The Genre of Multigenre

As the semester starts to wind down (it’s more than halfway through!), my professors are starting to introduce final projects, and projects that I need to complete during my second field experience, which is starting on Monday.

One assignment that I’m particularly looking forward to is an assignment for my EDT 427 class. For this class, I have to write a multigenre paper.

Now, when I first heard about this project at the beginning of the semester, I recall being extraordinarily confused. I’d never heard of a multigenre paper before, but as the semester has gone on, I’ve learned more about it, and I’m really looking forward to writing mine.

The basic premise behind a multigenre paper is to write about a specific idea by utilizing different genres. For example, I could write a piece of dialogue about said topic, and then I could write a poem about the same topic.

What makes a multigenre paper different is how the different genres approach the same topic. When writing in different genres, there’s automatically a shift that occurs, whether it’s in perspective or tone, or any number of things. When these pieces are compiled, it creates a really neat lens to look at a certain topic with.

A picture of some of the different genre
suggestions for my multigenre paper.

Earlier in the semester, I attended a conference at which there was a session on the multigenre paper. During this session, the speaker put up a picture from Cinderella and handed out a different genre to each person. We each had to write about the scene in our specific genre.

The genre I received was lab notes, which is a genre I never would have thought to write in. But putting on this lab notes lens and looking at the picture from a scientific point of view, caused me to analyze Cinderella from a completely new perspective.

After everyone wrote in their specific writing style, some of the audience members shared their writing, and it was, in effect, an example of a multigenre piece written by several different people. This is what really made me interested in writing my multigenre paper.

During my field experiences, I have to pinpoint something I’ve observed and write a multigenre paper on it. When my professor was introducing the topic earlier this week, I couldn’t help but start to think of all the different writing styles I intend to try out for my paper.