What is a genre?

In chapter 1 one, Understanding Genres, of The Bedford Book of Genres: A Guide and Reader, a genre can simply be defined as a composition, kind, category, or sort. Yes that is a somewhat of a broad definition and it leaves us still questioning what a genre is and how it is made? Thankfully, we have an answer for that. In, "The Rhetorical Situation", written by Lloyd Fitzer, he explains that this genre is created by an exigence, a response, which is created through the writer displaying an issue to the audience. This exigence gives the genre a characteristic of what the author is trying to explain. For example, in Kerry Dirks writing, Navigating Genres, he brings up a unique example of how genres are given characteristics in songs such as country. See country music tends to include things such as showing pride, falling in and out of love, or sometimes telling a story about a person. These characteristics of these country songs is what gives the identifying features which gives the genre its category in music. Similarly, I too recently composed a genre that was an argumentative essay that was arguing for the end of the use of fracking. The subject of matter consisted of me explaining the process of fracking and then going on to including reasons as to why this process was harmful to the environment. Fracking is the process which pumps millions of gallons of water into the ground in attempts to reach oil. The reasons to stop this included that it was destroying land and wildlife, while also leaving harmful pesticides after the process that made the land inhabitable for years to come. The style of this essay which was characterized by arguments not to frack is what give it its genre as argumentative.