Multigenre Research Project
MULTIGENRE RESEARCH PAPER
"A multigenre paper arises from research, experience, and imagination. It is not an uninterrupted, expository monolog nor a seamless narrative nor a collection of poems. 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 such a paper hang together."
~~ (Romano, Blending Genre, Altering Style i-xi)
Multigenre papers are a kind of research papers that rely on research to learn about a subject, but then they are presented in a non-traditional format. The format relies on various genres that are created by the writer to convey a different side of the subject than could be expressed by a traditional paper. This paper requires that you blend narrative writing and expository writing.
To quote, Dr. Romano, “This is a chance to pursue a passion in your intellectual/emotional/spiritual life, a chance to strive to answer a question involving a topic of consuming interest to you and to communicate your learning through a multigenre research project, where you get at the factual, the emotional, and the imaginative. This is a time to try the untried and to be expansive.
Choose a person, idea, topic, trend, era, cultural phenomenon, movement, thing, place . . . and become the quintessential mad researcher, the wigged out, completely immersed learner on the trail of information vital to achieving peace of mind and satisfying your insatiable curiosity.”
Required Research Sources Of Your Inquiry:
You must have a minimum of five sources which include:
· At least one book (or two, or three. Read fast, become an expert)
· Articles
· Internet sources*
*The Internet contains the good, the bad, and the ugly. It is democratic, but there is no screening for quality as there is in journals and books. There are wonderful databases available; there are also shallow, misleading websites. So gauge the quality and the depth of what you find in cyberspace. I definitely don't want you to simply paste material from a website into your paper. I want to see an original mgp from you, one grounded in a research understanding of your topic
One tip: begin your research soon, make it part of your academic life, take notes and gather bibliographic information. Use the Thanksgiving break to search and read. Immerse yourselves in your topic so the writing comes easy.
Planning Stage
1. The Proposal: This detailed 1-2 page double-spaced document will be your request to research a specific topic. This is a persuasive document. You must show me that the topic is:
· Related to you in some meaningful way
· Feasible
· Interesting to an audience
2. The Plan of Writing (POW): This 1-page document should detail the genres that you are going to create for the project with a 3-4 sentence rationale for your selection... It should identify different pieces as
Genre 1: Category—genre
Genre 2: Category—genre
For example:
Genre 1: Visual—wanted poster
Rationale
Genre 2: Creative—sonnet
Rationale
Genre 3: expository—field notes journal
Rationale
Final Product
1. Dear Reader Letter: Introduce to the reader your topic, your rationale for choosing it, and a road map for reading through it.
2. Informational Essay: 250-350 words. Make this vivid, informational, straight-ahead writing. Boil your topic down to essentials. This can appear as a straight mini-essay, or you can drop the exposition into a form that fits your mgp. Note that it does not have to be the first piece after the Dear Reader letter.
3. Poetic Piece: the style is up to you (free verse, cinquain, iambic pentameter, etc).
4. Visual element
5. Note Page: some of your genres may require a footnote for further explanation
6. Bibliography: please note that this is NOT a works cited page. It still must be written in MLA format, but you will use footnotes rather than in-text citations.
7. Unifying elements (repetend-REQUIRED, repeated images, genres answered, fragmented narrative, a detail mentioned on one piece that is exploded and illustrated in a longer piece) Please note that the repetend is required. A repetend is a phrase or sentence that is repeated in each of your genres. Other unifying elements are optional and will depend on your theme.
Include in your paper all seven items. But you’ll need to write more genres than these to create a fully realized mgp. Wherever else you go in the writing is up to you. Range as widely as you want in creating this paper.
"A multigenre paper arises from research, experience, and imagination. It is not an uninterrupted, expository monolog nor a seamless narrative nor a collection of poems. 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 such a paper hang together."
~~ (Romano, Blending Genre, Altering Style i-xi)
Multigenre papers are a kind of research papers that rely on research to learn about a subject, but then they are presented in a non-traditional format. The format relies on various genres that are created by the writer to convey a different side of the subject than could be expressed by a traditional paper. This paper requires that you blend narrative writing and expository writing.
To quote, Dr. Romano, “This is a chance to pursue a passion in your intellectual/emotional/spiritual life, a chance to strive to answer a question involving a topic of consuming interest to you and to communicate your learning through a multigenre research project, where you get at the factual, the emotional, and the imaginative. This is a time to try the untried and to be expansive.
Choose a person, idea, topic, trend, era, cultural phenomenon, movement, thing, place . . . and become the quintessential mad researcher, the wigged out, completely immersed learner on the trail of information vital to achieving peace of mind and satisfying your insatiable curiosity.”
Required Research Sources Of Your Inquiry:
You must have a minimum of five sources which include:
· At least one book (or two, or three. Read fast, become an expert)
· Articles
· Internet sources*
*The Internet contains the good, the bad, and the ugly. It is democratic, but there is no screening for quality as there is in journals and books. There are wonderful databases available; there are also shallow, misleading websites. So gauge the quality and the depth of what you find in cyberspace. I definitely don't want you to simply paste material from a website into your paper. I want to see an original mgp from you, one grounded in a research understanding of your topic
One tip: begin your research soon, make it part of your academic life, take notes and gather bibliographic information. Use the Thanksgiving break to search and read. Immerse yourselves in your topic so the writing comes easy.
Planning Stage
1. The Proposal: This detailed 1-2 page double-spaced document will be your request to research a specific topic. This is a persuasive document. You must show me that the topic is:
· Related to you in some meaningful way
· Feasible
· Interesting to an audience
2. The Plan of Writing (POW): This 1-page document should detail the genres that you are going to create for the project with a 3-4 sentence rationale for your selection... It should identify different pieces as
Genre 1: Category—genre
Genre 2: Category—genre
For example:
Genre 1: Visual—wanted poster
Rationale
Genre 2: Creative—sonnet
Rationale
Genre 3: expository—field notes journal
Rationale
Final Product
1. Dear Reader Letter: Introduce to the reader your topic, your rationale for choosing it, and a road map for reading through it.
2. Informational Essay: 250-350 words. Make this vivid, informational, straight-ahead writing. Boil your topic down to essentials. This can appear as a straight mini-essay, or you can drop the exposition into a form that fits your mgp. Note that it does not have to be the first piece after the Dear Reader letter.
3. Poetic Piece: the style is up to you (free verse, cinquain, iambic pentameter, etc).
4. Visual element
5. Note Page: some of your genres may require a footnote for further explanation
6. Bibliography: please note that this is NOT a works cited page. It still must be written in MLA format, but you will use footnotes rather than in-text citations.
7. Unifying elements (repetend-REQUIRED, repeated images, genres answered, fragmented narrative, a detail mentioned on one piece that is exploded and illustrated in a longer piece) Please note that the repetend is required. A repetend is a phrase or sentence that is repeated in each of your genres. Other unifying elements are optional and will depend on your theme.
Include in your paper all seven items. But you’ll need to write more genres than these to create a fully realized mgp. Wherever else you go in the writing is up to you. Range as widely as you want in creating this paper.