some remaining thoughts from the discussion on genre

It was interesting to discuss the second question on our handout, especially because I never really thought of genre approaches and the process approach as polar opposites. Even when reading the two articles we discussed today in class, I didn't quite get the sense that they were separate extremes.

In our discussion, Amy and I talked about how these approaches seem to us to be very complementary rather than separate. Even within the Writing Program's genre studies approach at ISU, there are some aspects of process: in genre studies, the process of writing is also a focus, as opposed to a one-shot perfect end product. Emphasis is also placed on the drafting process and the editing process. One important difference in the genre approach is that the social aspect of the text is emphasized, although I would argue that (especially because of students' literacy backgrounds) that individual aspect of the process approach is not completely wiped out in our ENG 101 classes.

Especially in L2 writing classrooms, it's important to combine awareness of the writing process with the social situation and social conventions. Feez's circle that we talked about and that Kristi presented on the handout implies some aspect of process in its cyclical nature of genre explanation, and the fact that the cycle can be re-entered and gone through various times is reminiscent of process, I think.