Understanding Genres

When I originally think of genre I automatically began to think about music like, Rap, R&B, Country and etc. The Bedford Book of Genres defines genres as a composition’s kind, category, or sort. Basically that means, genre is the way you categorize things based on previous things that are similar. This means genre does not necessarily have anything to do with music. The Bitzer essay, basically defines genre the same as The Bedford Book of Genres just worded it differently. Kerry Dirk in The "Navigating Genre" essay on the other hand went on to say that genre is much more than how you categorize things but it is also how you expand on previous authors that faced similar problems as you and use their solutions and ideas as a guide to overcome your own problems. The last genre that I composed would have to be a blog genre for this class where I answer questions based on readings and my interpretation of the readings. The one blog was on a rhetorical situation based on my favorite song and I had to go and analyze my favorite song and find what I thought to be the purpose, the rhetorical appeals and audience of the song and share my thoughts within the blog.