multigenre paper article
The article The Multigenre Paper: increasing interest, motivation, and functionality in research by Margaret Moulton introduced an alternative to the traditional research paper. In the article, she quoted Macrorie who stated that research papers are “the most unoriginal writings the world has ever seen” and I could not agree more. The skills individuals learn through the writing process are excellent, but the actual product and research is dull and incredibly dreaded by anyone who has to write one.
In a multigenre paper, students research a traditional topic of an individual, event, or theme but they do not present their findings in the traditional sense. Students display their research through various genres of writing such as a newspaper article, memo, narrative, or sheet music. This method adds creativity to the traditional writing process and allows students to play on their strengths instead of being forced to conform to the traditionally written paper. As the students were writing their papers, they were encourage to keep writing logs of the research they were finding and various genres that might me useful for their final product. Bibliographies were required, but there was no citing of resources in the paper because of the method of presentation. Moulton stated that she was worried about the depth of research the students did, but that when she saw their resources page at the end of the paper her fears were relieved. She found that the students did the same amount of research for the multigenre paper as they would have done for a traditional research paper.
She points out that the traditional documented research paper is oriented toward academicians only and that everyday real life writings are things such as letters, memos, invoices, fliers, etc. Multigenre writing was more like personal writing to students and research shows that students spend more time on their personal writing than their school writing. Many of the students who did multigenre papers found that they spent a lot of time and effort working on their paper that they would not have spend on an ordinary research paper. I think that this type of paper is a great idea and that students really can benefit from doing it. I hope to use it in my classroom someday.
1) This in a great and creative way to write research papers, but learning to cite sources within a paper and structure a document in that way is an important skill to have for college. What is the best way to incorporate those skills without boring students with dull research papers?
2) Multigenre papers definitely tap into student’s creativity, but do they help them in developing as writers?
3) In school, I only had one research paper and the traditional senior research paper was deleted from the curriculum. I felt in some ways that I missed out on necessary skills, but I do not want to overwhelm students with papers. What should be the requirements for writing extensive papers in high school? Should it be every year or only one of the years? And should students be exposed to traditional research papers as well as methods such as the multigenre paper?
kaleybrooke21 said,
April 22, 2009 at 4:42 pm
Here is an answer for your first question. I too think that it is important to learn how to cite resources within a paper because this is a skill students definitely need to know for college. Students could learn this through small papers rather than a huge research paper. Teach a lesson on how to cite resources within a paper and then have students pick a small topic that they can write 1 to 1.5 pages on and have them practice the skill they have just learned.
Kaley Mays
Ericka Griffin said,
April 25, 2009 at 5:03 am
Hey Rachel! To answer question #2, I believe that implementing multigenre papers does help students develop as writers. Many of the different genres have very specific formats, especially in poetry. I believe that some students would think writing a short story is easy, but writing a haiku is challenging. They are developing their writing and learning how to write in different genres at the same time!
Ericka Griffin