These activities can work as a lead into work with a multi-genre paper.

Genre as Lens
 When beginning writers discover the power of genre to give meaning to material, they will begin to understand that genre is a lens they can use to examine life.  The more skillful they become with a specific genre, however, the more danger that they will see the world through that single lens.  While walking across the same campus, the poet finds poems, the journalist sees news stories, that the essayist discovers essays.
 There is something necessary and wonderful about this.  We need people who see poems where we do not, but we should make sure we try out the great variety of lenses available to us…. We should use genre—the entire range of genres—to help us explore our subject.
       Donald Murray
       A Writer Teaches Writing


Found Poetry
 

Select a piece from your reading in which you will “find” a poem.

1.  Brainstorm/freewrite what you feel are the main ideas, issues, themes, symbols (elements of literature) in the selection you have chosen.
2.  Decide which themes you wish to focus on.
3.  Create a poem from the selection.  You are to use only the language of the selection.  You may not add any of your own words.   You may arrange the words in different order.  The idea is to convey the images offered in poetic form – through character, action, tone, symbol, setting, theme…
4.  Create a title that evokes the theme of the poem.
 
 

From Poem to Prose

This activity is somewhat the opposite of the above, and thus can be seen as a variation of it.  Select a poem from your reading.

1.  Decide on a point of view from which to approach the subject of the poem.
2.  Decide on a voice which you will use.
3.  Compose a prose piece out of the situation or theme of the poem.  For example, you could write a letter to or from the narrator of the poem, create a vignette based on the situation of the poem, do a prose scene or script related by theme.  For this activity, there are no requirements about the language you can use.
4.  Decide on an appropriate title for your piece.

 Basic Basie
 

Hunched, humped backed, gigantic
the pianist presides above the
rumpus, his fingers clutch the

chords, dissonance and discord vie
and vamp across the key
board

his big feet beat the beat until the whole joint
rocks, it is not romantic
but a subtle fingering exudes a sweet exotic

fragrance now and then, you'll
recognize the fragrance if you listen
well, this flower blooms and blossoms, till

brash boogie woogie hordes come burgeoning up from hell
blind
and gigantic
 

      Kamau Brathwaite

 Basie, William (1904-[1984]), "Count," musician.  Born in Red Bank, New Jersey, on August 21, 1904, William Basie was musically inclined from childhood.  In his teens he studied piano, for a time with Fats Waller, who also taught him to play the organ and got him into vaudeville as an accompanist.  For a few years he played on the East Coast and then worked his way west until he was stranded in Kansas City, Missouri.  There he joined Walter Page's "Blue Devils" and then Benny Moten's band, at the time the leading jazz group in the Midwest.  Soon after Moten's death in 1935, Basie formed his own band with Page, Freddy Green, Jo Jones, Lester Young, and others.  The band played at the Reno Club in Kansas City and, although it was short on formal arrangements, soon attracted a considerable following with its driving rhythm and brilliant solo work.  A chance hearing of one of their local radio broadcasts by an influential jazz enthusiast led to their traveling to New York City in 1936 and to a recording contract the following year.  Engagements at a series of fashionable clubs, theaters, and hotels quickly established the band as one of the most popular in the country and recordings spread their fame throughout the world.  A succession of great soloists . . . and vocalists . . . helped to keep the appeal of Count Basie's music growing; always it was characterized by the trademark "jumping" beat and the contrapuntal accents of Basie's own piano.  The band broke up in 1950 and for a year or so Basie toured with a small combo. . . . In 1951 he organized a new big band and immediately surpassed his earlier success in a number of tours across the county and in Europe . . .
 
 

Source: Webster's American Biographies (1975)

 First Piece of the Multigenre Paper

Ask students to create an opening piece that is engaging, informative, and reader-friendly.  Robert Cormier says that he likes to grab readers by the lapels in the beginning of his young adult novels.  Have students try these options for openers:

? Write a sketch of the central character.  Include the significant details of her life, the important characters in it.  (You can expand your writing about these details and characters in later genres).

? Write a narrative of your main character performing the central activity of her life.  Kamau Brathwaite's "Basic Basie," for example, paints the picture of Count Basie making music at the piano.

? Write vividly about the central image of your topic.  In a paper about pitching legend Sachel Paige, you might simply describe in great detail a baseball, a thing he held in his right hand tens of thousands of times.  In a paper about Amelia Earhart you might begin by describing the view from the cockpit of her twin-engined Lockheed Electra.

? Find a memorable photo or create a picture that would be compelling for readers to lay eyes on first.

? Develop an extended metaphor that captures your character or topic or theme.  Earlier in this chapter, for example, Jeri Meyer wrote about a garden and weeds that choke out good things that might grow in it.

? Render a defining moment in your central character's life.  Brian McKnight began with a poem of the shooting of John Lennon.  He might have begun with the act of Lennon writing song lyrics or playing with his son or making love to Yoko, all defining moments in his life.  Blues vocalist Etta James might be depicted at the microphone on a small stage in a Chicago blues club, her eyes closed, sweat beaded on her brow, singing the blues.

 Writing a Preface, Foreword, or Introduction

As students near the end of their multigenre work, take time to look as a whole class at the introductions of Jeff Stebbins' "The Allosaurs in Phoenix" (Chapter 9) and/or Amy Wilson's "Finding Strengths in Our Differences" (Chapter 13).

You might let students meet in small groups for exploratory talk before meeting as a whole class.  Discuss what the authors are doing with their introductory words.  What information are they supplying?  What attitude are they establishing?

Try this workshop after students are well into writing their multigenre papers and have discovered much themselves:

? Ask students to jot down important things readers ought to know before they begin reading their papers.  They should reject nothing in this brainstorming and generate many possibilities.

? Team students in pairs.  Give each four minutes to talk about the important things he or she jotted.  Ask the listening partners to play the role of naturally curious human beings and to "say back" what they understand from the partner's talk.  Just as important, instruct them to ask the questions that have risen naturally in their minds.  Such questions might lead the writer to reveal more pertinent information that readers ought to know about.

? Take ten or fifteen minutes for everyone to bear down and write directly to perspective readers, telling them things they ought to know before reading.

? Have the class put these drafts aside for two or three days, then come back to them to reread and revise.

? Ask students to determine whether these pieces should preface their multigenre papers.
 

Multi-genre research Paper

Choose one genre from each category below:

Group 1:
poem
letter
short story
narrative
script
journal entry

Group 2:
newspaper article
magazine article
pamphlet
research report
manual
brochure
reference document
encyclopedia article

Group 3:
editorial
letter to the editor
interview
book review
essay
survey
business letter
advice column

Group 4 (visual)
picture
photo
movie clip
collage
photo-journalism
chart
graph
play performance
advertisement
comic/cartoon
poster
movie poster
skit performance
 


Criteria for Evaluation of Multi-genre Research Paper
 
 
 

Use of Genre—
Are there at least three distinct literary forms represented here?  Is the variety of genre appropriate?  Are the genre selected appropriate to the purpose of the paper?  Do they thoroughly fulfill the purpose of the paper?   (20)

Language and Form—
Have you included a notes page and a works cited page?  Have you used an adequate number and type of sources?  Does the notes page adequately and thoroughly explain the sources of information used?  Does the paper flow smoothly?  Is it easy to read?  Is the language appropriate to the genre used? Are there unnecessary words which slow the piece down?  (20)

Clarity-
Is the paper free of spelling, grammatical, punctuation, capitalization and paragraphing errors which would make the paper difficult to read or distract the reader from the meaning?  (20)

Meaning—
Do the genre work together to support one overall meaning?  Does everything in the paper work to the support the central focus?  Is this focus clear?  Is it meaningful?
The piece should display unity and purpose and create a tension that makes the reader want to read on.  (20)

Information—
Does the paper supply specific details, examples, facts, etc. to back up generalizations?  Is there enough information to thoroughly treat the topic of the paper?  Are the details appropriate to the genre and to the paper and are they carefully selected?  Do they evoke imagery in the reader?  (20)