ABSTRACT
Form and genre I want to make a distinction between the form of pupils’ writing and the genre
within which they can write. By form I mean whether the story will be conventional
narrative prose or a series of diary or journal extracts, or letters or text messages or
emails, etc. (or even a combination of these). By genre I mean whether a pupil will
choose to write a Science Fiction story or a Fantasy story, a Horror, a Romance, a
Spy-Thriller and so on. I often come across the use of the word ‘genre’ to mean
genre as I’ve defined it and ‘form’, such that someone may speak of the genre of
writing diaries or poetry. I think this is unhelpful. The distinction I’ve made is useful
in two ways:
It allows us to separate out the conventions of the form from the conventions
of the genre.
