Daniella Trevino
Professor Williams
Writing 2
5 October 2019
PB1A
The genre of a school textbook is to teach and help people understand what the material is about. A chemistry textbook follows these conventions and has two main purposes. To explain the history of how a certain thing like an equation came to be and to teach the audience. In this case, the audience is directed towards a student in a chemistry class. The writing style is formal and has no sort of slang. The textbook’s tone is omniscient and stays consistent throughout. The writing is also broken up into chapters and sections. At the end of each chapter, there are questions that the student can answer to further help them understand the material.
A horror movie’s genre and purpose are to disturb or at least scare whoever is watching it within a certain time frame. The targeted audience of these movies ranges between teenagers to adults. The speaking in the film would be casual and not very strict or complex so that most people can understand what is happening. One of the main purposes is to frighten the viewers to the point that their heart will start pumping rapidly and even trigger a flight and fight response. The way in which the horror movie can achieve these goals is broad in that jump scares or a slower horrifying scene can be used as long as a spine-chilling feeling is present.
A realistic fiction novel would have a plot that was completely fabricated but could possibly happen. These books would also never include anything fantasy related like the main character being a witch. The purpose of these books is to serve as a sort of entertainment and the targeted audience can range from children to adults. Because of, this the books that fall in this particular genre are not particularly restricted. It sticks to the usual conventions in that it is broken up into chapters and the progress of the plot stays within these chapters. The books also have a brief description of the plot somewhere on it.
A political news article from The New York Times tries to provide information about the current political state of America and anything else that could be related to the subject. Some of the conventions that the articles follow are it's usually a couple pages long, has a formal writing style, and an omniscient tone. In other words, the purpose of the article is to be informational and the author must not try to impose or sway the audience in a particle belief. The indented viewers are young adults and the elderly. The writing style is formal and not casual.
The book Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson is an example of realistic fiction that is directed towards young adults. The novel strictly follows the conventions of only being about a situation that could happen in the real world and provides entertainment to its views by presenting a problem that the main character has. According to the plot description “Lia and Cassie are best friends…competitors in a deadly contest to see who can be the thinnest” (Anderson). Through out the novel, it is revealed how Lia battles with her anorexia and death of her friend. Just from this description, it is clear that it falls in the realistic fiction genre because it has a character that has to deal with some real-life situations and does not have anything to do with fantasy. What separates it from non-fiction is that although this could very well happen to someone, it didn’t and the story is fabricated by the author.
I appreciate your organization skills in explaining each genres and then going out on using a specific example on a realistic fiction. One thing I wish I had seen more of though is more conventions listed in your last paragraph. You did a great job on explaining how the fabricated story from Winter Girls can be a real life situation but I definitely think there are more conventions that the story carries about a realistic fiction. In the third paragraph, the one that gave the brief overview of the realistic genre, you mentioned how the plot can be "broken into chapters and the progress of the plot stays within these chapters." I totally agree on that and I wished you had written something about the intervention between the plot and chapters in your example of Winter Girls. The genre that you seem to have a firm grip on is the textbook one. You were able to state it's purpose, audience, tone, and even provide an quick example.
ReplyDeleteI greatly enjoyed your overall format of the post and especially how in depth you went with each genre. I personally loved your description of the horror genre, and I could definitely piece the conventions together in my mind. I thought it was great how you first explained the purpose of a horror movie, then the audience, and finally how a horror movie uses certain features to translate emotions into its audience. Each point you mentioned was spot on, and I could imagine in my mind a horror movie based on all of the conventions you explained. I personally have watched many horror movies, and I can definitely relate to the heart pumping, flight-or-flight feeling that is always present throughout the movie. Your description of what makes a horror movie a horror movie is very accurate, and I thought you were great at explaining it. Overall, your post was very detailed and very accurate.
ReplyDeleteI really like your explanations about each genre. Especially, you not only describe each genre, but also list their conventions, their audiences, and their purposes. Also, I think you make a good connection between the example you used, “Wintergirls”, and the conventions of the realistic fiction genre. You explained the audience of the fiction and the thing that happened in the fiction is a situation that could happen in the real world. I wish you can talk about how this example has broken up into chapters and how they separate the progress of the plot within these chapters. Moreover, I think you can talk about how those brief descriptions of the plot help the writer to achieve his purpose. Overall, I think it is a really good example to use to talk about the realistic fiction genre, and I really agree with your idea about the audience and purpose of the book.
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