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== =Welcome to RAL 321's Genre Project =

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A wiki is a collaborative website; several authors write content for the site at the same time. Designing and adding content to a wiki does not require that you know how to write html code or have a strong background in web design. Instead, adding content to a wiki is much like creating a word document. Students and teachers use wikis in order to facilitate collaborative writing and research projects.=====

What is the purpose of the genre project?
Students need exposure to a variety of genres while in school. Many students gain exposure through the different content areas. Students read experiments, procedural text, and experiments in Science, word problems and expository texts in Math, biographies, folk tales, and newspapers in Social Studies, narratives, graphic novels, and poetry in English Language Arts, and Internet sites in virtually every content area. Moreover, many genres span across content areas. For example, biographies can be read in every content area.

Each genre has unique characteristics which define it. Students need to know the purpose, the text structure (framework), and the main elements included in a genre because this knowledge will prepare them to be successful in comprehending the text. Giving students a graphic organizer which contains the text structure elements can help students see what types of information they can expect to read about as they go through the text. Students can use these organizers to record information as they read or to record and plan ideas as they write.

In addition, to exposing students to a variety of genres and their characteristics as a way to support comprehension and writing, including a variety of genres in your classroom can spice up your class library. When introducing a text set on Mexico, teachers can include expository texts on the culture, people, geography, but they can also include recipe books (procedural texts), biographies, poetry, folk tales, newspaper articles, and Internet sites. It is clear to see that including these various genres can expand students' perspective on a topic and can make the topic more interesting to explore.

How can we use wikis in elementary school?
Even though you as college students are creating this wiki, this same type of project can be completed at the elementary school level. Teachers can divide a topic into sections and assign groups to a specific area. For example, if the topic was poetry, each group could be assigned one type of figurative language. Students would be charged with defining the figurative language, providing some examples, and highlighting how a poet used the technique in a poem. They could create a wiki page to display their knowledge.

In addition, students can use the wiki page you created. If you are exposing students to a specific genre, you could have them do a webquest which includes going to your wiki page about that genre. Or, you could have them read the wiki page about your genre and give them a reading guide to accompany their reading.

Getting Started
1. Accept email invitation to join. 2. Log on at: http://ral-321-genre-project-spring-2010.wikispaces.com/ 3. Remember to save your password and bookmark this site. Once you log in you can start editing.

Your Tasks: 1. Figure out how to write and save on your page. Write a brief outline of what you hope will go on your page. Remember to SAVE! 2. Figure out how to change the font size, color, style. Figure out how to center text, align left/right. 3. Figure out how to put an image on your page. 4. Figure out how to insert a link to an outside, appropriate, website. 5. Post a response to the discussion question I posed in the discussion section. 6. Figure out what is posted under the “history” section.

Check out creative ways teachers and students have used wikis: [] http://terrythetennisball.wikispaces.com/ [] http://mrsibrahim.wikispaces.com/ http://soar2newheights.wikispaces.com/ http://ral221-writing-project.wikispaces.com/