What is a Multigenre Research Project?
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Impact from Students
• Direct observations showed how the project promoted learning and the increased engagement from students. (Bailey & Carroll, 2010)• Half of the students came up with their own topics not included on the list from the teacher. (Cate, 2000)
• Former students say the project pushed them out of their comfort zone and required more personal investment. (Grierson, 1999)
• A questionnaire filled out by students at the end was overwhelmingly positive. (Grierson, 2002)
• Reflective journals offered insight that students believe the project they did facilitated more learning than direct, explicit instruction. (Painter, 2009)
How do I get started?
There are a variety of articles and websites on the internet to assist you in implementing a multigenre research project in the classroom, but here is a suggested list of ways to design a multigenre project on your own.How to Implement
■ Students need guidance and scaffolding to help them understanding and implement their chosen genres correctly. Allen and Swistake suggest modeling genres, having a process for students to select a topic, and helping them deep dive into that topic beyong surface-level facts. Make the number of genres an explicit requirement. (Allen & Swistak, 2004; Bailey & Carroll, 2010; Cate, 2000; Grierson, 1999; Slack, 2001)
■ Have a list of possible topics and genres for use, but be flexible. Allow this to become an inquiry-based project. (Bailey & Carroll, 2010)
■ Consider teaching students to cite sources or reinforcing their knowledge before beginning. Help students who struggle with notetaking by providing a fact sheet to record information. (Cate, 2000; Grierson, 2002)
■ Use created samples to help guide students' work. (Grierson, 1999)
■ Limit the open-endedness of the project if necessary. Grierson suggests using step-by-step goals and checkpoints to monitor student progress and having them fill out a rationale card with each genre to explain their choice and keep them focused. (Grierson et al., 2002; Slack, 2001) In addition, Painter recommends a timeline, an assessment rubrics, step-by-step directions, and performance checklists. (Painter, 2009)
■ Conference with your students regularly to keep track of progress. This helps you give an idea of where they are in the project and keeps them on track by allowing any issues to quickly be squashed or taken care of before the deadline day. With appropriate chunking and scaffolding of the project, this can limit time management issues. (Grierson et al., 2002; Painter, 2009; Slack 2001)
■ Reflect! Have students fill out a reflection or a survey after the project is complete to not only get their thoughts, but to revise the lesson for the future.
Do multigenre projects have an impact on student engagement?
The following is a compilation of the various statistics in the referenced articles about student engagement and project completion rates.The student completion rate for traditional research assignments was 75%. For the newly introduced muligenre research assignment, the student completion rate rose significantly, up to 91% (Cate, 2000).
Straying away from traditional research reports, teachers Anson and Baird, as cited in Grierson et al., (2002) developed a muligenre project from the ground up. n this collaborative teacher-research project, Grierson served as an advisor. Together, they noted that students were excited to showcase their work with other students and the post project questionnaire distributed to students was overwhelmingly positive. In addition to the feedback, the project produced a 99% complete rate (Grierson et al., 2002).
Students who have had positive influences on their learning have made them excited to be involved and wanting to learn more, especially when offered flexible, engaging, and diverse educational experiences (Painter, 2009).
In a multigenre project designed for seniors, a post-experience survey was returned with students saying they completed up to 60 hours of work on the project. Of those surveyed, 80% of the students said they preferred the multigenre research project over a traditional research assignment. Reflections from students note that the assignment allowed them to take more time on their work, make it personal, think critically, and engage in a social justice topic they are passionate about (Slack, 2001).
References
Allen, C.A., & Swistak, L. (2004). Multigenre research: The power of choice and interpretation. Language arts, 81, 223-232. shorturl.at/ryJZ9
Bailey, N. M., & Carroll, K. M. (2010). Motivating students' research skills and interests through a multimodal, multigenre research project. English Journal, 99(6), 78-85. shorturl.at/lruEW
Books clipart [Online image]. Creazilla. https://creazilla.com/nodes/35010-books-clipart
Cate, T. E. (2000). "This is cool!" Mulitgenre research reports. Social Studies, 91(3), 137-40. shorturl.at/oxNPQ
Forsythe, G. (2013). Who owns your education data (and why does it matter?) [Online image]. Flickr. https://www.flickr.com/photos/gforsythe/8508041553/
Grierson, S. T. (1999). Circling through text: Teaching research through multigenre writing. The English Journal, 89(1), 51–55. https://doi.org/10.2307/821356
Grierson, S. T., Anson, A., & Baird, J. (2002). Exploring the past through multigenre writing. Language Arts, 80(1), 51–59. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41483287
Painter, D. D. (2009). Providing differentiated learning experiences through multigenre projects. Intervention in School and Clinic, 44(5), 288-293. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053451208330900
Slack, D. B. (2001). Fusing social justice with multigenre writing. The English Journal, 90(6), 62–66. https://doi.org/10.2307/822057
Teacher and student clipart [Online image]. Creazilla. https://creazilla.com/nodes/7801-teacher-and-student-clipart
Wikmoz. (2021). Internet research [Online image]. Wikimedia Commons. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Internet_Research.svg