It’s been 17 years since the original publication of Schlosser’s work. If we view Fast Food Nation as a piece of investigative reporting, meant to inform its audience and spur action, do you think it was effective at doing so at the time it was first published? If Schlosser were to have set out to publish this work now, would it be effective in creating change in the fast food industry? What if you were to change the genre in which the information was presented? How might the effect/impact of Fast Food Nation be different if presented in the form of a YouTube video, an Instagram page, a Buzzfeed listical, a series of posters in a school cafeteria, etc? What I’m asking here is how might the message of Fast Food Nation be more effectively brought into 2018? Prompt #2: GENRES AND THEIR CONVENTIONS Genres are more than just rigid categories (like the sections in your iTunes library or your Netflix page). Genres can be flexible, living categories of “texts” that help readers

FIRST: The traditional conventions of a genre help us understand how people typically compose in a space, what voice, tone, or word choice they use; what organization structure is common; what types of multimedia elements are expected and/or not expected; how research is included and in what ways it’s incorporated; what role visuals, colors, and images play, etc.. It’s a bit longer than our traditional reading, but this article helps you understand current genre theory in a clear, articulate manner. It gives us an understanding of genres as changing and evolving, especially in social media spaces, and it provides some strategies for genre analysis; please read through this resource from Kerry Dirk, author of Writing Spaces: Readings on Writing: http://www.parlorpress.com/pdf/dirk–navigating-genres.pdf For example, here is a resource that talks about genre conventions in some sample online spaces: http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Rhetoric_and_Composition/Advice_for_Writing_in_Various_Venues_on_the_Web SECOND: Every text is part of an evolving genre with evolving conventions; actually everything has a genre and accompanying conventions. Each of your texts (FB, Twitter, Instagram, Buzzfeed, product packaging, viral video, letter to the editor, informational pamphlet, etc.) has its own genre and thus its own conventions, or standard rules and practices for composing in those spaces and creating those types of texts. Consider the text you are creating and reflect on the following genre analysis questions: What is your genre, and does it affect what content you can or should include? Objective information? Researched source material? Your own opinions? Personal experience? Does your genre call for any specific strategies? Profiles, for example, usually include some narration; lab reports often explain a process. Does your genre require a certain organization? Most proposals, for instance, first identify a problem then offer a solution. Some genres leave room for choice. Business letters delivering good news might be organized differently than those making sales pitches. Does your genre affect your tone? An abstract of a scholarly paper calls for a different tone than a memoir. Should your words sound serious and scholarly? Brisk and to the point? Objective? Opinionated? Sometimes your genre affects the way you communicate your stance. Does the genre require formal (or informal) language? A letter to the mother of a friend asking for a summer job in her bookstore calls for more formal language than does an email to the friend thanking them for the lead. Do you have a choice of medium? Some genres call for print; others for an electronic medium. Sometimes you have a choice: a resume, for instance, can be mailed (in which case it must be printed), or it may be emailed. Some teachers want reports turned in on paper; other prefer than they be emailed or posted to a class website. If you’re not sure what medium you can use, ask. Does your genre have any design requirements? Some genres call for paragraphs; other require lists. Some require certain kinds of fonts. Different genres call for different design elements. THIRD: Use the resources posted above to talk about the texts you are creating and their genres. Talk about what each genre’s conventions are and about all the things/media/modes you can include in that space. Consider every function your space and genre allows for (affords for) and how you might use all those available affordances to communicate your message. (Can you include an image, text, sound, video, hyperlink, hashtags, profile descriptions, surveys, research…?) As Dirk’s reading suggests, perhaps you can look at other texts in your genre to help with this analysis. The bottom line is that you need to know all the ways others have composed in these spaces and genres and all the possible options you have (both with textual and visual rhetoric) to make your argument.