WORKING THROUGH DISCOURSE GENRES IN SCHOOL

In this essayist paper I explore the possible benefits of placing cons iderations of genre as more central to dialogues and debates about lan guage arts education. I begin by discussing various strands of the gen re instruction movement, a theoretical and pedagogical emphasis on gen re that has emerged in part as a critique of more progressivist pedago gies like whole language. I then move to considering a possible critic al synthesis of whole language pedagogies and an explicit emphasis an genre. I do so through theoretical considerations of what it means to engage in a discourse, relying largely on some philosophical writings (e.g., the writings of Mikhail Bakhtin). In the final sections of this paper I turn to more empirically-grounded reflections. I consider the ways in which one first grade teacher helped a non-middle class learn er to engage more deeply with science discourse genres. Throughout the paper I attempt to construct a theoretical framework that emphasizes the responsive and agentive engagement of students working through dis ciplinary literacies. Such a framework mediates between the emphasis i n whole language pedagogies on the personal meaning of texts to learne rs and the greater emphasis in genre instruction pedagogies on the rol e of empowering social texts in affording learners access to school-ba sed literacies.