The dilemma of genre in teaching writing

In Australia, and perhaps other countries, there has been increased emphasis on the importance of genre in teaching writing to both first-language speakers and learners of English. What has not been well noted, however, is that a fundamental conflict between what is desirable and what tends to be pedagogically most practical actually follows from the definition of genre used by such proponents of genre-based teaching as Martin (1984). After showing why this is so in theory I will discuss what this means in terms of classroom practice.