Before reading Bazerman I thought genre was just the topics of the books I was reading. That’s what your teacher tells you in elementary school when you go into the library. I was never thinking of speeches, assignments, or a syllabus.
Bazerman defines genre as communication, getting pe0ple to talk and how they respond. I never thought about genre as being a way of communication between people. I never realized how many genres there were other than mystery, informational, comedy, ect. After reading Bazerman I had to rethink my entire defintion of what genre was. The only similarty between my definiton and his was that it breaks up into categories.
I feel that commencment speeches have one main thing in common, they all have a similar purpose. They are given to inspire and to make you think. The speech that was given at my graduation was inspiring for the future and looking back at all of the good memories. This genre goes hand and hand with the illocutionary act where the reader or listener gets to interpret the words. Taking away what they think it should mean. In my opinion this is one of the most important areas of literature.
Haley Cunningham's Portfolio 
One reply on “Blog Entry 2”
Don’t worry I felt the same when I was told to read the article.I can agree with you for sure is that every speech has a purpose and in order to benefit from the speech all you need to do is understand that core purpose.
LikeLike