Typically, third-year German language courses such as Advanced Conversation, Grammar and or Conversation and Composition on Cultural Affairs-as their pluralistic titles reveal-are catch-alls for a variety of language skills. In addition, the professed objectives of courses widely diversified: they include linguistic proficiency, in-depth knowledge of contemporary or historic culture, or a thorough preparation (and solicitation?) for literature courses. Yet, these courses primarily language courses, fed by a diverse student population that ranges from students with at best intermediary knowledge of morphological and syntactical structures to native German speakers who want to finetune their rhetoric.1 In such a problematic setting, the art of essay-writing can serve as an integrating factor. But, as Monica Terregrosa has pointed out, as foreign language teachers we cannot assume that students will automatically apply the organizational, rhetorical, and stylistic skills from their native language to writing in the foreign language.2 In addition, the four writing modes--description, narration, exposition, and persuasion -traditionally taught in English classes don't seem to offer much assistance when it comes to writing in the target language. I suggest, therefore, that the syllabus of an advanced composition class might more effectively be structured around genre writing. While the genre approach is not new, traditionally it has not been applied to the teaching of writing skills in foreign languages. By genre writing I mean a canon of different essay formats whose lexical and stylistic features and, above all, organizational conventions can and, in fairness to our students, must be taught before the assignment. According to Swales, genres are classes of communicative events which the properties of socalled discourse communities.4 It is the communicative purpose of the genre that shapes its struct re, tyle, and choice of content (Swales 10). If we extend the concept of discourse communitiessociorhetorical networks that form in order to work