Mariah McCurry
I really enjoyed how Kerry Dirks started her essay of with a
bit of humor. This little piece made the piece seem entertaining as well as
prefaced the rest of her writing to not be so by the textbook informational. She
goes on to expose her component of ethos. Dirks talks about her struggle when
trying to figure out exactly how she should format her informative peace based
off of her audience, composition students. She explains that although she is a
writer she does not know everything and she her struggled with writing in a new
genre. In addition to including a bit of her personal experience with writing and
genres, Kerry Dirks explains the upbringing and everchanging ideas of genres.
Dirks explains Lloyd Bitzer’s ideology of a new genre arising from people
beginning a domino effect of responses that are based off the format or idea
from a previous response. Overall, the idea of genre began from generalization
of reoccurring themes and responses to those themes. Knowing what genre one
wants to write in creates a starting point as to wear his or her piece will
begin. On the other side of compositions, readers are also helped when
understanding the genre they are experiencing. Identifying the genre may allow
a reader to better understand the composer as well as understand the composer’s
purpose for producing the his or her piece.
Understanding the ethos used in this essay starts your discussion off strong. Speaking on Kerry's struggle helps make her relatable to the audience she is targeting - and how she goes about speaking to her audience. You give a nice overview of genre from both perspectives - the writer and his/her audience.
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