? They lose their ability to give each plate the required attention and start losing control of them.

When you streamline your class into focusing on one genre collectively, you reduce the number of spinning plates in your writing lessons.

Fewer plates = more attention and nurturing and better teaching and learning.

(Tip: This spinning plate analogy is also relevant to other areas of literacy instruction.)

2) Teaching through genre enables you to engage in more effective teaching

Full-strength teacher modelling is the most potent form of instruction in the writing classroom.

What you model and when you model it should be based on the genre you’re teaching.

When your whole class is focused on learning about one specific genre, your modelling becomes more focused and relevant. Your students can watch you craft, revise and edit writing in the target genre (‘I do’) before trialling the same strategies and approaches in their writing (‘You do’).

As a writing community, you can do a deep dive into the specific genre- looking at mentor texts and building your collective knowledge about what ‘good’ looks like in the target genre so your students can recreate this in their own writing.

Speaking of mentor texts, selecting and using these is much easier and more effective in classrooms where everyone is learning about the same genre.

3) Teaching through genre improves students’ reading comprehension

More than one writing meta-analysis has shown that explicit genre instruction leads to a significant improvement in students’ writing performance (Koster et al., 2015; Graham et al., 2012).

Did you know, though, that genre instruction also improves students’ reading comprehension?

Now that’s a win-win for literacy!

In Scarborough’s Reading Rope (2001), comprehension is dependent upon background knowledge, an understanding of vocabulary, language structures, verbal reasoning, and literacy knowledge, including genre.’ (Jump et al., 2023)

When you slow down to focus on teaching your students characteristics of one genre at a time -when you immerse them in the genre and point out its structural elements- you strengthen their capacity to read and understand writing in that genre.

As students build their knowledge of a specific genre in the writing classroom, they can begin to recognise these unique elements in texts they’re reading. ‘As they read, are they noticing a problem-and-solution structure? This might be a persuasive text. Did they pick up the use of clear character descriptions? They may be reading a narrative’ (Jump et al., 2023).

How do you plan for effective genre instruction?

Great question!

Fortunately, I’ve already written about this topic. You can read about it here.

Related Posts

• Why ‘Less is More’ In Genre Instruction.
• What Are Mentor Texts?
• 5 Quick Tips For Using Mentor Texts

References

• Graham, S. et al. (2012) ‘A meta-analysis of writing instruction for students in the elementary grades.’, Journal of Educational Psychology, 104(4), pp. 879–896. doi:10.1037/a0029185.
• Jump, J. et al. (2023) What the science of reading says about writing. Huntington Beach, CA: Shell Education.
• Koster, M. et al. (2015) ‘Teaching children to write: A meta-analysis of Writing Intervention Research’, Journal of Writing Research, 7(2), pp. 249–274. doi:10.17239/jowr-2015.07.02.2.