What Am I Reading? How Teaching Genre Improves Civic Skills

In this article, we argue that teaching students to recognize and consider the genre and rhetorical context of the information they read is a critical civic skill that will help them more effectively navigate the complex and confusing world of contemporary political communication. Going beyond the important skill of learning to identify “fake news,” we describe an approach to improve information literacy within an undergraduate political science course by teaching students about the related concepts of genre and rhetorical context (purpose, audience, and context), how to look for the subtle cues that indicate genre, and how to identify the genre and rhetorical context of the things they read and use as sources in their own work. Assessment and survey data shows that intentional instruction in genre and rhetorical context improves students’ ability to correctly identify the genre, purpose, and trustworthiness of information they encounter. We offer a novel contribution to the literature by bridging theoretical approaches in pedagogy, political science, and library science to demonstrate a practical way to help students develop stronger civic skills through information literacy and critical reading.