Ideas for Multi-Genre Projects in Novel Study
More Genres, More Conversation About Books
Looking at these documents, you may think I am a little bit crazy. I am okay with that. However, I am excited to have a go at this project with my third hour group. I am constantly evaluating how I end a novel unit, and I enjoy reflecting on the type of paper writing I express as important to my students. When my grade-level colleague and I attended MCTE in October and listened to Kelly Gallagher, we got excited about the idea of a multi-genre project with our sixth graders. We teach a variety of paper genres throughout the school year, including the five-paragraph essay, but we wanted students to get a chance to be innovative and inquisitive about the world around them.
The project consists of many layers of writing. Here is a breakdown of each genre:
Argumentative: This is the standard five-paragraph essay. Many of you just vomited a little in your mouth. My apologies. However, this canon of paper writing is currently needed and seen in academic arenas. Whether I like it or not, I need to prepare students for the genre of test-taking writing as well. I am also an advocate that students need to know the rules first before they learn how to break them. They get to choose between 4 choices in the argumentative section of this project. We learn how to cite evidence, the basic format of an academic essay with a formula, and how to transition between ideas.
Informational: This is in the form of a group project. Students include a write-up of their work in the final individually submitted project. They are assigned a line of inquiry for a project, and then they will seek out information using databases. I am preparing them to use databases for research and how to find facts they are curious about on a given topic. See below for the inquiry project sheet.
Narrative: They are doing this assignment for homework rather than the Article of the Week. They are already being exposed to informational texts through their inquiry groups, so they are going to write a deleted scene from the book we just read. The goal would be to teach them about how to apply the same skills from the most recent personal narrative writing unit to another narrative writing project. They will do one draft one week, and then they will do another draft the next week.