Writing Without Boundaries ch 6-7 and Best Practices in Writing Assessment ch 13
Yes, teachers feel pressure! I understand the writers believe multi-genre writing will prepare our students for the test but I do not understand how it can work. It all sounds so good- so exciting, intriguing, and interesting. You know something that sounds too good to be true-probably is. Don’t get me wrong- I would love for it to work in my classroom. But the state narrative test is looking for topic, an interesting beginning, the problem, three events with details, a solution, and an ending. All genres do not lead to this end. I am all for preparing our students for “real writing tasks”, but someone must convince our educational decision-makers.
IMPORTANT IDEAS
Writing should be meaningful and intended for an audience. “Embedding writing in subject-matter learning”
“writing as a integral part of the learning process”
“use compositions to guide growth”
what students have learned and how well the communicate it”, analytic rubrics
“writing reveals thinking”
assess product and progress
authentic writing
alternative to teacher talk
content and process
formative and summative evaluation
assessment vs. testing
Multigenre Projects
Multigenre projects encourage students to read, research, and learn and then transfer and transform their newfound knowledge in a creative style through various genres. Not just the typical genres-fiction, nonfiction, historical fiction, biographies, poems-but letters, newspaper articles, obituaries, brochures, lists, advertisements-any form of written communication. Before beginning writing, students must first study and understand different genres. Then, they will research their topic and decide upon genres that represent what they have learned and important information to be shared. Students keep a writer’s notebook, a literary response log, and a draft book. Students meet for whole class instruction, in small groups, and in conferences with the teacher. Teachers model through “write-alouds and think alouds”.The multigenre project includes a cover, an introduction, an outline or table contents, defenses, 3-6 genres, and visual designs. (Writing Without Boundaries, page 35) In writing, the students must consider who the audience is, why the piece exists, characteristics of the genre, and the perspective and purpose. (page 37) Multigenre projects can be written as a response to literature, or as connections to social studies or science.A multigenre project sounds interesting and fun…but overwhelming! I don’t understand how it can be implemented into a heterogeneous, self-contained elementary classroom of 20+ students. So much is expected of classroom teachers; we are expected to teach a curriculum impossible to complete within a given year. And I am concerned that while multigenre writing would be enjoyable and motivating, it would not prepare our students for the narrative writing test. (I know I continue to refer to the test, but that is our (school/county) focus) I disagree with the importance placed on these tests from Washington and from NC. I would rather have the freedom to instruct using creative strategies. Often, I feel as f I am in a “traditional rut” and would like to escape. I need not to be afraid to “think out of the box”. I think it would be fun and exciting to try something new and different…such as teaching reading and writing through various genres. I also think it would be difficult. I am considering ways I could change my daily schedule and my teaching strategies. I look forward to “mixing things up”.
If I attempted a multigenre project with my second graders, I would consider something similar to the” Primary Focus on Biography” (Writing Without Boundaries, page 80-81.) We have a famous American unit of study, so this would be a possibility. Another possibility may be with animal life cycles, as mentioned in our multigenre assignment by Dr. Fyre. I did like the Snowflake Bentley project from readwritethink.org; although the project is written for grades 3-5, we study a weather unit in second grade.
Topics I am considering for my multigenre project are the holocaust, nanotechnology, animal life cycles, weather, Sally Ride, George Washington. Lots of thoughts running rampant!!! I think the holocaust and technology would be interesting, but I would like to create an example for my second graders-animals, weather, or famous American-might be a better choice.
The lists of genres is very impressive – way more ideas than I could ever think of – text message?. Some genres my second graders have worked with are poems, narratives, journals, informational texts, letters, cards, plays, readers theater, power point, maps, dialogue, instructions, graphs, charts, lists, illustrations…a longer list than I imagined.
A genre I could consider teaching my students to study and write is a weather report. We will study weather in science this spring. I hope to have my students write haiku poems about weather too. We are finishing a study of famous Americans. I plan to invite my students to write acrostic poems about what they learn. It would be fun to have them write letters or journal entries from their person’s perspective. Letters and journals are genres they have experience with already.
Multigenre Writing
In multigenre writing, students do not simply regurgitate what they have read, interpret their research and present it in creative ways. So many genres- I like the idea of using “familiar genres pervasive outside classroom walls” (Kress, Writing without Boundaries, page 3) This makes writing reasonable and relative – ‘real life’ writing. In second grade, we basically teach narrative and expository texts, although I realize there are various types of each that we should introduce to our young scholars. I myself have a lot to learn about different genres. I know students will need direct instruction to understand different genres of reading and writing. I feel overwhelmed thinking of the task in front of me – how to teach such an expanse of information and model examples well so that my students can choose to write in various genres. WOW!I like the writing workshop layout, but look forward to example lesson ideas. And again, I worry about the time allotted during a school day compared to the time demanded. It seems it will take so long to read, discuss, and understand genres before writing. And we still must prepare our students for the test. How does it all integrate ???Sounds interesting! I think years ago, had this been my high school assignment, I would have enjoyed it. Today, I am somewhat anxious about attempting multigenre writing… But, I do enjoy learning new ideas.
