WRITING GENRES

The Two Main Genres of Writing

 

Writing Genre: NARRATIVE

Narrative writing is used to tell a story using story structure for the purpose of entertaining.

Narrative Subgenres or Forms:

  • adventure stories

  • folktales

  • legends

  • fables

  • fantasy

  • realistic fiction

  • personal narrative

  • myth

  • etc.


Writing Genre: INFORMATIONAL

Within Informational we also have explanatory and procedural types of writing. Procedural writing is used to learn how to do something written for the purpose of teaching a process. Explanatory writing is used to develop or communicate expertise, truth, or fact. Written for the purpose of teaching about the natural or social world.

Procedural Writing Subgenres or Forms:

  • how to

  • recipe

  • list

  • brochure

  • oral report

  • essay

  • poster

  • etc.

Explanatory Writing Subgenres or Forms:

  • brochure

  • oral report

  • essay

  • encyclopedia entry

  • fact sheet/card

  • poster

  • etc.

Persuasive/Opinion

Persuasive/Opinion writing is used to convince the reader to take action or change their thinking in some way. Statements of fact for and against the argument can be posed as well as rebuttals.

This type of writing can be either narrative or informational while still being persuasive/opinion writing. 

Ex. A friendly letter is a narrative text and it could be persuasive in that is convinces the reader to take action or change their thinking.

Any forms of writing from either genre can be used to write persuasive/opinion writing.

Types of Writing that can Cross Genres

Hybrid Texts

Hybrid texts have elements of both narrative and informational text within the one text. Their structure is not clearly one or the other, but a hybrid of the two.

Ex. Autobiographies and biographies are usually narrative in structure, yet they often convey information. These texts are usually considered to be hybrid texts as they have elements of both narrative and information. However their structure is primarily narrative structure and so the CCSS consider them to be narrative writing. 

Writing is not handwriting.

Writing is not handwriting. Handwriting is part of letter knowledge and the formation of the letters. Writing is conveying your thoughts in meaningful ways for others to read for many purposes in many forms.