household items and then sell the book
at a local home goods store, using the
proceeds to start a recycling program at
their school (Duke, Caughlan, Juzwik,
& Martin, 2011).
To engage students in reading and
writing for real-world reasons, ask
yourself these questions:
(See Duke, Purcell-Gates, Hall, &
Tower, 2006/2007 for tools to use when
observing classrooms with similar ques-
tions in mind.)
It might seem as though certain types
of texts—for example, complex fiction
and biographies—wouldn’t lend themselves to genre-with-purpose projects.
However, we have seen teachers use
fiction texts within purpose-driven
genre projects. For example, one middle
school teacher read a range of such
texts with students in preparation for
writing fiction narratives that were to
be donated to a local pediatrician’s
office. Another group of students read
We mistakenly teach comprehension
strategies generically, as though they apply
in the same way to every type of text.
a range of fiction narrative texts and
then wrote persuasive letters advocating
for a particular text to be selected for a
one-book, one-school initiative. A third
teacher engaged middle school students
in reading published biographies as
they researched and wrote biographies
about respected people of color in the
community to be included in a book
distributed to local schools.
Principle 2: Teach genre features
and their functions.
Providing students with experience
using genres and their features for
real-world purposes is certainly an
important step. But it’s also helpful to
teach specific features. For example,
research suggests that teaching young
children specific story elements, such as
character, setting, and problem, can be
valuable (Baumann & Bergeron, 1993;
Gersten, Fuchs, Williams, & Baker,
2001).
Teaching genre features requires
deeper understanding of genre than
many of us developed in preservice or
inservice teacher education. Taking time
to study and reflect on the features of
genres you want your students to read
and write can go a long way. You may
recognize, for example, that dramatic
texts—a set of genres referenced in
the common core state standards 47
times!—often have protagonists (one or
more characters with whom the reader
identifies), as well as antagonists (those
in opposition to the protagonists). They
have beginning conflicts, climaxes, reso-
lutions, dialogue as the majority of the
text, cast lists, and stage directions in
italics.
