Before reading: Genre is an overall theme or topic chosen for writing pieces. In younger grades I was taught that the genre is the overall theme and focus point that helps to tie everything together and make it easier for the reader.

Bazerman: Genre is carried out in patterned, typical ,and intelligible text forms. My defintion is overall them but he makes his defintion more detailed and down to the specifics. Commencement speeches tend to focus on motivating for life after graduation what ever that may be and the other speakers like collins and the ones linked below focus on giving more of a raw real life perspective point of view. In other words they are not giving the graduating class any advice that they have no yet followed themselves.

https://www.businessinsider.com/the-best-graduation-speeches-of-all-time-2016-6