Multigenre Responses to Literature

I most thoroughly enjoyed Joanne Gillespie's article, "It would be fun to do again": Multigenre responses to literature. The ideas that Gillespie presented were energizing and inspiring. To be honest, the thought of grading 150 papers about the same novel seems tedious and tiring to me. I feel as if that is a process that will wear at my patience, and I have no doubt that my students will be able to see this. Using multigenre writing will help to keep my class fresh, keeping me and the students interested.

I am not totally discrediting traditional literacies. It is important to teach these as well. But, I think using multigenre literacy in addtion to traditional literacy will help prepare students for life. In our ever changing world, where new forms of communication are constantly being introduced, it is now more important than ever to help students master all forms of communicating.

One of points from Gillespie's article that I would like to stress is the need to model multigenre writing to your students before assigning anything. The importance of modeling work can not be overstressed. Students who are used to writing in one way will need guidance when suddenly switching to new forms of expression. With the proper modeling (or scaffolding if you will) multigenre literacy seems like a really cool idea!

My link for this week is from the National Council of Teachers of English website. Within the NCTE website there is a page dedicated to Multigenre Literacy. The page has lists of other links and ideas, check it out.