English Language Arts and Reading.8.8.A

The student is expected to

demonstrate knowledge of literary genres such as realistic fiction, adventure stories, historical fiction, mysteries, humor, fantasy, science fiction, and short stories;

multiple genres TEKS talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

Multiple genres: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts--genres. The student recognizes and analyzes genre-specific characteristics, structures, and purposes within and across increasingly complex traditional, contemporary, classical, and diverse texts.

Task students with a genre spotlight project to teach younger students about literary genre characteristics such as realistic fiction, adventure stories, historical fiction, mystery, humor, fantasy, science fiction, and short fiction. Organize students into groups and assign them with a specific genre for which to prepare a spotlight. Task students with preparing a genre chart that illustrates the elements of their assigned literary genre along with gathering book examples of that genre. Additionally, have students write a brief summary for a book that illustrates genre-specific characteristics. As younger students visit each genre group, grade-eight students should share the characteristics of individual books to teach the younger students about genre characteristics.


Further Explanation

This assessment provides an opportunity for the teacher to observe student understanding of the characteristics, structures, and purposes specific to particular genres. Students must be familiar enough with genre characteristics in order to determine the genre of a book. In sharing information with younger students, grade-eight students strengthen their understanding of what determines the genre of a book. Understanding the genre of a text is essential to comprehension.

a subdivision of fiction that includes stories told as an event or a series of events that are interesting or out of the ordinary course of the protagonist’s life
All writing is classified as a particular genre, or type of work. For example, a story of fictional representation with dialogue and performance is classified as drama. Likewise, a suspenseful story with unexplained events is classified as a mystery. Students are expected to be familiar enough with genre characteristics (e.g., dialogue, claim, or setting) to determine which genre they are reading. Understanding the genre of a piece of writing is essential to students’ comprehension of that text.
a subgenre of fiction that includes stories told with unrealistic, mythical, magical, or supernatural elements in the plot, characterization, theme, and/or setting
a literary genre that has a comic quality intended to induce amusement or laughter
classes of creative writing, usually categorized by form, technique, or content (e.g., epic, tragedy, comedy, poetry, novel, short story, and creative nonfiction)
a subgenre of fiction consisting of stories that resemble real life settings and situations that could actually occur wherein fictional characters react similarly to real people
a subgenre of fiction based on real or imaginary technology and science which impacts the plot of the story
a brief fictional text that is shorter than a novel, usually deals with only a few characters, and focuses on a single problem or conflict

Research

Dallacqua, A. L. (2012). Exploring literary devices in graphic novels. Language Arts, 89(6), 365–378. Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ981296

Summary: In this article, the researcher suggests that students use literary devices as a way to make meaning of text. The article demonstrates how graphic novels can be used to implement multimodal and visual instructional strategies that increase the reading comprehension of students.