Kamberelis 1999 - Genre development

Kamberelis, G. (1999). Genre development and learning: Children writing stories, science reports, and poems. Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 33, no. 4. pp. 403-
460. Urbana, IL: NCTE.

This study is an exploration of children's working knowledge of narrative, scientific, and poetic genres.

1. Research Questions

1. What differences in knowledge of genre are demonstrated in text production of K-2 students?

2. What do their texts and discourses about their texts reveal about how their knowledge of genre develops?

Theoretical frame: Bourdieu's sociology, social semiotics, critical language awareness, Sydney School text linguistics, socio-cultural-historical approaches to literacy

2. Subjects, Setting, Context

54 K-2 students

3. Procedures (briefly)

54 K-2 students wrote samples in each of the 3 genres and provided oral justifications for why their work was representative of the genre. Texts were coded for presence or absence of markers of each genre. He chose markers that were at the text or sentence (micro) level and markers that were at the document (macro) level. He chose markers that were easily differentiated between the genres being studied. He chose those genres because they are the most common studied and produced in elementary school.
Quantitative study. MANOVA, ANOVA

4. Findings

• More experience with narrative than the other genres.
• More experience with macro-level markers than micro-level markers

5. Strengths and Weaknesses of Study

Small sample size
homogeneity of sample
methods of analysis (K students read their pieces to him)
no random sampling
structure of experiment could influence performance of participants

6. Implications

• Kids develop "differentiated and flexible repertoires" of genres

Comparing findings with other studies

• tasks are a significant factor in how kids demonstrate genre knowledge
• tasks can scaffold genre knowledge

The author's implications for pedagogy involve warnings that an over-representation of narrative texts in kids' reading limits kids' ability to comprehend and to write in other genres. He suggests that children need exposure to a greater variety of genre texts. While these implications may be true, I don't think they are adequately supported by the data from this study.

7. Other Comments

Reread this study for firmer grounding of theoretical frames.

"Each genre possesses definite principles of selection, definite forms for seeing and conceptualizing reality, and a definite scope and depth of penetration... One might say that human consciousness possesses a series of inner genres for seeing and conceptualizing reality. A given consciousness is richer or poorer in genres, depending on its ideological environment...The process of seeing and conceptualizing reality must not be severed from the process of embodying it in the forms of a particular genre... Thus, the reality of the genre and the reality accessible to the genre are organically related."
Bakhtin & Medvedev, 1985, pp. 131-135, as quoted on p. 403.

Cites Luke, Focucault, Vygotsky

Other genre studies:
Hicks, 1990
Langer 1986
Newkirk, 1989
Pappas, 1993
Sowers, 1985
Zecker, 1996
Kroll, 1990
Scribner & Cole, 1981


Bakhtin, M. (1986). Speech genres and other late essays (V.W. McGee, Trans.). Austin, TX: University of Texas Press.

Berkenkotter, C. & Huckin, T. (1993). Rethinking genre from a sociocognitive perspective. Written Communication, 10, 475-509.

Chapman, M. (1994). The emergence of genres: Some findings from an examination of first grade writing. Written Communication, 11, 348-380.

Chapman, M. (1995). The sociocognitive construction of written genres in first grade. Research in the Teaching of English, 29, 164-194.

Derrida, J. (1980). The law of genre. Critical Inquiry, 7, 55-81.

These cited works also mention genre:
Coe 1994
Cope and Kalantzis, 1993
Fowler 1982
Freedman 1987
Freedman & Medway 1994a
Freedman & Medway 1994b
Hanks, 1987
Hicks 1990
Kamberelis, 1995a
Kamberelis & Bovino, 1999 in press
Kress, 1993
Pappas, 1993
Rosmarin 1985
Swales, 1990
Yates & Orlikowski 1992 * involves genre, communication, and media