Introduction to Literary Genres

Lessons

Senior 1 · English

Introduction to Literary Genres

5 lessons

Lesson 1 of 5

One Quarrel, Three Genres: What Literature Is and What It Does

30 min

Imagine a football match between two friends that ends in a terrible quarrel. You could tell what happened in three different ways. You could write it down as a story, act it out with two classmates, or turn it into a short poem to recite. The events would stay the same, but each version would have a different shape, and a reader would recognise that shape at a glance. These shapes are called genres. In this unit you will learn to tell them apart, first in Rwanda's oral literature and then in written literature.

Below, one story comes to you three times: first as a story in prose, then as a scene from a play, and then as a poem.

Think first: What is your favourite story? Did you first meet it in a book, on the radio, on a screen, or from someone who told it to you?

Text 1, a story: Chicken and Millipede by Winny Asara

Chicken and Millipede were friends. But they were always competing with each other. One day they decided to play football to see who the best player was.

They went to the football field and started their game. Chicken was fast, but Millipede was faster. Chicken kicked far, but Millipede kicked further. Chicken started to feel grumpy.

They decided to play a penalty shoot-out. First Millipede was goal keeper. Chicken scored only one goal. Then it was the chicken’s turn to defend the goal.

Millipede kicked the ball and scored. Millipede dribbled the ball and scored. Millipede headed the ball and scored. Millipede scored five goals.

Chicken was furious that she lost. She was a very bad loser. Millipede started laughing because his friend was making such a fuss.

Chicken was so angry that she opened her beak wide and swallowed the millipede.

As Chicken was walking home, she met Mother Millipede. Mother Millipede asked, “Have you seen my child?” Chicken didn’t say anything. Mother Millipede was worried.

Then Mother Millipede heard a tiny voice. “Help me mom!” cried the voice. Mother Millipede looked around and listened carefully. The voice came from inside the chicken.

Mother Millipede shouted, “Use your special power my child!” Millipedes can make a bad smell and a terrible taste. Chicken began to feel ill.

Chicken burped. Then she swallowed and spat. Then she sneezed and coughed. And coughed. The millipede was disgusting!

Chicken coughed until she coughed out the millipede that was in her stomach. Mother Millipede and her child crawled up a tree to hide.

From that time, chickens and millipedes were enemies.

Winny Asara, African Storybook, 2014.

Text 2, a play: The Penalty Shoot-out

A scene based on the story, written by Ganzaa.

CHARACTERS: CHICKEN · MILLIPEDE, her friend · MOTHER MILLIPEDE

A football field at the edge of a village, late in the afternoon. Two sticks in the grass make a goal. CHICKEN stands in the goal, flapping her wings. MILLIPEDE puts the ball on the penalty spot.

CHICKEN: Four goals is just luck. Nobody scores five against me.

MILLIPEDE: (wiggling all his legs) I have a hundred legs, my friend. Which one shall I use?

CHICKEN: Just kick it!

(MILLIPEDE heads the ball. It flies past CHICKEN into the goal.)

MILLIPEDE: Five! (He rolls on the grass, laughing.) Five goals to one! Look at you, all feathers and fuss!

CHICKEN: (slowly) Stop laughing.

MILLIPEDE: I can’t stop! Ha! Ha! Ha!

(CHICKEN opens her beak wide and swallows him. Silence. She smooths her feathers and walks away as if nothing has happened. MOTHER MILLIPEDE hurries in.)

MOTHER MILLIPEDE: Chicken! Have you seen my child? He came here to play football.

(CHICKEN looks up at the sky and says nothing.)

A TINY VOICE: (from inside CHICKEN) Help me, Mum!

MOTHER MILLIPEDE: (leaning close to CHICKEN’s stomach) Use your special power, my child!

(CHICKEN burps. She sneezes. She coughs and coughs, and MILLIPEDE tumbles out onto the grass. Mother and child hurry off to climb a tree. CHICKEN stands alone, wiping her beak.)

CHICKEN: (to the audience) Well. At least I didn’t lose that game five to one.

(The lights go down.)

Text 3, a poem: The Bad Loser

A poem based on the story, written by Ganzaa.

Chicken and Millipede, friends at play,
Went down to the field one sunny day.
“A match!” they said. “And then we’ll see
Who is the champion: you or me!”

But a hundred legs are hard to beat,
And the ball flew past poor Chicken’s feet.
Five goals to one! Her friend lay flat
And laughed and laughed: “Well, how about that?”

Then Chicken’s temper boiled inside;
She opened her beak, she opened it wide,
And gulp! Her laughing friend was gone.
She smoothed her feathers and hurried on.

“Help me, Mum!” called a voice within.
“Use your power, child! Let the stink begin!”
So Chicken coughed till her friend fell free,
And enemies now they will always be.

Understanding the three texts

Why did Chicken and Millipede decide to play football?
What was the score at the end of the penalty shoot-out?
Why did Chicken swallow Millipede? Give two reasons from the story.
How was Millipede saved?
The last sentence of the story explains something about the real world. What does it explain?
The play has no narrator. How does the audience learn that Chicken has swallowed Millipede?
At the end of the play, Chicken speaks to the audience. What does her last line show about her?
The poem is the shortest version. Name two details from the story that the poet left out.

Show answersHide answers

They were always competing, and they wanted to see who the best player was.
Five goals to one: Millipede scored five and Chicken scored only one.
She was furious that she lost (she was "a very bad loser"), and Millipede was laughing at her.
His mother told him to use his special power. He made a bad smell and a terrible taste, so Chicken felt ill and coughed him out.
Why chickens and millipedes are enemies.
They see it happen: the stage direction tells the actor to swallow him, and the audience watches.
She has learned nothing. She still thinks only about winning and losing, and she feels no guilt; the line is also a joke for the audience.
Any two, for example: Chicken scored one goal while Millipede was the goalkeeper; Millipede kicked, dribbled and headed the ball; Mother Millipede asked Chicken if she had seen her child; Chicken burped, spat and sneezed; mother and child hid up a tree.

Three genres at a glance

Before you read a single word, the shape of the page tells you the genre. These are the three texts you have just read, shown as shapes.

Vocabulary

Word or phrase	Meaning	Example
compete	to try to be better than someone else	Chicken and Millipede were always competing.
grumpy	in a bad mood and easily annoyed	Chicken started to feel grumpy.
furious	extremely angry	She was furious that she lost.
a bad loser	a person who becomes angry or unfair after losing	A bad loser never shakes hands after a match.
make a fuss	to show too much anger or worry about something small	Millipede laughed because his friend was making such a fuss.
burp	to let air from the stomach out noisily through the mouth	Chicken burped, then sneezed and coughed.
genre	a kind of literature with its own form and features	Prose, poetry and drama are the three main genres of written literature.
narrator	the voice that tells a story	The narrator tells us that Mother Millipede was worried.
stanza	a group of lines in a poem, like a paragraph in prose	The Bad Loser has four stanzas of four lines.
script	the written text of a play	Each actor learns her lines from the script.
stage direction	an instruction in a script that tells the actors what to do or describes the scene	(to the audience) is a stage direction.
audience	the people who watch or listen to a performance	Chicken speaks her last line to the audience.

Definition

Literature: stories, poems, plays, songs and sayings in which language is used with imagination and skill to entertain, teach or move people. It can be spoken (oral literature) or written down (written literature). Example: a folktale told by a grandmother and a novel on a library shelf are both literature.

Genre (say ZHON-ruh): a kind or category of literature with its own form and features. Example: Chicken and Millipede and The Bad Loser tell the same events in two different genres.

Definition

Prose: ordinary written language in sentences and paragraphs, as in stories, novels, letters and newspapers. Example: Text 1.

Poetry (also called verse): writing arranged in lines and stanzas, usually with a strong rhythm and often with rhyme, in which the sound of the words matters as much as their meaning. One piece of poetry is a poem. Example: Text 3.

Drama: literature written to be performed by actors in front of an audience. One piece of drama is a play, and its written text is the script. Example: Text 2.

Literature: the three main genres of written literature

	Prose	Poetry	Drama
What you see on the page	full lines that run to the edge of the page	short lines that stop before the edge, with gaps between groups	character names followed by their words, and instructions in brackets
Building blocks	sentences, paragraphs, chapters	lines and stanzas	speeches (dialogue), scenes and acts
Who tells it	a narrator	a speaker (the "I" of the poem, as you saw in Unit 1)	nobody: the characters speak for themselves
How we meet it	we read it, silently or aloud	we read it aloud, recite it or sing it	we watch actors perform it, or hear it on the radio
In this lesson	Chicken and Millipede	The Bad Loser	The Penalty Shoot-out

What does literature do? Seven functions

Function	What it means	Example
1. To entertain	It gives pleasure: laughter, excitement, suspense.	Chicken's last line in the play makes the audience laugh.
2. To teach values	It shows good and bad behaviour and what follows from it.	The story shows how a bad loser can lose a friend for ever.
3. To keep culture and history alive	It carries a people's beliefs, customs and past from one generation to the next.	Rwanda's tales, proverbs and historical narratives were passed on by word of mouth for centuries (Lesson 2).
4. To express feelings	It lets people share joy, love, grief and hope.	A love song at a wedding; a poem of mourning.
5. To criticise and correct society	It shows a problem clearly so that people want to change.	Urunana ("hand in hand"), a Kinyarwanda radio drama first broadcast in 1999, follows families in an imaginary village, Nyarurembo, as they face problems of health and family life.
6. To unite people	Shared stories and songs make people feel they belong together.	A whole stadium singing the same song.
7. To develop language	Readers and listeners meet new words and skilful ways of saying things.	Reading widely in English improves your own speaking and writing.

Most texts do several of these jobs at once. Chicken and Millipede entertains, teaches a value, and explains something about nature.

Language focus: from script to story

When you turn a play into prose, the characters' words become direct speech, and the stage directions become the narrator's words.

In the script	In a story
MILLIPEDE: Five!	"Five!" shouted Millipede.
CHICKEN: (slowly) Stop laughing.	"Stop laughing," said Chicken slowly.
MOTHER MILLIPEDE: Have you seen my child?	"Have you seen my child?" asked Mother Millipede.
(CHICKEN looks up at the sky and says nothing.)	Chicken looked up at the sky and said nothing.

Put the speaker's exact words inside quotation marks.
Add a reporting verb: said, asked, shouted, whispered, laughed, replied.
End the spoken words with a comma, a question mark or an exclamation mark, inside the closing quotation mark.
Start a new paragraph each time a different character speaks.
Turn stage directions into narration in the past tense: (slowly) becomes said Chicken slowly.

Worked example

Name the genre of this extract, and give your evidence.

GRANDMOTHER: (putting more wood on the fire) Sit closer, children. Tonight's story is about a hare.
KALISA: Is it Bakame again?

Look at the layout. Each speech begins with a name in capitals and a colon.
Look for a narrator. There is none: the characters speak for themselves.
Look for instructions. (putting more wood on the fire) tells the actor what to do, so it is a stage direction.
Conclusion: it is drama, part of a play. In prose it would read: "Sit closer, children," said Grandmother, putting more wood on the fire.

Warning

A poem does not have to rhyme. Many poems have no rhyme at all. Lines, rhythm and carefully chosen sounds make a poem, so don't decide the genre by looking for rhyme.
Genre is not the same as topic. A story, a play and a poem can all be about the same football match. Decide the genre by the form, not the subject.
Don't call every text a "story". Say "the play" or "the poem", and call the voice in a poem "the speaker", not "the narrator".

Tip

Prose tells, drama shows, poetry sings. Look at the page before you read: paragraphs mean prose, names followed by colons mean drama, and short lines grouped in stanzas mean poetry.

Literary Genres and Subgenres, from English Units, a channel made by a US teacher for learners of English. It is long (23 minutes), so watch it in two or three sittings. It sorts literature into four genres: fiction, nonfiction, drama and poetry. Fiction and nonfiction are both written in prose, so this matches the three shapes in this lesson. Pause at each practice description and name the genre before the answer appears.

Speaking: perform the scene

In groups of three, perform The Penalty Shoot-out. Decide who plays each part (Millipede can also speak the tiny voice). Follow every stage direction: the audience must see the swallow and the coughing, because no narrator will tell them. Then discuss as a class: which version, the story, the play or the poem, did you enjoy most, and why?

Show useful language for the discussionHide useful language for the discussion

I preferred the play because we could see Chicken's face when…
The poem was the easiest to remember because of the rhyme…
The story gave the most details, for example…
I disagree with Aline: I think the story is funnier, because…

Writing: from script to story

Turn the end of the play, from "MOTHER MILLIPEDE hurries in" to the last line, back into prose (80 to 100 words). Use direct speech with correct punctuation, and turn every stage direction into narration.

Show model answerHide model answer

Just then, Mother Millipede hurried onto the field. "Chicken! Have you seen my child?" she asked. "He came here to play football."

Chicken looked up at the sky and said nothing.

"Help me, Mum!" called a tiny voice from inside Chicken.

Mother Millipede leaned close to Chicken's stomach. "Use your special power, my child!" she shouted.

Chicken burped, sneezed and coughed until Millipede tumbled out onto the grass. Mother and child hurried away to climb a tree, and Chicken stood alone, wiping her beak.

"Well," she said to herself, "at least I didn't lose that game five to one."

✦

Practice

Name the three main genres of written literature.
Prose, poetry or drama? Give one piece of evidence.
UWASE: (whispering) Is anyone there?
MUGISHA: Only the wind.
Prose, poetry or drama? Give one piece of evidence.
Slowly, slowly, up the hill
Walks the old cow, calm and still.
Rewrite as a sentence in a story, with correct punctuation: CHICKEN: (angrily) Stop laughing at me!
Give two functions of literature, with an example of each.
Which function of literature does the radio drama Urunana mainly serve? Explain in one sentence.
True or false? Explain your answer: "A text must rhyme to be a poem."
The play ends with Chicken joking to the audience instead of saying sorry. Why might a playwright choose this ending?

Show answersHide answers

Prose, poetry and drama.
Drama: names followed by speeches, a stage direction (whispering), and no narrator.
Poetry: short lines, a strong rhythm and a rhyme (hill, still).
"Stop laughing at me!" said Chicken angrily. (shouted is also correct.)
Any two, for example: to entertain (Chicken's last line makes us laugh); to teach values (the story shows what happens to a bad loser); to keep culture alive (tales passed down in families).
Mainly to criticise and correct society, or to educate: it shows listeners problems of health and family life through characters they care about, while also entertaining them.
False. Many poems do not rhyme; lines, rhythm and the sound of the words make a poem.
For example: it keeps the comedy going to the end, and it leaves the audience to judge Chicken. The audience learns the lesson even though Chicken does not.

Sources and credits

Story: Chicken and Millipede, written by Winny Asara, illustrated by Magriet Brink (illustrations not used here), © African Storybook Initiative 2014, via Storybooks Rwanda (Global Storybooks), CC BY 3.0. Text reproduced unchanged. Also on the African Storybook website.
The play The Penalty Shoot-out and the poem The Bad Loser: adapted from Chicken and Millipede by Ganzaa.
Photo: Archispirostreptus gigas 2009 G1 by George Chernilevsky, Wikimedia Commons, public domain.
Introduction, comprehension questions, genre diagram, vocabulary, definitions, tables, worked example, practice and model answers written by Ganzaa. Facts about Urunana from Urunana Development Communication.
Video: Literary Genres and Subgenres (Fiction, Nonfiction, Drama, and Poetry) - Video and Worksheet, English Units, embedded from YouTube.

1Text 1, a story: Chicken and Millipede by Winny Asara

2Text 2, a play: The Penalty Shoot-out

3Text 3, a poem: The Bad Loser

4Understanding the three texts

5Three genres at a glance

6Vocabulary

7Literature: the three main genres of written literature

8What does literature do? Seven functions

9Language focus: from script to story

10Speaking: perform the scene

11Writing: from script to story