← Chapter 13
English Composition · Chapter 13

The Prompt Decoder

A genre is a promise about what a reader will be able to do afterward — and the promise is almost always sitting in the prompt’s main verb. Click the word in each prompt that tells YOU what to do (not what the topic is about), then name the genre it demands. At the bottom, swap verbs on a single topic and watch one subject become four completely different papers.
Assignment prompts
Step 1 · Click the load-bearing verb
Step 2 · What genre is this prompt asking for?
Read the prompt twice. First time, circle every verb. Second time, ask what a reader would have to be able to do after finishing your paper: picture something, understand a mechanism, take an action, or trust your judgment. Those four outcomes are the four genres.
The promise you just accepted
Decode a prompt on the left. Once you name the genre, the promise it makes to a reader appears here — along with the signature way that genre collapses.
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Prompts decoded
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Verbs found first try
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Genres named first try
One topic, four verbs
The facts stay identical. Only the verb moves — and with it the evidence you owe, the shape of your ending, and how much you are allowed to say I.