Teaching Genres

In thinking about the types of genres that I have taught, I can’t help but realize how many there are that I have not even considered. We have done several visual ones (collages, illustrations, comic strips, different forms of art) and a good amount of narrative (haiku, cinquain, letters, diaries, scientific writing, etc). But, I do a pretty sizeable unit on traditional literature (legends, myths, fairy tales, fables). We are just coming up on fairy tales and I think it would be fun to try the CD cover and advice column as part of this unit. I am thinking about giving students the choice of CD of DVD cover. For the CD cover, they could make up titles of songs that might be included in a movie or play based on a fairy tale of their choice. For the DVD cover, they could illustrate a movie inset. I was also thinking that they could make movie posters with posted showing times and use these to help talk about elapsed time. As for the advice columns, I think we can come up with a list of problems that characters in the fairy tales experience (nasty step-mothers, too many chores, huffing-puffing wolves). Students would work in pairs – one could write a letter seeking advice for the problem and the other could give the advice. I am trying to figure out how to incorporate this idea into a classroom newspaper (lots of great ideas for headlines – “Three Pigs Forced to Relocate,” social column “The Prince is Giving a Ball, and real estate – “Darling Gingerbread/Candy cottage for Sale – Must See to Believe.” Lots of good ideas from these sites/articles.