Concepts of

Print and
Genre

Authored by Nell K. Duke for TE 301

With modifications by Meagan K.
Shedd
Summer 2009
 Genre
• Traditionally the term genre has referred to
type or form of artistic expression. People
would talk about different artistic genres,
different musical genres, different literary
genres, and so on. The focus tended to be on
common features among texts of a particular
genre.
• More recently, discussions of genre emphasize
recurring social contexts that give rise to the
need for particular types of text. Genre is seen
as defined primarily by the purpose of a text,
with the features of the text following from its
purpose.

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Genre
• There are many different social contexts and
purposes for text. And thus there are many
different text genres.
• Consider a trip to the grocery store. We see
text used to:
• signal (e.g., signs indicating sections of the store)
• label (e.g., labels on food products)
• advertise (e.g., the weekly circular)
• inform (e.g., nutrition labels on products)
• advertise and entitle (e.g., as with coupons)
• and more

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Genres at Home and at School

From Duke & Purcell-Gates, 2003

• Children encounter many genres at
home, and many genres at school.

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 Importance of Genre
• Success in school and beyond requires the
ability to understand and to write particular
genres, such as personal narrative text and
nonfiction informational text.
• Just because a child is knowledgeable about one
genre does not mean he/she is knowledgeable
about another.
• Instruction in one genre does not necessarily
transfer to another.
• Thus, we need to be recognize genre
development as an important aspect of literacy
development.

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 Genre Development
• Written genre development can begin
very early.

A Shopping List and A Story

Hannah, Age 3, from Harste, Woodward, & Burke, 1984, p. 157
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Birthday List, Letter, Map, Story Page by Stephanie, prior
to first grade,
from Harste, Woodward, and Burke, 1984, p. 84

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Genre Development
• Assuming exposure and/or instruction, children
develop more sophisticated understandings of and
knowledge about specific genres over time.
• With unfamiliar genres, children may demonstrate
genre confusion. For example:
• I once had a child pretend to read a how to text (e.g.,
about how to do an experiment) as a story.
• Another time I had a child who was asked to pretend
to read an information book ask me “Can I say ‘Once
upon a time’?”
• It is agreed, though, that young children can
handle a wide range of genres if given exposure to
them.

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 Genre in Dramatic Play
• Dramatic play is one context in which
teachers may try to develop genre
knowledge.
• In the following slides are some genres
you might find with particular dramatic
play themes.

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From Bennett-Armistead, Duke, & Moses, 2005 10
From Bennett-Armistead, Duke, & Moses, 2005 11
From Bennett-Armistead, Duke, & Moses, 2005 12
 The Genre “Diet”
• Children are offered disproportionately
little exposure to genres beyond
narrative texts (Duke, 2000;
Kamberelis, 1998)
• Researchers call for genre
diversification (Duke, 2007)
– 1/3 Narrative
– 1/3 Informational
– 1/3 “other”

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Genre Selection

• 450 books from children’s section of

the library, coded based on genre
– Narrative
– Informational
– Other

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Narrative
• Narrative text included books with the key
elements of characters, settings (place
and time), problems, events, and solutions
(Baumann & Bergeron, 1993).
• This category included wordless picture
books that met these criteria using
illustrations or photographs, traditional
narratives or storybooks, mysteries,
narrative books with a pattern, historical
fiction, folktales, fairytales, and myths,
and books based on popular media.
• Of the 440 books, 317 books were coded
in this category, or 72.05%.

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Informational
• Informational text consisted of texts that were
written with the primary purpose of conveying
information about the natural and social world,
typically from someone presumed to be more
knowledgeable on the subject to someone
presumed to be less so (Duke, 2003).
• This category included expository text, procedural
text, persuasive text, concept books, and wordless
picture books that used lifelike illustrations or
photographs for which meaning did not depend
upon chronology.
• Of the 440 total books coded, 59 books, or 13.41%
were in the informational category.

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Other
• The Other category encompassed all text types
that do not meet the criteria for informational or
narrative texts.
• This category includes poetry, songbooks, books
that are based on or are nursery rhymes, graphic
novels, activity books, biographies,
autobiographies, and books that did not fit into any
of the genre sub-categories within this category or
the narrative or informational categories. The
Other category also included any book that was a
hybrid of more than one genre if there was not a
genre that was clearly dominant.
• Within this category, 64 books of the 440 total
books were coded as Other, or 14.55% of the total
sample.

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Putting it all in Action

• Centers
– Concepts of Print Assessment
– Genre Definitions
– Genre Sorting
– Home Genres
– Book Bag Genres
– Field Notes Tradeoff

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