ELT Journal Advance Access published July 27, 2009

A focus on purpose: using a genre

approach in an E F L writing class
Gordon Myskow and Kana Gordon

This article shows how a genre approach has been used in an E F L high school
writing course to teach the university application letter genre to students preparing
for post-secondary studies. The authors discuss specific classroom materials to
illustrate how a genre-based approach can be employed, not simply to teach static
textual patterns but to help learners gain a richer understanding of the complex
relationship between written texts and the social contexts in which they are
situated. The article begins with a brief overview of L2 writing scholarship, and as
the authors acknowledge, some overlap exists between contemporary genre-based
pedagogies and earlier product approaches. The authors argue, however, that
awareness of the (somewhat slippery) distinction between these approaches is
essential, if teachers are to present genres as resources to be drawn on to help
learners achieve specific social purposes rather than inflexible text templates to be
prescriptively imitated.

Introduction Helping L2 writers to first recognize and then replicate common

grammatical patterns and rhetorical structures of various text types has
been observed in classrooms since the very beginning of L2 writing
scholarship in the 1960s (Raimes 1991; Matsuda 2003). In academic
writing, for example, the basic generic constituents of an essay such as
a thesis statement at the end of an introduction and topic sentences at the
beginning of body paragraphs have often been prescriptively taught with the
expectation (requirement) that writers compose their own essays in
accordance with these formulaic patterns. Such teaching strategies have
long been the hallmark of what has come to be called the product approach
or current traditional rhetoric (Matsuda ibid.).
Recent genre analysis scholarship, however, has shown genres to be highly
complex entities that cannot be properly understood independently of their
social contexts (for example Bhatia 2004). The relation between a text and
its context is so complex that some scholars (for example Coe 2002: 201)
have questioned the usefulness of teaching the textual structures of
a workplace or academic genre in composition classrooms—a place that
is often far removed from the social contexts in which the genres are actually
situated. This article aims to show how such limitations of a classroom
setting may be overcome by employing a genre-based approach that focuses
on writing tasks that are timely and relevant to the particular needs of
writers.

E LT Journal; doi:10.1093/elt/ccp057 1 of 10
ª The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
 The authors describe how they have used the genre of university application
letters to help Japanese E F L high school students in a writing class gain
a richer understanding of the complex relationship between written texts
and the social contexts in which they are situated. Before exploring how
exactly the genre approach was employed in our context, it will be necessary
to distinguish between a genre-based approach and the earlier product-
based approach since these pedagogies, though quite distinct in theory,
share a similar focus on discourse patterns.

Product and genre Prior to the burgeoning of process-based pedagogies in the 1970s and
approaches 1980s, the product approach was the dominant approach in L2 writing
What are the (Raimes 1991; Matsuda 2003). According to Raimes’ (ibid.) historical survey
differences? of L2 writing, product-oriented pedagogies were characterized by a focus on
accuracy and the ‘imitation of paragraph or essay form’ (p. 409). Typical
classroom activities included writing from an outline, paragraph
completion, identification of topic and support, and scrambled sentences to
reorder. In this approach, the texts that writers are to produce represent the
entry point of instruction, and they are largely seen as autonomous objects
that can be ‘analyzed or described independently of particular contexts,
writers, or readers’ (Hyland 2002: 6).
Product-based approaches became widely criticized by a number of scholars
for reasons that included: constraining the freedom of writers (Rohman
1965: 108) and an over-emphasis on the surface level features of writing
(Zamel 1987: 700). During the 1970s and 1980s, the many variations of
process pedagogies came to dominate the field of L2 writing scholarship (for
example Zamel ibid.).
Since the late 1980s, however, there has once again been a ‘paradigm shift’
in L2 writing from process- to genre-based pedagogies (Johns 2002b: 3).
Atkinson (2003: 3) even argues that the changes in L2 scholarship are so
comprehensive that the field has entered a ‘post-process era’. Though some
scholars have expressed reservations about using such terms to describe
these changes (for example Matsuda op. cit.), the genre approach has
undoubtedly been the subject of much recent discussion in the field of L2
writing (for example Hyland 2003; Johns, Bawarashi, Coe, Hyland,
Paltridge, Reiff, and Tardy 2006).
Proponents of genre-based pedagogies have attempted to broaden
traditional conceptions of genres by characterizing them not just in terms
of their linguistic properties but their social functions as well. Hyland
(in Johns et al. ibid.: 237), for example, explains that genres are ‘a grouping of
texts based on how writers use language to respond to and construct texts for
reoccurring situations’. In the same article (p. 235), Paltridge describes them
simply as ‘the ways in which people get things done through the use of
language in particular contexts’. This emphasis on the social dimension
of genres represents a major point of departure from earlier product
approaches. In genre-based pedagogies, developing an understanding of
the social context within which texts are situated is the proper entry point of
instruction. A focus then on the linguistic and rhetorical features of a text
should only come after a social context has been established (Hyland 2002:
96–111).

2 of 10 Gordon Myskow and Kana Gordon

 However, one way that genre and product approaches may appear to overlap
is in their focus on the larger textual features beyond the sentence. Indeed, if
the goal of a lesson is to familiarize students with the conventionalized
discourse patterns of a text, the activities associated with the product
approach listed above, such as writing from an outline and identification of
topic and support may not be out of place in a genre-based classroom.
However, one crucial difference is that genre-based pedagogies aim to
develop a more flexible understanding of generic structures and the ways in
which genres interact (Johns 2002a: 57–84).

Why does the As the above discussion shows, genres are not rigid, text templates; they are
difference matter? highly complex entities that interact with one another in dynamic ways. A
pedagogy, therefore, that prescribes inflexible textual patterns may inhibit
a writer’s ability to transfer their knowledge of text structure to tasks that
require a more complex combination of generic forms. As Coe (2002)
points out, thesis statements do not always appear in introductions and
‘unity of purpose may be signified without even using a thesis statement’ (p.
201). He even raises the possibility that prior knowledge of textual structures
such as the English essay and the research paper may act like ‘first language
interference’ when students approach other writing tasks (p. 201).
In order for writers to effectively use their knowledge of genre conventions
to fulfil a variety of social purposes, they need to possess a high level of
cognitive flexibility. While a product approach may help a student to imitate
the prescriptive rhetorical structure of a five-paragraph argumentative essay,
this imitation does little to promote the cognitive versatility necessary to
respond to other argumentative essay prompts that require the writer to
incorporate different text types, such as compare/contrast or cause–effect.
In order to develop an appreciation of how genres may be ‘bent’ or ‘mixed’
(Bhatia 2004) to fulfil communicative purposes, students’ theories of how
genres are structured need to be ‘destabilized’ (Johns 2002a: 57–84).
Another important reason for distinguishing between product and genre
relates to the social reality of genres. In her discussion of academic discourse
communities, Johns (1997) shows how genres and discourse communities
are interdependent: genres are the conventionalized forms that ‘enable
members throughout the world to maintain their goals, regulate their
memberships, and communicate efficiently with one another’ (p. 52) while
at the same time it is the members of discourse communities who can
choose to maintain or break genre conventions (p. 68). Simply learning the
rhetorical patterns of autonomous texts alienated from the communities
that they both help to create and are created in may result in a kind of
‘hidden curriculum’ in which the key to understanding the complex ways
genres are used for social purposes is not explicitly addressed. After all, it is
in the social dimension of these communities where genres make sense
(Hyland 2003: 23).

Using a genre Though entrance exams are the most common way for high school students
approach to teach in Japan to gain entry to university, there are a number of other application
university processes available to candidates, such as entrance by recommendation and
application letters oral interviews. Another requirement that some university departments
have begun to use as part of their application process is the English

Using a genre approach in an EF L writing class 3 of 10

 application letter. In the 2007–2008 school year, 6 of the 18 students in the
third-year writing class in an advanced English programme at Kanto
International High School in Tokyo elected to use an admissions process
that required an English application letter. Due in part to the number of
students who needed to write an application letter, the programme leader
and the lead instructor in the course decided to integrate this writing task
into the third-year writing syllabus by having students write an application
letter to the universities they hoped to attend.
Though this writing task is not part of the admissions process for all
students in the class, the process of writing an application letter provides an
opportunity for students not only to reflect on their achievements and
contributions over their school lives but to articulate their dreams and
aspirations for the future. Moreover, since the audience of most of the
students’ previous writing has been their teacher and peers, the application
letter represents a rare chance to expand the social context in which students
write outside the classroom walls and into the world of academics that they
will soon be entering, helping to illuminate some of the central beliefs and
values of these discourse communities. Finally, because writing an
application letter requires students to address highly specific audiences (the
gatekeepers of the universities they hope to attend), this writing task helps to
emphasize that writing is a purposeful, socially embedded activity. Through
extensive investigation of both the university context and how textual
conventions of the application letter are shaped by considerations of this
context, this writing task aims to develop awareness among learners that
rhetorical patterns are not autonomous templates to be applied wholesale to
any number of writing tasks; they are resources to be selectively drawn upon
to fulfil specific social purposes.

Collecting and Ding (2007: 368), in a recent article examining application letters written by
analysing sample graduate school candidates, points out that despite the importance of this
application letters genre for the graduate admissions process, there has been little research and
instruction in academic writing courses. In our context, the lack of research
on application letters written specifically by high school students applying
for university presented a challenge in the initial planning stages of this
writing unit. However, in keeping with Hyland’s (2004: 101) suggestion to
collect sample texts by researching relevant websites such as professional
associations, and writing sites, the instructor conducted an informal
analysis of model essays from a variety of sources, including university
admissions websites and commercial university guidance books.
The results of this analysis parallel the findings of the few other researchers
who have analysed the basic rhetorical structure of the application letter in
other contexts. In an overview of previous attempts to analyse the structure
of application letters across several different contexts, Ding (2007) identifies
some key communicative purposes of the application letter for different
graduate programmes, including reasons for choosing the specific
programme of study, relevant experiences, qualifications, goals, and other
unique aspects of the applicant. He stresses the importance of ensuring that
the applicant’s purposes and qualities ‘fit’ with the expectations of the
audience (p. 371). The course instructor in our context identified similar

4 of 10 Gordon Myskow and Kana Gordon

 communicative purposes which were incorporated into an advanced
organizer of the basic rhetorical patterns of the genre (see Figure 1).

figure 1
An advanced organizer of
the basic rhetorical
patterns of the genre

In recent years, we have been able to replace the original model texts with
sample letters from students in our context. All six students in 2007–2008
who chose to submit an application letter as part of their university
application process had successful applications and have since been used
(with students’ permission) to further enhance the materials and
instruction in the following year by serving as model texts.

Instructional stage 1: The initial instructional stage of the application letter, which consumes
contextual analysis approximately one and a half hours of class time, involves such questions as,
‘Who reads your application letters?’ and ‘What are their values?’ (based on
Johns 1997). The purpose of this phase is to help unpack the social context
and underlying values of the gatekeepers assessing the application letters.
Prior to this contextual analysis, students are asked to state the university to
which they want to apply and the reasons for their choice based on
a consideration of how this university might help them to achieve their
future goals. These reasons are later analysed and reassessed through
a prism of information they acquire about the beliefs and values of the
gatekeepers who evaluate their application letters, ultimately informing the
content of their letters.
Students are then asked to conduct research into the beliefs and values of the
university departments to which they intend to apply. This research
includes attending open campuses and collecting information, mostly
written in Japanese, from university and department pamphlets and
websites. Like the previous activity, careful guidance and direction is
required to ensure that students collect specific and detailed evidence of the
beliefs and values of the target community.
Figure 2 below shows how this direction is provided by supplying focused
areas of enquiry for their research. In a follow-up discussion with their
peers, students then compare the information they collected in their
research with the reasons they previously stated for wanting to apply to the

Using a genre approach in an EF L writing class 5 of 10

 university. As recommended by Johns (1997: 83), students then rank their
purposes and arguments in order of importance with consideration of what
they learnt of the values of their specific audiences. Finally, students revise
their reasons for applying to better correspond to the values of the audience
for whom they are writing.

Research the Values and Beliefs of the University and its Faculty

1 What is the school’s/department’s motto?

2 What is the school’s philosophy on education?
3 What is the department’s mission statement?
4 What well-known professors are in the department?
5 What are the titles of books (or other works) published by the department or its
members?
figure 2
Areas of enquiry for 6 What other aspects of the university or department are impressive to you?
research into beliefs and
7 Are there any examples of the impact that the department has in your field of interest?
values of university
departments

One key way that the authors feel the instructional process described here
could be improved upon for next time is by providing more follow-up with
the students during the research stage of this assignment. Though students
were given focused areas of enquiry (see Figure 2), in many cases, the
instructors could not be certain of the extent to which students actually
obtained the relevant insights that would have shown an in-depth
understanding of the beliefs and values of these communities. In our
context, this weakness might be addressed in part by conducting a class in
the school computer room to assist students as they scour relevant websites.
Collecting students’ research notes and providing feedback for them with
follow-up questions identifying areas in need of elaboration may have also
helped ensure students made the most out of this activity. Likewise, the
instructional process could have included better follow-up with the open-
campus excursion research activity.
Though in our context, it would not have been logistically possible to take
class time for excursions to universities since the students were interested in
attending a number of different ones, the instructors could have made
better use of the information collected by the students who were able to
attend open-campus days by having them share and discuss the
information they obtained with their classmates.
Students might also have been asked to contact individuals in the university
to find out as much as possible about the expectations for their application
letters and any information about the actual readership of their letters
(though due to the high-stakes nature of this examination process,
university administrators may be unwilling to provide such specific
information). This type of enquiry, however, would certainly be

6 of 10 Gordon Myskow and Kana Gordon

 recommended for other types of assignments; students in universities or
high schools could be asked to interview their instructors to gain more
detailed information about their expectations for their assignments.

Instructional stage 2: Once a social context has been built, learners begin analysing sample
textual analysis application letters to reveal how these social factors inform not only the
content of the letters, but the rhetorical and linguistic features of the texts.
Though there is much variation among individual letters, the students are
directed to structure their letters with an introduction, body, and conclusion
and the model letters all conform to this basic pattern. Students are also
given some guidance in the organization of the body of their letters and each
of the model letters shares the basic informational structure in the body of
their texts (see Figure 1). This organizational pattern is incorporated into the
class materials and continuously referred to on the blackboard throughout
the instructional process.
Though reminiscent in some ways of the product approach, this instruction
in the overarching rhetorical structuring of the letter serves as a valuable
conceptual frame that helps scaffold an analysis of the complex ways that
context affects the rhetorical choices within each section of the model letters.
To avoid reverting to an overly prescriptive product-like pedagogy during
this textual analysis stage, it is essential that once the basic macro-
organizational pattern of the genre has been introduced, the emphasis shifts
from identifying, not only similarities among the models but variation in
rhetorical choices and how considerations of social contexts might account
for these differences. In the first activity, for example, students complete
a table that requires them to check whether or not different types of
information are contained in the model introductions (see Figure 3).

Model introductions
Features of the introductions 1 2 3 4 5
University name
Department name
Mention of writer’s dream(s)/goal(s)
Writer’s personal qualities/attributes/skills
Mention of prior experience/knowledge of the university
figure 3
Reason(s) for wanting to go to the university
Features of the
introductions Other:

In this exercise, students are led to discover that while certain obligatory
information such as the name of the university and department is evident
in the introductions to all letters, other information such as the writer’s
personal attributes or skills is optional and is only found in some
introductions. In the second part of the activity, learners are asked to
speculate about possible reasons for this variation. This discussion provides
an opportunity for learners to notice how a writer may have decided to
foreground specific skills or experience they may have by placing this

Using a genre approach in an EF L writing class 7 of 10

 information in the introduction. This activity also provides an opportunity
for students to look critically at the letters and make suggestions about how
they might be improved by including (or not including) certain information
in the introduction.
Figure 4 shows an introductory paragraph from an application letter that
was written by one of the students in the class who used the letter in its
entirety as part of a successful application process. The university
department that the student was applying for, an international liberal arts
programme, also required a written exam and an interview in English. The
introduction of the letter, printed with the student’s consent, shows certain
abilities and experiences that she chose to foreground in the introduction.

1 I strongly believe that we, the new generation of Japan, should cooperate and
2 coordinate with other Asian countries as members of Asia. The more involved we
3 are, the more we feel that we belong. The more we feel that we belong, the more we
4 grow together. My experiences in Cambodia helped me to realize this and decide my
5 future goal: to play a part in the progress of education for impoverished communities
6 throughout Asia. Therefore, the spirit of diversity and cooperation at [University
7 name] attracts me very much. In addition, my experiences in foreign countries, my
figure 4
8 debate team experience, and leadership skills will help me to contribute to the
Extract from a sample
letter 9 [University name] community.

In a follow-up interview, the student noted the university website and

conversations with students currently enrolled in the programme as
sources that informed her application letter writing process.
When asked why she wrote ‘cooperate and coordinate’ with other countries
in her application letter, she answered:
[University name] has the largest number of exchange students from
foreign countries, and [it] is trying to learn from other cultures to enhance
their abilities by cooperation and coordination. I respect the attitude, and I
think that’s exactly what the world needs to do in order to provide more
people with better lives.
Her response indicates that when deciding to include this phrase, there was
some consideration not only of her own personal reasons for applying but
the values or ‘attitudes’ of the university community.
When questioned about her decision to mention her experiences in
Cambodia and other foreign countries, she noted the concept of ‘a spirit of
diversity’ as part of the programme she was applying for.
. . . Cambodia and foreign countries were one of the most unforgettable
incident, and they were the catalyst for me to think more about what was
happening in the world. This curiosity, I think, linked to the concept of
[programme’s name], the spirit of diversity. I thought that the mention of
the experiences were essential to explain why I wanted to enter this
[programme name], not [other university names].

8 of 10 Gordon Myskow and Kana Gordon

 This statement reveals an awareness of the unique characteristics of the
university she was applying for and how it differs from other universities.
It is beyond the scope of this article to discuss how other rhetorical and
linguistic choices might be informed by a careful consideration of
contextual considerations during the composition process. It is worth
emphasizing, however, that texts and contexts share an interdependent
relationship; in other words, it is not a one-way cause–effect relationship in
which contextual constraints dictate the rhetorical choices of writers. The
language choices of individuals also have the power to shape social
conventions. Johns (1997), for example, points out that ‘as individuals
within an academic community become more established and famous, they
become more anti-conventional, in both their texts and languages’ (p. 68).
This recognition of the bidirectional relationship between text and context
has important implications for the extent to which teachers encourage
students to become ‘rule-breakers’ (Johns ibid.). Since the genre discussed
in this article is used as part of a high-stakes bid to help learners gain entry
into academic institutions, the emphasis throughout the instructional
process is on adaptation and conformity to the values of the target discourse
community. But a genre approach need not focus solely on conformity to
conventions, specifically as students gain a high level of expertise and
familiarity with the genre conventions of their academic communities. The
guiding principle behind the activities discussed in this article is
a conception of students as investigators of social contexts and written texts.
As Johns (op. cit.) puts it ‘we are developing researchers, not dogmatists,
students who explore ideas and literacies rather than seek simple answers’
(p. 69).

Conclusion Although the university application letter genre itself would likely have little
relevance to teaching contexts outside high school, this writing task helps to
highlight specific ways that a genre-based approach can be used to help
learners develop a more complex view of the ways genres interact to fulfil
social purposes. It would not be difficult to imagine how a university
application letter might be replaced by a business letter or even a cover letter
for a résumé in a course specializing in English for professional purposes.
The emphasis of the genre approach is on the ways that rhetorical patterns
and language are utilized to achieve social purposes, and this has relevance,
not just to academic and professional genres, but to common interactional
genres including email correspondences among friends, as well as
transactional spoken genres. When implementing a genre approach in the
classroom, it is essential that a focus on the dynamic ways in which social
contexts and genres interact does not get lost in a well-intentioned effort to
help learners reproduce oversimplified rhetorical patterns.
Final revised version received May 2009

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Atkinson, D. 2003. ‘Writing and culture in the post-
process era: introduction’. Journal of Second Language
Writing 12/1: 49–63.
Bhatia, V. K. 2004. Worlds of Written Discourse: A
Genre-Based View. London: Continuum.
political beliefs’ in A. M. Johns (ed.).
Ding, H. 2007. ‘Genre analysis of personal
statements: analysis of moves in application essays
to medical and dental schools’. English for Specific
Purposes 26/3: 368–92.

Using a genre approach in an EF L writing class 9 of 10

Hyland, K. 2002. Teaching and Researching Writing.
Harlow, UK: Pearson Education Ltd.
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response to process’. Journal of Second Language
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The authors
Gordon Myskow holds an MA in T E S O L from
Teachers College, Columbia University. He teaches
E F L classes at Kanto International High School
(Tokyo). His research interests include L2 writing
and teacher development. He is a coauthor of Write
on Task (Longman) and is involved in teacher
development, including guest lectures at Teachers
College (Japan).
Email: gmyskow@kantokokusai.net
Kana Gordon is a TE S OL MA candidate at Columbia
University Teachers College. She is a programme
leader and teacher at Kanto International High
School. Her research interests include L2 writing,
programme evaluation, and the social and academic
development of Japanese ‘returnees’.
Email: kanalg@gmail.com