Maybe it's the spring break laziness that hasn't worn off yet but I didn't really understand the whole multigenre research paper thing. I totally understand what the article was saying about the importance of allowing students to choose a topic based on authentic curiosity and personal connections, but I don't really understand what the multigenre research actually is. From what I can gather, multigenre research is a big project on a significant person or event presented in a creative way. So does anything go when writing the research paper part as long as the information that is presented is well thought out and accurate? I think what is confusing me is that students can include fictional letters or other fictional things in the research paper. I really like this idea a lot because it sounds like something I would enjoy and I can see how it displays the students' knowledge and interpretation of what they have learned about the person or event of study but how does the student distinguish what is fact from fiction in the paper? Now that I think about it, I guess it really isn't all that confusing. I'm really intrigued by this multigenre research process......
As for chapter 12, I like the idea of choosing units of study based on student interest and resources available. If you base your units of study on student interest, you will never get bored year after year because student interests will always be changing!
You've got the hang of multigenre research (and will hopefully get more and more ideas as we do our own work.) For this, research should not be about assembling facts as much as taking those facts and also presenting them in a compelling way that involves writing different kinds of things. You'll have to tell me how it's going as we make our way through the weeks. :)
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