In “Navigating Genres”, Kerry Dirk takes a whole new turn on genre theory by  introducing his own genre that effectively expresses the complexity and broad definition of genres. She effectively teaches us how genres come to be while also creating his very own genre in itself.

The Creation of a Genre

Dirk claims “when something new happens that requires a response, someone must create that first response. Then when that situation happens again, another person uses the first response as a basis for the second, and eventually everyone who encounters this situation is basing his/her response on the previous ones, resulting in the creation of a new genre”, which made the most sense to me of all the claims in her essay. Just think about it, when someone else needs to write an essay in this format, they will refer to “Navigating Genres” by Kerry Dirk, and write in a way similar to her style, thus creating a chain of essays that fit into the genre she created. This is prevalent in all forms of writing, whether it be 5 paragraph essays, college essays, etc. The genre of a 5 paragraph essay entices images of analyzed snippets of student’s essays with introductory and thesis sentences in different colors to show adopted and sculptured styles that inspire new students to either follow the norm, or skew in another direction.

The Universal Knowledge of Genres

Later in the essay, Dirk explains how as educated people in today’s society, we can use our experiences to utilize the best possible techniques to achieve whatever we seek, be it the removal of a credit card late fee, some likes on a witty tweet, etc. From what we encounter on our journey to maturity, we can use to keep advancing through life.