Abstract: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of text genre on French language reading comprehension at two levels of college French instruction. The subjects consisted of college students enrolled in the second quarter of elementary French (French 102.01) and the second quarter of intermediate French (French 104.01) of the college French program at The Ohio State University. Subjects were rated based on their level of academic performance in their respective levels of French study. All subjects read the same two passages from twentieth century French literature (excerpts from a play and a novel). Subjects wrote an L1 free-recall protocol upon relinquishing each passage. The 48 recall protocols were scored using Johnson's weighted prepositional analysis system (1970) and the scores were analyzed with the Analysis of variance (ANOVA) procedure with the following design variables (a) Text genre (Play, Novel), (b) Level of language instruction (French 102, French 104), (c) Teacher assigned rating of student academic performance (Excellent, Good, Poor). The two-way (ANOVA) mixed design revealed significant effect for text genre and level of class performance but no significant main effect for the level of instruction. The ANOVA did not indicate either first-order or second-order interaction. This finding has implications for further research as well as instructional use.