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Jalen Smalls

Rebecca Watkins

ENC 2135

30 November, 2020

ENC 2135 Reflection

Throughout the course of this class, I have really expanded my definition of genre. For a

long time, whenever we discussed “genres”, I would always ask myself “how are we discussing

styles that books are written in without reading books?”. It took me a while to realize that genre,

in the context of this course, referred to media outlets. Genres are just different ways to relay

information which changes to fit the needs of the situation. Through project three, I was able to

further my grasp on that concept and explore different genres so that I may relay my message

more effectively.

For project one, I struggled with what to write my paper on. The assignment was to

investigate into our future careers and choose and certain topic to dive further into. I choose to

write about what it is like to be a student in my field but I had trouble finding the correct sources.

For the most part, I did not know what it was that I was looking for. I had been surrounded by

music since the 6th grade so I thought I already knew what it would be like when I went to

college for music. As it turns out, I did not know everything there was to be a music education

student. Not only did this assignment give me a reason to look further into what being a student

in the music education field was like, but also where I can go to easily find good quality articles.

I was originally looking for articles on google but most of the ones I found were either not quite

the right topic or I could tell that it was not a reliable source to use for this project. If it were not
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for this assignment, I do not think I would have had a reason to go looking through the library

database.

Project two was a bit tougher for me but I taught me more about analysis of the use of

different genres. Since this whole class was geared more towards research about our future

careers, I struggled with finding enough sufficient material to produce quality work. Regardless

of this, project two made me really think about the different uses for genres and how they can

evoke different reactions based on the form that they are in. When someone is trying to play on

an audience’s emotions, they would not use a cartoon or something else that makes light of a

situation that can be more serious.

For project three, I put the information about genres that I learned about from project two

into action. Analyzing what makes different genres impactful helped me figure out which genres

I should use to relay my message. Also, being able to view my genres from a opposing

perspective and admit that it may not relay the message effectively helped strengthen the genres I

choose. Realizing that my methods of persuasion may not have reached every audience I aimed

for was just a part of my growth and learning how to pick genres that are best for my topic.