Croce on Genres

"All books dealing with classifications and systems of the arts could be burned without any loss whatsoever."

Benedetto Croce, quoted in The Power of Genre (p. 6) by Adena Rosmarin.

Altman 1999, Preface and Chapter 1

Altman, R. (1999). Film/genre. London: British Film Institute Publishing.

Although I may be shifting my focus to genre in literature and writing instruction in the classroom, Rick Altman's book still provides some interesting framing. In his first chapter, Altman walks us through the history of literary genre theory.

Altman suggests that literary genre theory has been historically under-theorized, or maybe theoretically malnourished. He begins by listing the unexamined assumptions that underlie Aristotle's Poetics which are transmitted intact down through the ages.

• Classical Genre Theory
• Aristotle - analyzes works of others to define genre by traits of the work (not effect produced, notes Altman)
  
• Horace - extends Aristotle's analysis into rules to writers
  

• Neoclassical Genre Theory
• Torquato Tasso
• Pierre Corneille
• Nicolas Boileau
• John Dryden
• Alexander Pope
• birth of tragicomedy
• birth of drama, then melodrama
• Nineteenth Century Genre Theory
• Romantic movement - mixing of genres
  
• Friedrich Schlegel - provided theoretical underpinnings to abolition of generic differences
• Stendahl - led the assault
  
• Victor Hugo - led the assault
• establishing new canon
• Ferdinand Brunetiére - brought in evolutionary model of genres
• Twentieth Century Genre Theory
• Benedetto Croce - rejected scientific model and attacked the notion of genre
• Before Croce, the genre theory debate was classic versus romantic; he changed it to genre vs. innovation
• René Wellek and Austin Warren
• genres can be based on inner form or outer form
  
• provided a reasoned theory for establishing the existence and exact borders of a genre
• possible to redraw the generic map
• criticized by Altman for failing to recognize the role of the critic or theorist (I don't know quite what he means by this)
• Northrup Frye
• extended Wellek and Warren
• freed genre definitions of a dependence on tradition
• Tzvetan Todorov
• structuralist
  
• strongly criticized and opposed Frye
• distinguishes between theoretical and historical genres
  
• furthers a move by Welleck and Warren and Frye, to critic-defined genres
• defines genre by effect produced instead of (Aristotlean) reliance on traits of the work
• E.D. Hirsch, Jr.
• genre in the reading process, including all reading (not just literary)
• all understanding starts with the identification of genre; the reader interprets based on the genre. If understanding of genre of a work changes, meaning changes.
• Altman seems worried about Hirsch and Todorov placing too much emphasis on the reader, describing it as a "Sorcerer's Apprentice" effect - using a magic word that unleashes power that can't be controlled. "Once labeled by writers and critics, genres might well fall into the hands of untutored readers or out-of-control audiences." I fail to see the risk.
  

On another note, I'm dying to know the current state of film genre theory, given changes brought about by desktop production and online publication. How does the field deal with the rapid emergence of new forms and the empowerment of "unsanctioned" filmmakers?

Also interesting that Altman studied film genres at the University of Iowa with fellow student Henry Jenkins.

Wollman-Bonilla 2000, Teaching Science Writing to First Graders

Wollman-Bonilla, J. (2000). Teaching science writing to first graders: Genre learning and recontextualization. Research in the Teaching of English, vol. 35, no. 1.

Qualitative study of 4 first graders. Case studies.

1. Research Questions

1. To what extent can science journal writing by 1st graders be characterized as 'science writing'?
2. How do children appropriate an recontextualize the conventions of science writing?
   

2. Subjects, Setting, Context

Two classes of 1st grade students, suburban, majority middle class, majority white school. Classes used Family Message Journals, promoting two way communication between parents and students about classroom content.

3. Procedures (briefly)

Field notes from one hour weekly classroom participant-observations
Interviews with both teachers
Case studies on four students, including 4 sets of parents and all messages written from and to these 4 students
Researcher read and categorized writing into genres within scientific writing based on text structure and lexicogrammar.

4. Findings

Participants appropriated linguistic conventions of scientific texts flexibly and recontextualized genre elements to fit the family journal format. Kids could improvise within a genre to fit audience and situation.

5. Strengths and Weaknesses of Study

Limited sample size
Homogeneity of sample
Little data on teacher behaviors; primary focus on text alone

6. Implications

"The belief that personal ownership and self-expression must be foregrounded in teaching writing to children ignores the larger social context and functions for writing in society. Children, especially those from non-mainstream homes, must learn the mainstream genres of power to gain access to cultural capital in our society." p. 62
"Children become critically literate when they realize that texts are socially constructed, according to genre conventions, to serve specific social functions (Martin, 1998; Rothery, 1996)." p. 62

7. Other Comments
As it relates to genre-specific writing, the author identifies the consistency of the Western scientific community in the conventions of the genre of science writing (p. 36).
Scientific writing is intrinsic to the act of 'doing science'; can't teach science without teaching writing.
Theoretical background section will be especially useful.

Quoted section, from page 38:

Another strand of composition research, rooted in the Australian genre movement, has focused on empowering child writers by introducing them to socially valued genres. Within this school of thought, genres are defined as "social processes... for realizing purposes or goals through language," with language characterized by a particular test structure and lexicogrammar (Rothery, 1989, p. 221). Thus, textual and social perspectives on genre are complementary (Bazerman, 1998; Martin 1998). Genres' social functions are established through their structure and functional grammar (Bazerman, 1997, 1998; Cooper, 1999; Cope & Kalantzis, 1993; Halliday & Martin, 1993; Kamberelis, 1999; Kress, 1999; Martin, 1989). Knowing the right genre to use in a situation and knowing how to use it enhances children's power to communicate in society and participate in academic disciplines (Christie, 1989; Martin, 1989; Rothery, 1989, 1996).

Goes on to discuss differences between child-centered approaches, like whole language, and those who believe children must learn genre-specific writing so that they can gain access to discourses of power. Also discusses tension between the view that genre limits creativity and agency and the view that genre liberates and empowers writers. This whole section is great.

Cites Pappas 1991 for children asked to recreate genre-specific text.


Cites

• Cope and Kalantzis, 1993
• Kamberelis 1999
• Martin 1999
• Pappas 1991
• Pappas & Pettigrew 1998

Shine & Roser, 1999

Shine, S. & Roser, N. (1999). The role of genre in preschoolers' response to picture books. Research in the Teaching of English, 34, 197-251.

This is qualitative study describing the ways in which a small group of preschoolers responded to picture books of different genres. It doesn't relate to my lit review because it does not involve writing. However some references may be helpful:

Devitt, 1993
Dyson, 1999 (Coach Bombay)
Kamberelis 1999
Martin, 1993a
Martin, 1993b
Miller, 1984
Pappas & Pettegrew, 1998
Russell, 1997 (this one looks especially promising)

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

Basic Plots

I had a dream last night that led me to a question about recycling basic plots in TV shows. When I woke up and thought about it a little, it led me to a Google search for "100 basic television plot lines". This led me to this blog entry and subsequently to Hatch's Plot Bank.

HPB could be used to develop a tool for classroom creative writing and for camp scriptwriting.
Some of the plots listed in it wouldn't be appropriate for kids, so a derivative would have to be developed.


The blog entry suggests that there is no definitive list of TV plots, but that several people have versions of it, including:

20 Master Plots (And How to Build Them) by Ronald B Tobias

1. Quest
2. Adventure
3. Pursuit
4. Rescue
5. Escape
6. Revenge
7. The Riddle
8. Rivalry
9. Underdog
10. Temptation
11. Metamorphosis
12. Transformation
13. Maturation
14. Love
15. Forbidden Love
16. Sacrifice
17. Discovery
18. Wretched Excess
19. Ascension
20. Descension

6 stories/plots according to Stephen King (From Secret Window, Secret Garden -
Four Past Midnight)

1. Success
2. Failure
3. Love and Loss
4. Revenge
5. Mistaken Identity
6. The search for a higher power, be it God or the Devil.

Literary Conflicts

1. Person vs. Self
2. Person vs. Person
3. Person vs. Society
4. Person vs. Nature/Environment
5. Person vs. Supernatural
6. Person vs. Machine/Technology

Christopher Booker's The Seven Basic Plots

1. Overcoming the Monster
2. Rags to Riches
3. The Quest
4. Voyage and Return
5. Comedy
6. Tragedy
7. Rebirth

Georges Polti's list of 36 is also mentioned. More on this later.

Genre Research Process So Far

For this lit review, I'm researching two main bodies of work:

1. genre as it pertains to literature and writing in school, and
   
2. genre as it pertains to films and filmmaking

To begin a search for published research in the first category, I manually searched article titles for the past ten years (1999-2008) of Reading Research Quarterly (RRQ) for references to genre. I then searched the same time period in Research in the Teaching of English (RTE). I chose the ten year span because I wanted to capture the most recent research on this topic. I plan to review the references in the articles captured through this search to identify seminal pieces from before the ten year period. RRQ and RTE are top tier education research journals and should contain references to other work that will pertain.

To begin a search on the second category, I spoke to the research librarian for education at the USF library. We tried several searches, refining down to a search using Google Scholar (Advanced: contains "genre" AND exact phrase "film studies", 1999-2008). One of the articles produced from that search is Mittell 2001, published in Cinema Journal. That article referenced a book, Film/Genre by Rick Altman, which Mittell identifies as the key work done in examining genre as a discursive practice. Mittell also refers to Jane Feuer's essay in Channels of Discourse as the "most comprehensive discussion of television genre theory".


From here, I will move forward from Mittell 2001 to see what subsequent works cite him and return to the original search results. I also may do a title search, similar to those done for RRQ and RTE, in Cinema Journal and another journal suggested by the earlier search results. I also have to continue tracking down resources for the literature/writing side of the lit review.

Defining Questions of Genre

At summer camp, we teach a lot of different aspects of film-making, and story-telling in general. One that I've considered but haven't yet included in any serious way is genre. I have a sense that genre is important in the creation and viewing of mainstream movies and that a better understanding of genre will help the kids in their productions. One group this summer made a classic heist movie. It occurred to me at the time, but I never had the opportunity to talk to them in any detail about this. Understanding that they were working within an established genre might have helped them make creative choices and might have given them a better understanding of how that particular kind of story works. A lot of movies made at the camp would fall into a horror or horror/comedy genre. Others fit the action/adventure genre. Many combine one genre with elements of parody, like the techniques seen in "Scary Movie", "Epic Movie", "Another Teen Movie", etc.

The second formative moment comes from an interview with one of the campers at the end of the week. In response to a question about making movies in school, he said that they don't make movies in school. Then he corrected, "well, unless it's like, a documentary."

Filmmaking constitutes a literacy skill that is newly accessible through digital video and computers. As filmmaking moves into schools, so far it takes the form of documentary films. Video is allowed, if you are creating a documentary about photosynthesis or the Civil War or some other content-area, documentary topic. That's great, but what about narrative?

Documentary filmmaking is analogous to expository writing. So, the analog to narrative filmmaking in the classroom would be narrative writing or creative writing. If we teach kids to write stories, why don't we teach them to tell stories with film? More to the point, why should we and how do we?

I began with the following questions and rationale:

Title: Genre in Film and Genre in the Classroom

Questions
What models of genre are used in the classroom with regards to reading? With regards to writing? What models of genre exist in the field of film studies? How are classroom deployments of genre similar to narrative film deployments of genre? How are they different? What concepts about filmic genre may be successfully ported over to classroom practice?

Rationale
Video production is becoming an accepted form for student productive behavior in the classroom. So far, most of that student-produced work takes the form of documentaries, i.e. a movie about the water cycle, a video report about Martin Luther King, Jr.

If video production is going to be an accepted form of literate production in the classroom, then the range of acceptable student work needs to expand to include narrative film production. If that is the case, classroom teachers need a framework to understand, teach, and evaluate narrative film production. Part of that framework involves genre.

A rich body of research and tradition of classroom practice involves the use of genre in literature and in writing. Genre is also a well-established construct in the field of film production. Finding the ways in which film genre and literature genre coincide and the ways in which they conflict is the first step in bringing a filmic understanding of genre into the classroom.

After a discussion with Dr. S about these topics, I narrowed the focus of my questions to look at two processes of composition and their models:

How is genre enacted in literature as a model for the writing process?
How is genre enacted in film as a model for the filmmaking process?

More Notes on Mittell

Mittell, J. (2001). A cultural approach to television genre theory. Cinema Journal 40, No. 3, pp. 3-24.

For my paper, I may need to look at film and television genre separately. I want to keep a value structure for importing ideas into the classroom that includes usefulness and practicality.

"Even the most comprehensive discussion of television genre theory, Jane Feuer's essay in Channels of Discourse, ultimately concludes that genre analysis does not work as well as a paradigm for television as it has for film or literature."

Mittell identifies this essay as a first step toward a more comprehensive theory of genre for television. I need to see

1. what follows this work by him
2. and what other work cites this essay
   

Mittell identifies three traditional approaches to genre analysis:

1. definitional - looking for core elements
2. interpretation through a theoretical lens
3. historical - looking at how genres shift over time, "evolutionary dynamics"

He locates one main weakness in most genre analysis as the view of genre as a "textual attribute", a "component of text". Instead, he argues persuasively that genre is not intrinsic to texts, but that it is dependent upon intertextual connections. "Genres emerge only from the intertextual relations between multiple texts, resulting in a common category." He gives many examples, one being "The Great Train Robbery", which was originally classified as a crime film, and years later as a western. The text did not change, but the cultural discourse did and so the genre definitions shifted. He also notes that only some characteristics are used to define genre, for instance, we don't make generic differentiations between TV shows set in different cities, but we do differentiate between shows set in hospitals versus those set in police stations. We cannot understand genre by looking at sh0ws in isolation; we must look at the entire community that creates the genre - including the TV industry, fans, critics, etc. "...(T)exts themselves are insufficient to understand how genres are created, merge, evolve, or disappear. We need to look outside the texts to locate the range of sites in which genres operate, change, proliferate, and die out." (p. 7)

Genres are not timeless and unchanging. "We need to look beyond the text a the locus for genre and instead locate genres within the complex interrelations among texts, industries, audiences, and historical contexts." (p. 7) Analyzing texts is necessary, but insufficient for understanding genre.

Mittell brings in Foucault's "discursive practices" and situates this essay theoretically in line with poststructuralism.

Mittell says that to analyze genre, we need to look at "what audiences and industries say about genres, what terms and definitions circulate around any given instance of genre, and how specific cultural concepts are linked to particular genres." (p. 8) He advocates decentering the text. Instead of seeing the text as a stable object, he sees texts as "sites of discursive practice". (p. 9). He mentions mapping generic discourses. He also brings social situation and power into the discussion.

Mittell acknowledges previous work on genre as a discursive process and cites Rick Altman's book Film/Genre as the key work, described as his "influential textualist semantic/syntactic theory of genre". Mittell contrasts his work with Altman's, saying that Altman still remains too bounded by the text.

"Altman convincingly argues that the film industry promotes multiple genres around any single movie to maximize audience appeals." (p. 10). I need to look for this specifically in Altman's book. This is important to understanding genre, I think. It's also interesting to consider this in light of the parody videos on YouTube, like "Scary Mary", that repackage familiar movies in different genres.


"... genres work as discursive clusters..." p. 11

Mittell's definition of genre:

"... genres are categorical clusters of discursive processes that transect texts via their cultural interactions with industries, audiences, and broader contexts."

Mittell gives a case study in genre analysis using Michael Jackson's music videos, Billie Jean, Beat It, and Thriller. He outlines how traditional approaches might look at the texts, then how he proposes genre should be examined. In his example, he identifies many cultural influences on the work that are essential and are unaccounted for in any examination of genre that stops at the boundaries of the text.

Mittell concludes with five principles of cultural genre analysis:

1. Genre analysis should be specific to the medium, i.e. don't use film genre theory for TV
2. Genre studies must balance between the general and the specific.
3. History of genre should take discourses into account.
4. Genres have to be understood by looking at how they tie into to the larger culture.
5. Genres have to be understood within hierarchies of power within culture.
   

Notes on Mittell 2001 A Cultural Approach to TV Genre Theory

Mittell, J. (2001). A cultural approach to television genre theory. Cinema Journal 40, No. 3, pp. 3-24.

This is a theoretical essay that advocates a cultural approach to genre theory as it applies to television.

"Industries rely on genres in producing programs... self-definition... scheduling... Audiences use genres to organize fan practices... personal preferences, and everyday conversations and viewing practices." p. 3

"Importing genre theories into television studies without significant revision creates many difficulties when accounting for the specifics of the medium." p. 3

He's talking about the inadequacy of importing film genre theory into television; the same hold for importing any media studies genre theories into classroom video practice.