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The Multigenre Approach
Tom Romano was the first to describe how to teach the multigenre research paper in his book, Writing With Passion (1995). In it, he explained his first use of the approach when he asked his high school seniors to integrate various types of genres into a paper about a famous person. Students applied traditional research activities, but the output was anything but traditional as they applied poetry, drama, interviews, letters, articles, or whatever they thought would best illustrate the lives of their subjects.
What's to be gained from this approach? Student work must consistently reflect the facts gained from thorough research, yet the creative outlet often generates enthusiasm for research and writing. Most teachers -- and students alike -- would also agree that it's fun!
The multigenre approach works well for elementary, middle, secondary, and college classes, and can be integrated easily with other content areas. Multigenre writing is highly adaptable, and works for any topic from autobiography for younger students to critical explorations of literature, social issues, or historical events or persons.
This Solutions Center page offers resources from NCTE and beyond, that provide motivation and tools to help you plan your multigenre project.
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What Can I Write About? 7,000 Topics for High School Students; 2nd Edition, Revised and Updated. Substantially updated for today’s world, this second edition offers chapters on 12 different categories of writing, each of which is briefly introduced with a definition, notes on appropriate writing strategies, and suggestions for using the book to locate topics. Types of writing covered include description, comparison/contrast, process, narrative, classification/division, cause-and-effect writing, exposition, argumentation, definition, research-and-report writing, creative writing, and critical writing. Ideas range from the profound to the everyday to the topical--e.g., describe a terrible beauty; write a narrative about the ultimate eccentric; classify kinds of body alterations. With hundreds of new topics, this book is a valuable resource for teachers and students alike. 140pp. 2002. ISBN 0-8141-5654-1. No. 56541. Secondary.
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NCTE Journals (Full text available to NCTE members only)
"Multigenre Teaching" (Theme)
English Journal, Volume 92 Number 2 November 2002
Davis, Robert; Shadle, Mark. "'Building a Mystery': Alternative Research Writing and the Academic Act of Seeking." College Composition and Communication 51.3: 417-446 (February 2000).
Presents a series of alternatives to the modernist research paper: the argumentative research paper, the personal research paper, the research essay, and the multi-genre/media/disciplinary/cultural research paper. Addresses theoretical implications of alternative research writing strategies.
Edwards, Sarah. "Multigenre Teaching as Student Empowerment." English Leadership Quarterly 25.4: 2-6 (April 2003).
The author describes how she used the multigenre approach to explore issues of civil rights, prejudice and violence in her eighth grade classroom..
Hamblin, Lynda. "Voices in the Junior High School Classroom: Lost and Found." English Journal 90.1: 80-87 (September 2000).
Discusses aspects of the classroom environment that nurture young writers. Describes strategies and assignments (including cross-curricular poetry, a letter writing activity, multigenre papers, a tribute assignment, and a "read and retail" assignment) which helps students understand and develop voice. Notes that while students' writing improved, their scores on Idaho's Direct Writing Assessment did not, since it actually negates students' voices.
Grierson, Sirpa T. "Circling through Text: Teaching Research through Multigenre Writing." English Journal 89.1: 51-55 (September 1999).
Describes how the author incorporated her requirements for a term research paper into multigenre writing. Discusses what multigenre is, how it can be taught and assessed, and what makes it such a rich, workable alternative to the traditional research assignment.
Grierson, Sirpa T.; Anson, Amy; Baird, Jacoy. "Exploring the Past through Multigenre Writing." Language Arts 80.1: 51-59 (September 2002).
Discusses how research comes alive when students explore a range of alternate genres instead of writing the traditional research report. Notes that multigenre writing helps most students grow as researchers, thinkers, and writers while they develop a fundamental understanding of the different purposes for which text can be used.
Romano, Tom. “Prior to Publishing: Word Work.” Voices from the Middle 8.1: 16-22 (September 2000).
Discusses students' experiences with learning more about the "craft of writing." Considers ways to teach students to choose their own topics; to research; to organize for writing; to welcome imagination, metaphor, and memorable language; how to draft; how to give and get helpful responses; how to revise their writing to create strong beginnings; and how to copyedit their writing.
Slack, Delane Bender. "Fusing Social Justice with Multigenre Writing." English Journal 90.6: 62-66. (July 2001).
Describes a multigenre research paper assignment noting how the teacher guided the students with ideas and encouragement. Presents individual students' experiences with the multigenre projects. Discusses the instructor's political agenda, which was based on equality, empathy, and optimism. Concludes that a multigenre research paper takes more time and energy, it is more personal, and it makes students think harder.
On the Web
Multigenre Writing: Beyond the Five Paragraph Essay - NCTE member Jennifer Goodall collaborated on this page for middle school teachers, which includes summaries of multigenre activities, a list of genres, and useful organizational tools for students.
Some Genres you might use in multigenre research - Here's another list of genres you can use for any grade level.
Beowulf Multigenre Project - NCTE member Gretchen Lee provides examples here of her sixth-grade class' multigenre project based on Beowulf.
Additional Resources for the Multigenre Approach
Allen, Camille A. (2001). The Multigenre Research Paper: Voice, Passion, and Discovery in Grades 4-6. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
When given the chance to select their own research topics, decide which genres to write in, and determine how to present their findings, students assume ownership and take pride in their work. This book leads teachers through the multigenre research papers with upper elementary students. The book explains how teachers can organize their classrooms, help students choose topics, and introduce them to research. It provides concrete minilessons on the writing of poetry, character sketches, and nonfiction to help teachers get students writing. It also describes ways to tie together multiple genres to create flow within students' final papers. Arguing that the multigenre experience should include much more than the writing of the paper, the book stresses the integration of the arts and oral communication skills. According to the book, these creative modes of expression play an integral part in the success of the whole project, and separate chapters are devoted to each of these topics. The book's final chapter focuses on evaluation and the many ways teachers can measure growth and evaluate progress. Student writing samples, journal essays, and two complete multigenre papers are also included.
Cate, Timothy E. “’This is Cool!” Mulitgenre Research Reports." Social Studies 91.3:137-140 (May-June 2000).
Illustrates the use of multigenre research reports, a collection of student responses to a topic that incorporates several different writing modes. A ninth-grade global issues class was assigned a multigenre research project on Latin America. Reveals the results of the projects and provides an appendix.
Moulton, Margaret R. “Cookie.” “The Multigenre Paper: Increasing Interest, Motivation, and Functionality in Research.” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 42.7: 528-539 (April 1999).
Describes how undergraduate secondary English education majors in a course on teaching writing defined and created the multigenre research paper, researching a topic and then writing a number of pieces that integrated and interpreted their findings. Notes students' enthusiasm, creativity and ownership; shows two student papers; and describes using the multigenre research paper in a high school class.
Reid, Louann, Ed. ; Golub, Jeffrey N., Ed. (1999). "Reflective Activities: Helping Students Connect with Texts." Classroom Practices in Teaching English, Volume 30. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
This book offers successful classroom practices that encourage students to learn purposefully and constructively by reflecting on their own learning processes and by making connections between what they read (whether verbal or visual texts) and the lives they lead. Extending from middle and high school through college composition and English education classrooms, the 27 essays in the book provide practical and innovative ideas to establish a climate that supports reflection; to help students make connections via multiple discursive processes; and to help both students and teachers engage in effective self-assessment. Chapter 10 is (10) "What's the Big Idea? Linking Creative and Academic Writing in the Multigenre Research Paper."
This book is no longer available from NCTE. Work with a local librarian to borrow a copy, or purchase a secondhand copy (if available) from http://www.bookfinder.com.
Romano, Tom. "A Time for Immersion, A Time for Reflection: The Multigenre Research Project and Portfolio Assessment." Paper presented at the Annual Spring Meeting of the National Council of Teachers of English (Indianapolis, IN, March 14-16,1991).
This paper describes the senior honors thesis (a multigenre research paper), and narrates the process by which a senior English major at the University of New Hampshire and her project advisor worked together on this semester-long project. In the first section, the multigenre research paper is defined as a work that combines poems, monologues, character sketches, photographs, drawings, songs, newspaper interviews, narratives, stream-of-consciousness, and fiction generated from biographical fact. In addition, the paper asserts that a multigenre research paper not only allows the student to become a better writer, but illuminates for both the teacher and student the processes of thinking, writing, and learning. The second, third and fourth sections of the paper discuss the way portfolios can be used as a vital component in learning, and describe how this student compiled a portfolio that contained a sampling of writing representing her process of creation, her best work, her near misses or unsatisfactory pieces, and a portfolio cover letter explaining the meaning of these artifacts. The fifth section of the paper illustrates how a final interview allowed the student to reflect further, so that the teacher could learn about the student's learning, and the student could learn about her own learning process. The final sections discuss the importance of projects, and offer more evaluation of projects, portfolios, and teacher support of student learning.
Romano, Tom. (1995). Writing with Passion: Life Stories, Multiple Genres. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann Boynton/Cook.
Resounding with passion for teaching, learning, and writing as well as for the personal influences in a life of teaching, learning, and writing, this book encourages high school and higher education teachers to look beyond the tried and accepted. At the same time it offers concrete ideas to attempt with students--alternate style maneuvers, multigenre research papers, ways of nurturing responses to literature, and genre exploration. Throughout the book are personal stories. Interspersed between the chapters are "interludes"--stories, poems, impressions, and mini-essays that set the tone, slip in information, or serve as examples. The book reads sometimes like a novel, sometimes like a memoir, sometimes like a persuasive essay, but always in clear, accessible language. Chapters in the book are: (1) Truth through Narrative; (2) Truth, Risk, and Passion; (3) Faith and Fearlessness; (4) Further Ways of Knowing: Dialog, Poetry, and Song; (5) Breaking the Rules in Style; (6) Evolving Voice through the Alternate Style; (7) The Multigenre Research Paper: Melding Fact, Interpretation, and Imagination; (8) Problems, Issues, Dilemmas of the Multigenre Research Paper; (9) Reading for the Real World; (10) An Ally in Others; and (11) Blissfully Lost in Literacy. Contains 89 references. Appendixes presents four writing samples.
Tom Romano. (2000). Blending Genre, Altering Style: Writing Multigenre Papers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook; Heinemann.
Tremmel, Michelle. "Multigenre Writing and Bakhtin." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Conference on College Composition and Communication (53rd, Chicago, IL, March, 20-23, 2002).
Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of language and literature can illuminate the workings of multigenre compositions. Bakhtin's theories of heteroglossia and novelization are applicable because they are not genre dependent. As he says, they reach "beyond the bounds of the novel as genre" to reflect the ways all kinds of written language may mirror the dialogism of life. Bakhtin's concept of dialogism is pertinent to the study of multigenre papers because one of their fundamental properties is that they do not pretend to be "original" but consciously borrow life situations and the words and genres circulating in those situations. Words in a multigenre paper do not conclude anything definitively but invite their conversation to continue. This paper shares some of the work its author is doing to connect Mikhail Bakhtin's theories of language and literature to multigenre writing. The paper states that working in a polyphonic novel or multigenre piece--rather than being subjected to the dictatorship of single genre production as often is the case in English classrooms—challenges writers to construct whole pieces of writing that all at once explain, describe, narrate, and argue for "real-world" purposes instead of artificially breaking these into separate "modes." To see how this polyphony works, it examines the dialogical "devices" Bakhtin says allow the languages of life to be represented in the novel in general and see how they apply to multigenre writing.
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