Teaching Genre Knowledge
Start with Immersion-Do a Book Flood
Before providing explicit instruction on the genre, gather texts within the genre of study. Allow students to browse books to answer the question "What the genre?" Have students locate similarities, differences, and make inferences about characteristics of the genre. Make sure students can explain how the texts in this genre are different from texts in other genres. Also be sure to provide a variety of forms within each genre (i.e. newspaper, article, song, email, blog post) for students to explore.
Create Genre Charts
Create an anchor chart to "anchor" knowledge about the elements and text structures of the genre being studied. On the anchor chart, help students to generate a definition of the genre and list the elements of the genre. Ask students to provide examples and non-examples.
Use YouTube
Use a short YouTube video as a "text" for the genre of study. Have students analyze the video for genre elements and provide evidence from the video supports their conclusions. Superbowl commercials are great videos to use as texts to build excitement and get students engaged. Visit our YouTube channel for videos we've selected as great genre videos.