Writing Multiple Genres
Romano—“Multigenre
Stirrings”
Creating
Flow: Pulling It All Together
Styslinger—“Mutligenre-Multigendered
Research Papers”
Biltz—“Teaching
Literature Through Multigenre Paper: An Alternative to the Analytical Essay”
Wilhelm,
Smith, and Fredicksen—Get It Done!
SAY:
I find it very interesting that we
are reading about multigenre pieces this week because the class I am observing
is working with them right now. I have
looked through multiple projects that have been turned in, and I have become
very intrigued by them. I was very happy
when I started my reading for this week because I have wanted to learn more
about multigenre projects ever since I have seen them in my internship. After reading this week’s articles and Get It Done, I feel much more educated
about multigenre projects, and how significant their role in the English
Classroom can be.
In Romano’s article, “Multigenre
Stirrings,” gives a great overview of multigenre projects/papers and how they
work. Though I have seen extensive examples
in my internship classroom, I like the examples in this article because of the
diversity given. Though I do not exactly
like that he only put in college student examples, I do not let it cloud my judgment
too much because I have seen so many successful projects come to life in my
internship. Also, I feel like I will use
this reading again in my classroom to show students samples of multigenre
entries.
My favorite part about Romano’s reading,
aside from the multiple examples given, is the routine of making this work
(starting on page 27). Because I am such
a concrete thinker, I like to see how things actually work in the
classroom. The routine given by Romano
makes the Multigenre project feel much more accomplishable. On day one, the teacher is share an encyclopedia
entry and a poem about the text at hand to get students thinking about multiple
writing styles. You are then supposed to engage in a large class discussion
about how these multiple genres work together.
On day two, share an entire Multigenre paper with the class. This is where the project is essentially
introduced, and engage in a class discussion about how everything relates
together (27). On day three, let
students choose the topic of their Multigenre project, and share topics that
can be written about. Let students talk
together and discuss different ideas. On
day four, students need to submit their chosen work. They will have had a day to make the decision. Again, students will immerse into small
groups to discuss everything. On day
five, students will actually begin writing (28). I really like this approach
because everyday frontloads the next day.
By this schedule, students should not feel overwhelmed. I like this schedule because it shows how
doable this can really be in the classroom.
Next article I read, “Creating Flow,”
was a great read after learning all
of the basics in Romano’s text. In “Creating
Flow,” it becomes apparent that it is important to let students make the
creative decisions in the project. My
limiting them too much, the process will be pointless, be letting students
choose their own modes of genre, they are gaining much more insight. Essentially, they have to feel out their own “flow.” My favorite quote from this article is, “It
is best if you let them think the problem through on their own before they rely
on others” (97). Essentially, for
students to really learn through this project, they have to be able to make the
creative decisions so that they can work through textual problems on their
own.
In Styslinger’s article, I feel much
more comfortable with actually immersing high school students with multigenre
projects. As I said before, Romano uses
college examples, but Styslinger makes us feel like this is actually
accomplishable with high school students.
Styslinger’s article gives a lot of great insight about how we can still
immerse students with reading and writing without asking them to only focus on
the 5 paragraph essay. Even though a lot
of the same skills may be applied to both forms of writing, the multigenre
projects shows how the needed writing skills can work with so many different
forms of writing. Also, students will
not feel forced into writing one specific way.
It becomes much more about form than formula because students are able
to apply what they know about writing across multiple genres (54). Along with
this article being very informative, I think it also helps that it was written
by Styslinger. Because we all know her,
it makes multigenre projects feel much more feasible because I know she would
be telling us the same thing if she were teaching this course. As weird as it sounds, it just feels much
more factual than theoretical.
My favorite reading for today was “Teaching
Literature Through the Multigenre Paper” because it shows how multigenre
projects explicitly work in the classroom.
She outlines some of the important goals that are met while implementing
the multigenre project, and she explains how it works with her curriculum. Additionally, she includes a list of purposes
and state standards that are met by implementing this project. Furthermore, the examples of how to implement
multigenre projects with specific texts was very helpful. I will definitely use
this resources again in the future. This
reading made me want to implement the multigenre project into my classroom as
soon as possible.
Though the articles do a great job
of explaining Multigenre projects, Get It
Done gives a great deal of insight on writing and analyzing informational
texts. Though I feel like informational
texts usually have the negative reception by teachers and students. This book addresses that right off the bat by
implying that nonfiction is a better term to use, so that students (and
probably teachers) do not go into each lesson kicking and screaming. This book shows how studying and writing
informational texts can be treated just like other engagements. One of my favorite parts about this books is
the 5 Stages of Composing. Planning,
practicing, transferring, first drafts, and final drafts are all intricate
steps to the formal writing process.
Even though some of these stages cannot be applied to all forms of
writing, it is still a good idea to familiarize students with them.
Additionally, this book gives a lot
of great insight on the fundamental writing styles in a way that makes them
seem a lot less traditional. Some of these
forms include: cause and effect, summarizing, and compare and contrast. Instead of only engaging in these forms of
writing through essays, Get It Done
gives us more creative ways of implementing these strategies into the
classroom. Therefore, they can be transferred
into the multigenre project.
Altogether, I think that this week’s
readings are my favorite so far. Because
I have seen hands on examples of multigenre projects in my internship, I feel
like these readings have answered a lot of my questions. Additionally, these readings really
illuminate the practicality of implementing multigenre projects into my future classroom. This will be a much more fun and insightful
way of bonding reading with writing without turning to the traditional 5
paragraph essay. All in all, I really
enjoyed the reading for this week.
DO:
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