Research, Experience and Imagination:

Exploring Your Passions through Multi-genre Writing

Give me the drench of my passions.

-Walt Whitman

Passion causes ideas, images, and lines of thought to stick with out throughout the day as you shop, exercise, prepare a meal, or garden. Passion raises you from bed to jot down a phrase or a line you thought of as you were drifting into sleep.

-Tom RomanoWriting With Passion:

Life Stories, Multiple Genres

Passion in the Classroom

A Writer must “ache with caring”-Mem FoxRadical

Reflections

In our classrooms we must trust children to know their hearts and minds. We must feel them to feel and look and listen…We must hope that one day they will ‘ache with caring.’

-Lester LaminackThe Writing

Workshop

Mentor Text Jigsaw

Read the piece and record your noticings. You can choose to annotate the text or fill in the chart provided.

Describe the speaker’s voice. How does the tone of the piece portray the writer’s passion and/or purpose?

Multi-Genre Portfolios• Once you start, you’ll never

go back.-Lauren

Baker• What is Multi-Genre?• How can I explore multiple

genres in my own writing?• How can I implement multi-

genre in the classroom?

• A multigenre paper arises from research, experience, and imagination. A multigenre paper is composed of many genres and subgenres, each piece self-contained, making a point of its own, yet connected by theme or topic and sometimes by language, images, and content. In addition to many genres, a multigenre paper may also contain many voices, not just the author’s. The trick is to make it hang together.

-Tom RomanoBlending Genre,

Altering Style

Creating Your Own Multi-Genre Portfolio

• Think about your passions…• Which direction does your

writing seem to be taking thus far?

• Which genres might be best suited for studying and writing about your passion?

**Don’t stress too much over theme or unified topic—it will emerge organically.

• In the end when we evaluate student work, we are left with who we are, the culture we are trying to maintain in our classroom, our own history as writers, institutional pressures, and the undeniable fact of each student’s individuality…And I can’t grade students multigenre papers without considering—in addition to their accomplishment—their present development, their degree of good faith effort, and the learning culture of my classroom.

-Tom RomanoBlending Genre,

Altering Style

In the Classroom

• How might you address many objectives and standards through multi-genre writing, while still providing strong student choice and freedom?

Putting it all Together• Encourage students to discover

and recognize the power of their passions

• Allow students the freedom to follow their passions through research and personal exploration

• Provide the framework through which students are motivated to improve their skills and expand their knowledge of both interesting topics and multiple genres of writing