Writing Center director, colleague write about the value of teaching genre writing to students

In a recently published online teaching resource, Julia Bleakney, director of the Writing Center in the Center for Writing Excellence, discusses the value of assigning and teaching genre to improve students’ writing.

In the resource, Julia Bleakney and Shay Brawn of Stanford University suggest that when instructors assign and teach their students to write in real-world academic or popular genres, they help students understand the ways of thinking in their fields and transfer what they learn about writing in one situation to another. By breaking down the components and expectations of real genres, instructors give students tools to be successful not only when they write in the assigned genre but also when they write in other genres and for other fields. Consultants in the Writing Center can discuss typical components of any genre to help students understand how to write in genres with which they are unfamiliar.

Find the online resource here – Julia Bleakney and Shay Brawn, “What Genre Is Your Writing Assignment?: Cultivating Field Knowledge and Improving Student Writing.”