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Eric Grzelak Professor Leslie Wolcott ENC 1102 September 18, 2013 Genre Analysis In film a genre is a descriptor of what is to come, when presented with a horror genre movie you are ready to be scared and when presented with a comedy you come prepared to laugh. Not unlike the specific boundaries placed around films, texts have there own form of genres, when presented with a novel you prepare to relax and enjoy the text, where as if your presented with a spread sheet you prepare to carefully analyze. Carolyn Miller defines genre as Genres are not just forms. Genres are forms of life, ways of being. They are frames for social action locations within which meaning is constructed. Genres shape the thoughts we form and the communications by which we interact. Genres are the familiar places we go to create intelligible communicative action with each other and the guideposts we use to explore the unfamiliar (quoted in Bawarshi, Devit, and Reiff). While I cannot began to approach the level of elegance Carolyn Miller shows in defining genres. I can provide a unique perspective to support her claims that genres establish ways of life, shape thoughts, and most importantly guideposts to explore the unfamiliar. To further the connection and provide evidence for the claims made I will use a rhetorical community familiar to myself and quite easily available, the US Army. My personal connection is as a contracted cadet in my second of four years of training, I am by no means an established veteran of the community able to decipher, recite codes, regulations, and appendixes at ease. This however does not necessarily come as a negative, being familiar but not regimented allows me to look at the format and content with understanding, but with almost no passive

1. Grzelak ! understatement. The first claim made by Carolyn is that genres establish ways of life. This is a very broad claim and maybe the most difficult to elaborate upon. When claiming that ways of life are being established strong evidence must be provided. Perhaps in a smaller less impactful community such as a yoyo club or a shoe lace weaving lover association hard evidence would be impossible to dig up, this is not the case in the rhetorical situation provided by the Army. Addressing rank and orders of command is perhaps the most important formative process the Army uses. When looking at a member of the rhetorical group you instantly know who is in charge and who is not. The evidence is spelled neatly in the form of a rank insignia on the chest as well as the patrol cap. No one with plans to stick around confuses the order of command. (Before reading on, the Army is for the purpose of this conversation a community of three chastes. The officers at the top (college graduates only), below that noncommissioned Officerss (men with usually 10+ years of service), and at the bottom is everyone else.) Grabbing a field manuel, the Armys equivalent to a dictionary and a Bible put together, you can scroll through and find homages to rank everywhere but for the purpose of simplicity going to the section on rank the rhetoric clearly describes the noncommissioned officer as a nearly god like entity to be worshiped upon approach and Sunday. FM 7-22 opens with, Noncommissioned officers are the backbone of the Army and the reason our Army is the best trained, most professional, and most respected in the world. No time is wasted in establishing the severe respect NCOs require and demand. Everywhere you go you see an NCO, they are very much a part of your existence. Being a part of everyday life very much this rhetoric provided by the field manuel clearly provides support for Carolyns claim of establishing a way of life. Her next claim is that rhetoric shapes thoughts. When talking to an army member and you

1. Grzelak ! mention the word ranger(rangers are extremely well trained soldiers who operate on large scale every infantry man should aspire to) instantly in their head they recite lead the way. Everyone in the community knows this because it is so conditioned into their mind its not a choice. Even I have fallen to ranger-fever, given up my aspirations for engineering or perhaps becoming a pilot, changing to a criminal justice major, lightening my class difficulties to allow for more time to run and do pushups, the staples of rangers. Breading intense competition for entrance into a separate sect of the community is not the only example of thought shaping. Sometimes a subtle push towards advanced infantry is replaced with a firm statement to eliminate choice and expedite response uniformly. A very obvious shaping of your thoughts in the Armys field manuel is this extremely pointent section on addressing broken bones in the field. This excerpt is a bit long, but in order to understand the expected and desired response the Army wants of its soldiers you must look at entire sections of basic text.

BONE AND JOINT INJURY 4-52. You could face bone and joint injuries that include fractures, dislocations, and sprains. Follow the steps explained below for each injury.

FRACTURES 4-53. There are basically two types of fractures: open and closed. With an open (or compound) fracture, the bone protrudes through the skin and complicates the actual fracture with an open wound. Any bone protruding from the wound should be cleaned with an antiseptic and kept moist. You should splint the injured area and

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continually monitor blood flow past the injury. Only reposition the break if there is no blood flow.

4-54. The closed fracture has no open wounds. Follow the guidelines for immobilization and splint the fracture.

4-55. The signs and symptoms of a fracture are pain, tenderness, discoloration, swelling deformity, loss of function, and grating (a sound or feeling that occurs when broken bone ends rub together).

4-56. The dangers with a fracture are the severing or the compression of a nerve or blood vessel at the site of fracture. For this reason minimum manipulation should be done, and only very cautiously. If you notice the area below the break becoming numb, swollen, cool to the touch, or turning pale, and the victim showing signs of shock, a major vessel may have been severed. You must control this internal bleeding. Reset the fracture and treat the victim for shock and replace lost fluids.

4-57. Often you must maintain traction during the splinting and healing process. You can effectively pull smaller bones such as the arm or lower leg by hand. You can create traction by wedging a hand or foot in the V-notch of a tree and pushing against the tree with the other extremity. You can then splint the break.

4-58. Very strong muscles hold a broken thighbone (femur) in

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place making it difficult to maintain traction during healing. You can make an improvised traction splint using natural material.

This text has a obvious first purpose, its telling you how to address a broken bone. There is a second reasoning behind how they phrase everything into logical steps in order. They are attempting to ingrain into you the panic free method of doing things one at a time and preventing solders from locking up when seeing multiple injuries on a friend. Carolyn Millers claim that rhetoric establishes ways of thinking holds true in a very serious way here, rhetoric not only shapes thinking here but can also lead to lives being saved. The final claim made by Miller is that rhetoric acts as guideposts to explore the unfamiliar. In simple english that translates to, helping people learn. This might be the most critical thing a rhetorical community can provide. Its extremely easy to find because its almost everywhere, from the format to the lexicon. Everything is set up to expedite learning in the exact area of study. In the army the most important thing you must be able to handle is, your feet. No matter if your in the heat of a desert or the trenches of a frozen wasteland you must take care of your feet. In the cold they will lose warmth and become victim to trench foot or worse frostbite, in the heat they can become carriers of fungus or blister from abrasion. When first introduced to boots depending on how nice your instructors are they may tell you basic information to take care of your feet while in the field. It is spelled out in the field manuel just like everything else you may need to know. This is the guidepost Miller is speaking of, using this tool you can learn, and expand upon what you know. A truly effective rhetorical source for learning has a preexisting agreed upon format and by contrast a non-effective source has no format. The Army is a very effective teacher in that it lets you know where the information is in the beginning of the manuel

1. Grzelak ! and has an established method within the sections. Rhetorical situations present themselves all the time, understanding how a genre opperates is critical to fully absorb all the information given. No matter how smart you may be if you dont understand the operating principles of a genre, your going to be stuck in mud unable to progress forward in the topic.

Works Cited

. N.p.. Web. 23 Sep 2013. <http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/ active_fm.html>. (FM 21-76) (FM34-52) (FM21-18) Bawarshi, , Devitt, and Reiff. "Material and Genre." . MTCE, n.d. Web.

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23 Sep 2013. <https://webcourses.ucf.edu/courses/986394/files/ 30539569?module_item_id=6535467>.!