Multi Genre Inquiry Project - OverviewThis website is the culmination of my Multi Genre Inquiry Project, a major assignment in my English Methods (EDU 354) class at Wake Forest University. For this project, I was asked to select a commonly taught text and develop an essential question surrounding it. I chose The Joy Luck Club, a vignette novel written by Amy Tan. When reading this novel as a teenager and again as a college student, I was fascinated by the way that the four mothers in the novel and their dreams for their daughters influence the daughters' decisions, choices, and outcomes. Therefore, for my project, I wanted to explore the following essential question: How do family dreams influence outcomes for their children?
As part of the Multi Genre Inquiry Project, I have designed eight genres that attempt to answer this question from a variety of angles and through a variety of lenses. Just as I have explored this question in various ways, high school English students could also represent their own ideas and research concerning an essential question through similar genres. |
Genres
Genre 1: An essay that explores how the essential question is portrayed in a variety of texts, including canonical works of fiction, nonfiction, short stories, young adult novels, and academic journals.
Genre 2: A journal entry by a young teenager, expressing the emotions that accompany her inability to live up to her parents' expectations and standards.
Genre 3: A series of texts between a father and son who have differing opinions on the son's athletic success (or lack thereof)
Genre 4: A brief Prezi presentation detailing statistics about how young adults view their parents or family members' dreams for them
Genre 5: A letter from a parent to a parenting advice column, explaining the problems that she has been having with her son
Genre 6: A flyer that could be given to parents of high school students, explaining how they can help their child become independent
Genre 7: A lesson plan that demonstrates how to teach this theme or essential question in a high school ELA classroom
Genre 8: This website, a Web 2.0 tool, which presents all of the above genres created through my exploration into the essential question
Genre 2: A journal entry by a young teenager, expressing the emotions that accompany her inability to live up to her parents' expectations and standards.
Genre 3: A series of texts between a father and son who have differing opinions on the son's athletic success (or lack thereof)
Genre 4: A brief Prezi presentation detailing statistics about how young adults view their parents or family members' dreams for them
Genre 5: A letter from a parent to a parenting advice column, explaining the problems that she has been having with her son
Genre 6: A flyer that could be given to parents of high school students, explaining how they can help their child become independent
Genre 7: A lesson plan that demonstrates how to teach this theme or essential question in a high school ELA classroom
Genre 8: This website, a Web 2.0 tool, which presents all of the above genres created through my exploration into the essential question
Reflection
This project has really helped me gain a better understanding of how to approach an essential question in many different ways, as well as an understanding of how important it is for students to be able to look at a text or a question from different angles. I think that this project was a great way for me to understand how to create different genres, both theoretically and practically using various resources, and I would love to use a similar activity in a classroom setting. Before beginning this project, if I had been given my essential question and asked to teach a unit on it using The Joy Luck Club as one of my main focal texts, 90% of my lesson plans would have been structured around the text itself. While the text is a great resource, this project really helped me realize how important it is to let students understand a question from different perspectives, not only the way that it is answered or portrayed in one novel. Throughout my English Methods class, my teaching philosophy continues to change and evolve. I am continually learning how important it is to include different types of instruction. This project really allowed me to see how I could encourage students to consider an idea from multiple perspectives in a fun and creative way.
I think it is important to realize when studying this essential question that it is extremely personal. There's not a right answer or a wrong answer, because everyone will feel differently based on personal experience. The survey I created as part of Genre 4 really drove this point home for me, as I was able to see how others feel that their parents or family members might have specific hopes or dreams for them. For example, I found myself surprised that so many parents/families encouraged one dream, as well as surprised that so few considered another that I personally would have considered more important. Overall, I think this project taught me that it is important for students to know that there isn't always a right or wrong answer, and it isn't always black and white. Students should be able to look at a question from different perspectives, knowing that it isn't their job to make judgments, but instead, to learn and understand.
I think it is important to realize when studying this essential question that it is extremely personal. There's not a right answer or a wrong answer, because everyone will feel differently based on personal experience. The survey I created as part of Genre 4 really drove this point home for me, as I was able to see how others feel that their parents or family members might have specific hopes or dreams for them. For example, I found myself surprised that so many parents/families encouraged one dream, as well as surprised that so few considered another that I personally would have considered more important. Overall, I think this project taught me that it is important for students to know that there isn't always a right or wrong answer, and it isn't always black and white. Students should be able to look at a question from different perspectives, knowing that it isn't their job to make judgments, but instead, to learn and understand.