In the beginning of this class, I thought I had a solid understand of the biographical genre. After I was required to study this specific genre more in-depth, I came to the realization that this genre actually had 4 different writing types or styles. I was convinced that biographical genre was just the process of writing about another person's life. Biographies are actually able to provide their readers with details that are often left out of textbooks. Biographical writing also includes autobiographies where the author writes about themselves and the writer touches upon their entire life story. There are also memoirs and personal narratives included in this genre. These written stories are more specific to a single life experience in someones' life (Tompkins, 2019, p. 195). Tompkins offers a number of engaging ways for authors to write about life experiences including using life boxes, hot seat activities and bio-poems (p. 204). Being able to actually engage in these writing techniques helped me to develop a better understanding of what this genre's purpose was.
Poetry was another genre that I learned a lot more about throughout this semester. I believed poetry had to include rhymes or use similes/metaphors that I truly did not understand. I was unaware of the beauty poetry has. I was also unfamiliar with the diverse ways you could invent a poem. Tompkins (2019) presented me with different formula poems that anyone could follow to help them develop authentic poetic expressions, for example, color poems or 'I am...' poems (p.148). These formulas or outlines are a wonderful way to introduce individuals to specific poem styles that will fit their purpose and match their intended audience. Learning about the various poetic devices also helped me to understand how to improve my own poetry writing. These devices help writers to make their poems 'come alive', they provide readers with strong images where they can mentally experience what the author is writing about.
Hicks (2013) allowed me to make the connection between author's craft and digital media. Hicks (2013) presented different types of digital texts including web texts, presentations, audio and video texts and social media texts. I learned how to view these online texts through a more concise and beyond-the-text point-of-view. I was exposed to a number of mentor texts where I was provided the opportunity to be critical of the text to see if it met the needs of what that particular text was intended to convey. For example, using Hicks' (2013) Table 6.2 found on page 114, I am now able to take note of the steps necessary for composing a digital video text. I can use this same criteria to help my students become successful in creating a video text that actually enhances their learning experiences.
References
Hicks,
T. (2013). Crafting digital writing. Portsmouth,
NH: Heinemann.
Tompkins,
G. E. (2019). Teaching
writing: Balancing process and product (7th
ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ:
Merrill.
I'm glad to hear that this class not only broadened your knowledge about author's craft in general, but also deepened your knowledge about the intricacies of certain genres like the biographical genre and poetry -- two genres that are not celebrated enough in our R/W classes. I'm sure your future students will benefit from your new knowledge.
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