What do you think?
Rate this book
A Teacher's Guide to the Multigenre Research Project: Everything You Need to Get Started
Have you heard? The multigenre research project is growing in popularity with both students and teachers. That's because it's such a powerful way to engage students in reading, writing, and critical analysis across the curriculum. Despite all this, you might not know exactly how to take advantage of this exciting new approach to research writing, what to expect a multigenre classroom to look like, or how to assess students' projects. With A Teacher's Guide to the Multigenre Research Project , you soon will. A Teacher's Guide to the Multigenre Research Project is a ready-to-go resource for helping students create rich, dynamic, and complex projects
208 pages, Paperback
First published February 21, 2006
29 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
June 2, 2017
I want to teach this project so bad!
December 31, 2021
Wonderful resource. I’m thrilled to introduce this to my 8th graders this semester.
May 17, 2023
This is an incredibly practical, incredibly helpful book for any teacher trying out the MG project (which I am!) Can't wait to begin.
September 7, 2008
I really enjoyed this book. Putz presents a "twist" on the research paper in her multigenre research project. This isn't the first time I've heard of this kind of project. Melinda Putz doesn't claim to have "invented" the assignment. She has, however, explained it in a way that is very explicit and user friendly. She includes at the end of each chapter her actual handouts she gives students. I found myself flipping to these in order to make sense of her explanations. She includes student work to illustrate the explanations and goes a step further by including a companion CD with pdf or ms word files of each of her handouts for teacher use as well as one complete student multigenre project and many snippets from other students' work as well. Because much of the multigenre project is visual, the CD option really added my my understanding of the projects students produced.
It's impressive to consider all the ways a unit like this can impact students reading, researching, and writing. They must do a decent amount of higher level thinking, inferring, and synthesizing and I am always looking for ways to encourage that in students.
Finally, it's a project that --I-- want to do. Instantly I was running through possible topics in my mind and was trying to think of different genres I could use to depict the essential elements of those topics. It's easy to get excited about something so creative and I have a feeling that would be the same for students too. I am definitely going to try this with my students I just need to figure out how to adapt it to our school setting (block schedule) and at what grade level I want to begin.
For those curious about ways to engage students in research in creative ways this is a book I would highly recommend.
It's impressive to consider all the ways a unit like this can impact students reading, researching, and writing. They must do a decent amount of higher level thinking, inferring, and synthesizing and I am always looking for ways to encourage that in students.
Finally, it's a project that --I-- want to do. Instantly I was running through possible topics in my mind and was trying to think of different genres I could use to depict the essential elements of those topics. It's easy to get excited about something so creative and I have a feeling that would be the same for students too. I am definitely going to try this with my students I just need to figure out how to adapt it to our school setting (block schedule) and at what grade level I want to begin.
For those curious about ways to engage students in research in creative ways this is a book I would highly recommend.
June 9, 2008
I'm going to go ahead and move this puppy over to "read." I bought it not long before starting a multigenre unit in my own classroom, and I immediately began a search-and-copy mission on the book, pulling out handouts, examples, rubrics, hints, guidelines, standards, etc. as needed. I kept meaning to go back and read the darn thing cover to cover, if only to make sure I wouldn't miss anything, but I'm quickly becoming unmotivated to do so.
Don't get me wrong. This is SO useful to anyone wanting to try out (or even fine tune) a multigenre unit or project. She even includes a CD-rom in the back of the book which has Word AND pdf versions of all her handouts, as well as dozens and dozens of helpful color pictures of past student projects to share with your students. She even writes in a partially multigenre style, so in addition to the multitude of student examples in the book, the book itself is a clever example. There's no overstating how helpful this resource was.
It's simply more of a handbook that you go to for targeted help, than a book you would read fully for inspiration and understanding. It gets a little too redundant for that, and I thought some of her approach a little constricted. For multigenre inspiration and holistic appreciation, go straight to my new educator crush--Tom Romano and his fabulous book Blending Genre, Altering Style. It makes you want to jump up and down and scream "God, I love teaching!"
Kudos to Melinda Putz, though, who wrote a great deal of this while recovering from a brain tumor. I would have been utterly lost without this in the center of my desk space for a month straight!
Don't get me wrong. This is SO useful to anyone wanting to try out (or even fine tune) a multigenre unit or project. She even includes a CD-rom in the back of the book which has Word AND pdf versions of all her handouts, as well as dozens and dozens of helpful color pictures of past student projects to share with your students. She even writes in a partially multigenre style, so in addition to the multitude of student examples in the book, the book itself is a clever example. There's no overstating how helpful this resource was.
It's simply more of a handbook that you go to for targeted help, than a book you would read fully for inspiration and understanding. It gets a little too redundant for that, and I thought some of her approach a little constricted. For multigenre inspiration and holistic appreciation, go straight to my new educator crush--Tom Romano and his fabulous book Blending Genre, Altering Style. It makes you want to jump up and down and scream "God, I love teaching!"
Kudos to Melinda Putz, though, who wrote a great deal of this while recovering from a brain tumor. I would have been utterly lost without this in the center of my desk space for a month straight!
April 16, 2018
I have found quite a few books out there devoted to teaching students research and writing skills through the multi-genre research project. Of course, Tom Romano's titles are at the forefront, and I have enjoyed reading them.
That being said, for my money, I'd recommend this book as the starting point for any teacher - especially any high school teacher - interested in trying out the MGRP with her students. Melinda Putz is so thorough and clear about her experience that it almost feels like child's play to plan out a six-week session devoted to the unique research and presentation mode. Between the encouraging advice on potential pitfalls, the sample assignments and worksheets, the examples of student work, the works cited, and suggested timeline for work, and the CD-Rom with everything included, there is really no way to finish this book and feel unprepared. I'm really looking forward to sharing this resource with my inquiry team of teachers and writing an MGRP of my own. It's really hard not to feel Putz's enthusiasm for the process.
And, because we're in that time, the research, writing, discussion, presentation, and overall unifying theme of the multi-genre research project format will certainly hit on a dozen (at least) Common Core Standards at a depth of analysis and application that definitely has the potential to touch on the overall intent of the CCSS (depth, not breadth).
That being said, for my money, I'd recommend this book as the starting point for any teacher - especially any high school teacher - interested in trying out the MGRP with her students. Melinda Putz is so thorough and clear about her experience that it almost feels like child's play to plan out a six-week session devoted to the unique research and presentation mode. Between the encouraging advice on potential pitfalls, the sample assignments and worksheets, the examples of student work, the works cited, and suggested timeline for work, and the CD-Rom with everything included, there is really no way to finish this book and feel unprepared. I'm really looking forward to sharing this resource with my inquiry team of teachers and writing an MGRP of my own. It's really hard not to feel Putz's enthusiasm for the process.
And, because we're in that time, the research, writing, discussion, presentation, and overall unifying theme of the multi-genre research project format will certainly hit on a dozen (at least) Common Core Standards at a depth of analysis and application that definitely has the potential to touch on the overall intent of the CCSS (depth, not breadth).
April 8, 2009
Excellent, excellent book. It's like having a mentor teacher helping me design my own variation of the project. I have adapted some of the ideas for my High School US History class. It helps having suggestions of how to avoid some of the mistakes I might make on my first time running the project.
June 18, 2009
Melinda Putz gives a play by play plan for implementing the multigenre research project. I loved reading my students work after following her concrete directions. It took me one hundred years to grade them, however.
Read
September 5, 2008Great book. Excellent examples. Would love to hear how other implemented this book within the classroom. Rubrics?
December 10, 2014
A great introduction to multigenre projects. Can always modify ideas to individualize outcomes.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews