Response 4/11/11

Today Im choosing to discuss a paragraph that begins at the bottom of page 154 of the reading and ends at the top of page 155. At this point in the article the authors are discussing resumes as a specific genre and how they are introducing these concepts to students in their English 102 class.  I especially liked how they said they had students collect resumes for themselves and try and figure out what may be wrong with them, or what could be done better, so that way the critique comes from their own knowledge. Through this approach the students are able to formulate their own thoughts as to why resumes are not just simple documents you can plug information into. As the author said, “because students themselves gathered the materials of the exercise and conducted the work, the insights likewise belonged to them.” The author goes on to describe how they then had students formulate their own unique ideas as to how to create a resume, in turn defining their own genre of resume. By defining your own genre of resume you allow yourself to not see it as simply a plug-in document, (as the author feels most young people do) but rather a document that can be manipulated through creativity to serve many purposes and be tailored towards specific objectives (ie. jobs or internships). 

By seeing a resume as its own genre you can allow yourself to use many different conventions to create a resume that can be unique for you. Many different opportunities may create different priorities for a resume. Rather than just plugging information into a specific spot, you can manipulate the location of said information to create emphasis on a certain aspect of your resume. If for example the call for application which you are responding to emphasizes a need for someone with experience, and you have a great deal of experience in the given area, you may want to rearrange your resume to put your experience at the top, so that it is the first thing that catches the readers eye. Many people may not think to do this because the template they downloaded had experience as the third slot of information, so that was where they kept it. By seeing a resume as a unique genre which has many different elements available for manipulation you can create one that is more suited for you and the profession in which you are seeking employment