Privette 1 Zachary Privette Ingram - ENGL-1101 Literacy Narrative 10/11/13 Genre Analysis: Sports Schedule

A simple genre that I know fairly well would be my high schools sport schedules, specifically for varsity football. At my high school sports was a very big deal. We had one of the best golf teams in the state and nation, as well as an exceptionally good basketball, tennis, and football team. A lot of people wanted to go to these games and matches, and the only way they could figure out when and where these took place was by looking up a teams schedule. During high school, I was always looking at my high schools varsity football schedule. Below is actually this years football schedule for 2013, but its format is the exact same as last years schedule:
FORESTVIEW HIGH SCHOOL VARSITY SCHEDULE 2012

F F F F F F F F F F F

8/16 8/23 8/30 9/6 9/13 9/20 9/27 10/4 10/11 10/18 10/25

FCA @ Hunter Huss Nation Ford @ Clover (SC) @ Kings Mountain East Lincoln OPEN Lake Norman Charter Bessemer City @ North Gaston South Point @ Ashbrook

8:00 pm 7:30 7:30 7:30 7:30

7:30 7:30 7:30 7:30 7:30

Continued on next page

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F F F 11/1 11/8 11/15 Hunter Huss @ East Gaston First Round Playoffs 7:30 7:30 7:30

This is an example of a sports schedule. Sports schedules are usually formatted as a simple table on a page but can also be on posters and other types of media, such as coasters, bookmarks, etc. A couple limitations exist for a sports schedule, an example being that it usually doesnt have a place where the results of the games can be displayed as they happen, as well as keep stats of these games. This is the best genre for having a simple, organized calendar for sporting events and it is unique to this fact. This example text was also fairly successful in fulfilling the genre of sports scheduling, as well as the authors purpose. The example is an organized list of the games that are chronologically ordered and properly show each of the games dates, days, and times. Our athletic director was usually the one to make the schedule, but the coaches of the team also influenced the schedule as well as they decided who we played as an exhibition game (exhibition as in a team that we played that is not in our district or division, but just to fill the requirement for the minimum games to be played in the season; in our schools case, we had to play one exhibition game to fill the requirement of 10 games). Who we played was mostly based on the teams in our division, and our division was determined by a couple of factors, including the schools in the local area and the population of students that went to each school. The schedule was made for anyone who was willing to go to any of the varsity football games, but it was primarily for the players on the team and their parents. But this does not change the success rate of the schedule, as it is still able to inform about the games and their proper dates and location regardless of who is looking at it. It was used to explicitly show who we were

Privette 3 playing, where we were playing them, the day it took place (in this case it was always on Friday, as all high school football games took place on this day), the date of the game, and the time it started. There is really nothing being implied about the schedule other than what is being explicitly shown.

Genre Analysis: Reader Response Letter Something that I never did in high school with writing was the Reader Response Letter (or RRL for short) that I did at the beginning of the semester of college. Whereas in high school writing about a prompt was basically summarizing it, in a Reader Response Letter it is much different. The following example text was the second RRL that I did:

Reader Response Letter #2 Dear Class, Throughout the text it talks about how the Five-Paragraph Essay format is a damaging mechanistic practice of writing, and that struggling writers shouldnt look to it in order to accomplishment their assessments. I somewhat agree to these, as I believe a successful writer can be able to expand their writing in an infinite amount of possible ways into many different formats. You shouldnt need a specific format in order to figure out how or what to write. However, very young writers (elementary level) tend to struggle to figure out how or what to write, therefore making the FiveParagraph Essay format, to me, acceptable. But as time goes on, you should be writing in different ways other than this single format. Somewhere near the beginning, it talks about how college-level teachers talk down to lowerlevel educators through books, and try to justify the essay format. I feel the same way as the author here, as this is rather unacceptable as there are years of research [that] offer richer possibilities for teaching

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students how to write. Also, the author goes on to say that the only reason that students are subject to this essay format is because common sense tells them that it is straight-forward, self-evident logic.

This is an example of the Reader Response genre. It is almost always a letter being written to someone as you are expressing your opinion on a reading, and it would be stupid if you were expressing your opinion to nobody. The RRL shouldnt be used to summarize and regurgitate a reading. Typically, the genre is ruled by the instructor who assigned it, but it has a general rule structure. In the example, this was the RRL that was written by me for a reading called The Five Paragraph Essay by Lil Brannon. The intended audience was to be the peers in my class. The main purpose of the RRL was for me to express to the class on what points the author made that I agreed on and liked, disagreed and disliked, understood and confused me, and the relations I could make with the prompt. An example of this taken from the text is when I say I somewhat
agree to these, as I believe a successful writer can be able to expand their writing in an infinite amount of possible ways into many different formats. You shouldnt need a specific format in order to figure out how or what to write. So basically its just the opinion of mine on the authors points of the

assigned reading. When comparing my RRL to a standard RRL, I think the example text (my RRL) is pretty successful in fulfilling the requirements of a Reader Response Letter. In an RRL, the author should make points they agree or disagree with in the readings text. They should also point out the things they liked the author of the reading said, as well as parts of the reading that were confusing or make sense and make resonations of the text to the author. In my RRL, a find a point the author made that I agreed on but also disagreed with to some extent. I go on in the second paragraph to add more points that I agreed with the author on. So overall, the example

Privette 5 text is a good example of a RRL. However, were there a different audience, I might have worded my RRL a bit differently, and maybe more formal. So it can be said the audience is a factor in the success of the text.

Genre Analysis Conclusion

The comparing and contrasting of high school and college has been the core of the class of ENGL-1101 as far as academics and social life goes. And as far as genre goes, the types of genre found in high school compared to the ones in college seem be to be very diverse with few and close to none similarities. During the genre analysis, I chose sport schedules as my high school genre and the Reader Response Letter (RRL) as my college genre. Although the genre of scheduling may seem kind of boring and bland it was just the closest thing that I could think of that I was very familiar with. I chose the second RRL that I wrote for my college genre analysis. I had never done an RRL before in high school, so I chose my best one to analyze. In general, the types of genres I chose have absolutely nothing in common what so ever. Unless there was a RRL about sport schedules I dont see any connections between the two. However, many of the differences between the genres can be identified. Sports schedules usually take the form of an organized table that is intended to inform anyone who is willing to participate at any of the games/matches found on it, whereas the RRL is a written letter directed to whomever I like, but in the case of my RRL it is to my ENGL-1101 class. The author of a sport schedule varies, but it is usually an athletic director or coach that makes it. The author of an RRL can be anyone responding to a reading that is addressed to the authors peers. Sports schedules continue as a genre as it is the primary source for information and details on games and matches

Privette 6 for certain sports, and it is the only place where people can find this type of information. RRLs continue to exist as a genre as its a personal letter that serves to express the authors opinion that is important to him/her. As you can see, the two genres are very different and unique in their own way. Ive learned that genre exists everywhere in the world and that there are almost an infinite types of genre and maybe some genre that has yet to be discovered. From this assignment I have learned to look at genre from a whole different perspective that helps to better understand what it is, what its used for, and why it exists.