Using Genre to Bridge Research, Professional Writing, and Public Writing at University of North Dakota: A Program Profile

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay

This program profile explains how genre pedagogy and public writing pedagogy can inform each other through a second-semester composition course at University of North Dakota. The course uses ENGL 130 to treat genre as a rhetorical bridge connecting research, professional, and public writing assignments on contemporary issues of public interest. Students work within a simulated genre system to rehearse public discourse, practice critical genre awareness, and produce collaborative community projects and reflective rhetorical analyses.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages11

Reading Time28 min

AccessFree to download

Composition Forum 36, Summer 2017

Using Genre to Bridge Research, Professional Writing, and Public Writing at University of North Dakota: A Program Profile

Genre as a Rhetorical Bridge in ENGL 130

Genre Simulations and Community Partnerships

Genre Pedagogy for Simulation Success

Current Issue From the Editors Weblog Editorial Board Editorial Policy Submissions Archives Accessibility Search Composition Forum 36, Summer 2017 Using Genre to Bridge Research, Professional Writing, and Public Writing at University of North Dakota: A Program Profile Christopher Basgier Abstract: To illustrate how genre pedagogy and public writing pedagogy can inform one another, this program profile describes the second-semester composition course at University of North Dakota, ENGL 130: College Composition II: Writing for Public Audiences. In this course, genre works as a rhetorical bridge across an interlinked sequence of research, professional, and public writing assignments focused on a contemporary topic of public interest. The course maintains a public orientation throughout: as a simulated genre system, the course constitutes a protopublic, or a rhetorical space in which students can learn about public debates, rehearse public discourses, and prepare for future performances of public genres with rhetorical awareness in their repertoire. In the introduction to their recent collection, Genre and the Performance of Publics, Mary Jo Reiff and Anis Bawarshi contend that rhetorical genre studies (RGS) has examined genres in “relatively bounded” academic and workplace contexts, at the expense of attention to the “less predictable,”“more diffuse” generic activities at play in public contexts (4) . To account for this oversight, they call for research that places RGS and public sphere scholarship in dialogue so that each might illuminate the other. Following Reiff and Bawarshi’s suggestion that this dialogue “can contribute to research on and the teaching of public discourse”(5), writing instructors and writing program administrators (WPAs) might be interested in how genre pedagogy and public writing pedagogy fit into the conversation, too. Genre pedagogy and public writing pedagogy share some important similarities. Genre pedagogy promotes students’awareness of genres as typified social and rhetorical actions. While it must by necessity teach students specific genres, its wider goal is to help them learn, and perhaps change, any genre they may encounter. Amy J. Devitt calls this critical genre awareness, or “a conscious attention to genres and their potential influences on people and the ability to consider acting differently within genres”(“Teaching” 347) . In a similar vein, public writing pedagogy asks students to analyze, critique, participate in, and perhaps change public discourses. Many public writing assignmentsand courses introduce students to “written discourse that attempts to engage an audience of local, regional, or national groups or individuals in order to bring about progressive social change,” according to Christian R. Weisser (90) . Both pedagogies, in other words, seek to trace and transform rhetorical praxis. Both pedagogies can wield a critical edge, too, when they draw students’ attention to the ways discourses and genres include and exclude certain participants from public, professional, and disciplinary debates. Given these similarities, genre pedagogy and public writing pedagogy seem to be natural allies. To illustrate this alliance, I will profile the second-semester composition course that I helped develop as the Academic Director of Composition{1} at University of North Dakota. In ENGL 130: College Composition II: Writing for Public Audiences, genre works as a rhetorical bridge across an interlinked sequence of research, professional, and public writing assignments focused on a contemporary topic of public interest, such as food, poverty, sustainability, or globalization. During the semester, students act as concerned citizens who must investigate the course topic globally, nationally, and locally. Through this investigation, they develop a collaborative community project that addresses a relevant local problem or issue. They write many genres in the process, including annotate

FAQs

Why does the profile defend the use of simulations in public writing classrooms?

It acknowledges simulations are often limited approximations of real-world writing, yet argues they can still be valuable in contexts where community partnerships are difficult to obtain. Simulations help students imagine partnerships and develop innovative rhetorical approaches.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by jay