Genre Conventions

Tell students that each genre has a number of conventions that set it apart from other genres. (A synonym for conventions that students might know is tropes.)

Remind students of the conventions of fairy tales that you identified earlier and expand them with the following questions:

Who are the typical main characters? (Animals, children, princes and princesses. Often an orphan, stepchild or youngest child)

What are some words you might use to describe a typical main character? (Brave, clever, handsome/beautiful, young.)

Who are typical enemies or opponents of the main characters? (Predatory animals, evil step-parents, robbers, monsters, magicians and witches.)

What are some words you might use to describe a typical enemy? (Big, bad, wicked, old, cunning.)

What problems do the main characters typically have? (Kidnapped, chased by travelers, lost/abandoned in the woods, have to seek their fortunes.)

How do the main characters usually solve their problems? (Being brave, being kind, being clever, being lucky, sometimes just by waiting to be rescued.)

What kinds of actions are usually rewarded? What kinds of actions are punished? (Kindness and following the rules are rewarded. Rudeness and breaking the rules are punished.)

What are some other things that happen in many examples of this genre, or that help you know something is an example of this genre? (The main character has lost one or more parents; wolves are big and bad; a supernatural character like a fairy helps the main character; the character has to perform a seemingly impossible task.)

Explain that  not every work uses all of the conventions, and media makers may play with the audience’s expectations by mixing, changing or reversing them: for instance, by having the princess save the prince as Robert Munsch does in The Paper Bag Princess.