What is genre? Why are they important in the classroom (reading classroom as well as the content area classroom)

What is genre? Why are they important in the classroom (reading classroom as well as the content area classroom). For this activity, you will need to put yourself in the position of either being a reading/language arts teacher or co-teacher in this classroom. How can you help students identify a genre of a particular text or book and, then, how can you help them identify a favorite one, or two, so that they continue to read? Or, grow to love reading? Create a lesson that will include the following:

• Introduce students to a variety of genres (how will you do so? what books might you present? what genres will you include?).
• How the student, or small group, will present their findings on genres (what genres did they research? Which is their favorite? What led them to categorize the books/text into this genre?) Some examples for this lesson can be found here or here.
• How will you assess progress throughout the lesson?

You should use a lesson planning format that is used at your school, or you may use your own lesson planning format.