Jamie’s Weblog

Multi-Genre Projects are beginning to take the place of research papers. In the past, research papers have been demanded of seniors in high school. Teachers and students alike dread them. However, the MG seems to be the answer for this. This project allows participants to research a topic of their choice and present their information using different genres of writing. In Moultin’s article as well as Writing Without Boundaries, almost a hundred different genres were listed to choose from. Students that are completing a MG project in the past have been asked to keep a learning log or note cards. The difference in these note cards from note cards kept for research projects is, personal feelings and experiences that come to you while doing the project are included.

To create a MG project, you must decide on a topic that you want to learn more about. Many people choose people from history, a time or event in history. For school topics student may choose an author they are studying, a time in history, a character from a book, a book series, a topic from science or social studies, the possibilities are endless. What ever you are interested in, you can do. For a classroom, a thematic study and a writers workshop would aid in the process. Students will work at different paces pending on the depth of their study, learning styles and how fast they work. Students will also be doing different genres of writing to portray what they have learned. In a classroom, I would give ten maybe twenty genres that we have discussed, written or have studied in class. Then, I would have them choose a minimum of three for their project. For my AIG students, I would probably encourage them to try one or two more, or incorporate harder skills they understand and have studied with me independently. Before my students began their study, I would show them at least one example of what I expected as well as the rubric they would be graded on. We would review the writer’s workshop and what I expected each day in class.

For my project, I am unsure what I am going to do at this point. Right now the topics that are on my head are: Bees & Pollination, an Author Study (possibly Spinelli, Naylor, Gutman) or allowing my students to choose an author they enjoy, a famous person from history or current. THERE ARE TOO MANY CHOICES!!! HELP