Blog #4 BBG Chapter 1

The structured guidelines provided in Chapter 1 of the BBG really gave me a much more solid understanding of what genre is. It is generally difficult for me to think in the gray areas, as I my brain tends to see things very black and white. I am used to being able to categorize and structure things so that they make more sense to me. After reading that genre is something much more abstract and fluid, I was a bit overwhelmed and concerned that I would not get it. But, after reading through the rest of the chapter, the book did a very good job of attempting to break down exactly what a genre is and how to determine it. It showed a logical process (sort of a who/what/where/when/why) that you can use to break down the different aspects of genre and showed how it all fits together. I also found it particularly helpful that the book included various examples of texts along with a sample breakdown using the method described earlier in the reading. The last example involving the girl who was writing for school was particularly helpful in relation to this class because it explained how to use genre while writing academic papers or essays for college. I will definitely refer to this example as I am working on developing my projects for this class.