In “Navigating Genres,” Kerry Dirk explains how understanding genres will allow a writer to better address his or her audience to make effective points. Dirk discusses the importance of recognizing not only the material to be presented in the content of the piece, but also the form used, audience and genre. These rhetorical devices will contribute to the overall effectiveness of the piece; in order to keep an audience engaged, you need to write for the audience in a way that is understandable and fitting in the genre.
Personally, I found the initial behavior of Dirk’s writing to be engaging. Through explaining the struggle and process of writing “Navigating Genres,” I felt as though Dirk related to the audience of students in similar situations. Additionally, Dirk lead the audience through many different examples, such as using other sources to help guide you when writing for a specific genre, and analyzing different ransom notes to see the best application of writing tools to make a point clear. Dirk writes this essay as a tool for students; it contains tips and examples of effective and ineffective writings and strategies. I believe that Dirk successfully presented an informative guide on writing in different genres, and what to keep in mind when faced with a different genre or audience. The most important theme that stood out to me in this essay is that you cannot focus solely on the subject content of your writing; you must focus on the rhetorical devices within that content, and understand from a reader’s perspective.
Depending on what you meant, you should write “Dirk leads the audience” or “Dirk led the audience” (either would be correct), but not “Dirk lead the audience”.
I notice that you diplomatically avoided using a gendered pronoun for the author, as we don’t know whether “Kerry” is a “he” or a “she” in this case.
I also noticed that you correctly used the semicolon to separate the two independent clauses in the last sentence. Not everyone gets this right.