Conversations about Genre, part 9

A response letter from Amy

Amy J. Devitt, Ph.D.
10 min readMay 7, 2021
Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

I hope you have been able to read the students’ letters in the preceding 6 episodes in this series .After reading such rich and engaged letters from the students, I found myself thinking deeply about their insights and perceptions — and about their questions.The result is a rather long letter that reflects on how my thinking has changed (and not changed), the teaching practices that have stuck with me, and what genre has meant to me. The length of this letter definitely violates the expectations of Medium readers, but I respond to all the students’ letters at once, and I want my letter to be just one part of this conversation about genre.

Amy J. Devitt, April 2, 2021

April 2, 2021

Dear students of Julián Felipe Ávila Aguilar from the “Géneros Discursivos Escritos en inglés VI” course from Universidad del Valle (Sara, Juan Diego, Carol, Fanny and Leidy, Ángela, Favian, Daniela and Miguel, Leyla, Maria Paula, Pau and Valentina, Faubricio Trullo, Stephannie, Andres Felipe, Dick Morales, and Luisa, Alejandra, Melany, Jazmín and Jhoana, and Valentina, Jhoan, Sandra, and Valentina — and I hope I got all of your names and all in your preferred forms!):

Thank you for writing to me so thoughtfully and vividly. I have never had the pleasure of hearing…

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Amy J. Devitt, Ph.D.
Amy J. Devitt, Ph.D.

Written by Amy J. Devitt, Ph.D.

Writer, teacher, researcher, optimist. I explore language & everyday genres to help people see & choose the language & genres they use. www.amydevitt.com