I would just like to say that just like the article, "'It would be fun to do again': Multi-genre Responses to Literature," I am totally down with the implementation of multi-genre projects and the wide-spread use of multi-genre techniques in the classroom. I think our program has stressed this a lot and I agree that we need to be aware of and use as many different tools as possible to help our students be creative, free-thinking, independent citizens.
Ok, so that being said, I do have a couple of concerns that would not necessarily stop me from doing a project like this, but that would cause me to pause to think about for a few moments. First off, I think that Ms. Gillespie was smart in aiming high and making this assignment bigger than what she knew her students could handle. I think that there is a potential with a project like this to have students rush through and get done very quickly. This is not always because they are rushing to get it done and out of the way, but because they are so into it that it may seem easier because they are doing something that they actually enjoy doing. This can be especially tricky if you are giving a lot of class time to work. If Crosswinds taught me anything, it was to always have a good backup activity.
Following this train of thought, I am going to leave off with some questions that I have been pondering and could be applied to this and most classroom projects and assignments. How much in-class time are we expected to give students to work on assignments like this? Do today's students expect to get class time to work on projects, or can we expect to do something like this as homework? In an English classroom I wonder how much is too much? I know that every classroom and school will be different, but I have just been thinking about how we tell if our multi-media/multi-genre infused students these days are being too overloaded (just how many wonderful and rich supplementary texts can I pile on)?
My website of the week:
http://midwestteensexshow.com/
This is probably not a website that you would be using in class! I am putting it up because it is funny and I think that some of our students may be aware of this site so it doesn't hurt if we are too. If nothing else, I am making this my site of the week to remind us that our students are definitely not thinking of English literature at all times of the day (not even at all times of English class).
1 comment:
I too am totally down with incorporating multigenre projects into my curriculum. I'm convinced that students learn more when they're engaged in a creative process that allows them freedom to follow their own talents and interests than they learn if they're boxed in and bored. I'm especially looking forward to making an exemplar project like Gillespie did. I wonder if my cooperating teacher would be open to my using multigenre responses to literature in the classes I'll be teaching... We should maybe form a multigenre club. Or maybe a team. And then we could compete with other multigenre teams in the Multigenre Response to Literature League. Denise could design t-shirts, and we could vote on a team name. My vote: The Listening Multigenrists. Just kidding. How about the EdHeads?
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