Today was the conclusion of this semester's multi-genre projects with my Honors English IV class.  I had nine teachers, administrators and community members come in to evaluate my students on what they had learned.  The students had selected the five multi-genre projects that they though were the best.  I made copies of the students work and distributed it to the panel members on Monday.  The panel interviews were today, Wednesday.  
Students performed really well.  Almost all of the interviewers seemed impressed.  
Now I have to decide how I feel about this project, whether I will repeat it in the future, and if I do repeat it, how I will change it.  One of the students really vocalized my feelings about the work when she said "It especially helps with doing your own work and not being able to plagiarize. You do so many projects in your own unique way. You can't just take the easy way out. You have to put thought and consideration in each project."
I do appreciate the fact that students had to put their thoughts into their own words.  I don't have to worry about what students copied and pasted because students have to demonstrate a thorough understanding in order to create their projects.  Students are responsible for expressing their learning to their panel at the end of the semester, so what students learned is obvious.
So, my biggest concern and the only concern expressed by panel members was that students did not have to write a traditional research paper.  I believe that one way that I can overcome this weakness in the process is by requiring that one of the genres students are required to complete is a summary of an article (a good, meaty article).  Perhaps I can think of other genres that would be more like traditional research.  
I also probably need to split the list of potential genres up into categories and have students only be able to select one genre from each category.  That would solve the problem of too many genres that seem too easy.

English IV Regular Research Paper

I wanted to record a few of my thoughts about the latest version of the research paper process that I am undertaking with my regular Englilsh IV students.  We are currently at the point where students are just beginning to write, and I feel better about the way students have been prepared this time than I ever have before.  I want to make note of new ways that I have prepared them this year:
We started choosing topics and finding articles really early in the semester.  Of course, I have done this before.  Honestly, I have just had to forgo teaching literature almost completely in order to spend more time choosing topics and collecting information.

• This semester I required students to annotate their articles directly onto the copy of the article itself.  I used Chris Tovani's method of annotation.  In the past, I have had students write summaries of articles, but honestly it was usually pretty painful for all involved.
• Now, one thing that I did do was to require students to create an annotated bibliography.  Annotated bibliographies have been a great way to make students learn and demonstrate MLA works cited pages.  After each citation, I had students write a paragraph summarizing the article and explaining whether the article would be useful in their paper or not.  This exercise is much more effective than the preliminary works cited that I used to require.  Students are more willing to summarize when they see a summary as just part of a paragraph in their annotated bibliography.
• I did use the tried and true exercises that I have on plagiarism, works cited and parenthetical citations.  What was really effective was that after we worked on parenthetical citations, I had students create parenthetical for the articles they had found so far.
• Another just by chance effective practice was that we started with the plagiarism handout pretty early; then I returned it to students just as we were starting to write.  It was a nice reminder at an appropriate time.
• This year as we were working on thesis statements, I had students take a piece of notebook paper, turn it sideways, write the beginning of the thesis at the top (what should be done).  Students then split the paper into three columns and wrote one point of their thesis across the top of each column.  Then, I had them find (first) a direct quote to go into each of the column. Then we started finding supporting points to go into each one of the columns.  I required students to have a parenthetical citation for each point.
• Of course, the piece of notebook paper was not big enough to hold all of their information, so we then moved to three pieces of colored copy paper (one color for each point of the thesis; remember: color is motivating!).  I required each student to have 6-8 phrases or sentences in support of each point before they could move on to the next point.  My question to them when they felt like they were done was "Do you think that you can write two to three paragraphs about this point based on the information that you have?"  The pieces of colored paper were really effective in that I could look at a student's piece of paper and ask them questions like, "Does this information really support the point of your thesis that you are trying to prove?  Maybe it really supports another point you are trying to make..."

So, anyway, so far, so good.  I hope that the papers come out as well as I feel they will, and I hope that students have really learned important lessons about plagiarism, quoting, paraphrasing, and summarizing, supporting the points that they make, and formatting and writing research papers.

Here is a discussion board post for my graduate class in Literary Criticism:

Greetings all!  I hope that you are all safe and warm in your own part of the country.  I am home from school because of inclement weather (mainly ice, just a little snow), but we have maintained power and are warm and safe.

My initial reaction to the question of whether I consider the author or the audience more important in the production of literature is that I believe the author is more important.  I feel that the author is the one with the message, and his or her work can still be great literature even if there is no audience in the the writer's time that feels that the work has significance.

But, then again, what makes great literature great to me is the readers' ability to relate to the work and take away meaning from the work.  So, as has been stated in our assigned readings this week, is what the author intended to create in the work significant at all?  The author could be seen as just providing a framework for readers to construct their own meaning.  It is the readers who take the work and create meaning from it.

Then, however, I know my own frustration about being able to write something (anything!) that is meaningful to others. Because of my own knowledge of the challenges and frustrations of writing, I see that the author is the one who creates the experience of meaning-making for his or her readers.  The readers develop what is usually a limited array of meanings, but the meanings can be intensely personal and reveal great truth.

In today's materialistic and fame driven culture, I would say that the readers are viewed by everyone involved in publishing as the individuals with the power.  Last Christmas I decided that my older brother might enjoy a book of contemporary poetry as a Christmas present.  I don't frequent major book retailers often because there are few near me, and I am averse to paying full price for books.  So, I was a bit surprised when I entered a major book seller and could not find the poetry section.  After searching and asking, I finally found a slim selection of volumes in the middle of a row of shelves. Almost every book in the store was popular fiction and what wasn't popular fiction was some other genre in which there was not much opportunity for personal interpretation.  Sure, there's plenty of opportunity for imagination, but what is the last book you bought and read through which you really were able to develop your own insight into what the text meant and that meaning was unique to you?  I believe that the reader is driving the market and is thus driving the authors to write entertaining and perhaps informative texts, but in general not texts that challenge us and enable us to interpret for ourselves the author's meaning. Please, someone, show me that I am wrong.  Looking forward to discussion.

Here are my thoughts on the English IV blogging and multi-genre project so far:
I believe that the project so far has been motivating for the students.  Probably the biggest problem that we have encountered is students having access to the internet and to word processing programs.  There has been some degree of difficulty using the blogger website, but in general, students have learned and adapted well.
What I like about the project so far:
I'm actually enjoying being able to access my students work at home.  I've been copying and pasting student blog posts into Word, commenting on the work, and sending it back to them on Engrade.
I think that students enjoy the possibilities of adding links, videos, pictures, and gadgets to their blog pages.
The blogs are a great place for students to place links to articles and other sources that they can use later.
I am enjoying not being bound to controversial topics and research paper format.  Students have chosen topics in which they genuinely have interest.  Students also have freedom of choice in the genres that they choose.
So far, the project is going really well from my viewpoint.

What I really want my students to know:
How to engage with challenging reading material.
How to write clearly and effectively in their own voice.
How to summarize effectively.
How to compare and contrast effectively.
How to use sources effectively.
Improve vocabulary for more effective reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
How to write arguments, informative essays, and narratives.
How to use pre-writing, drafting, and editing.
How to use technology in writing and publishing.
How to discuss and collaborate effectively.
How to present an effective oral presentation, both with and without digital media.

I've been reading Chris Tovani's book, So What Do They Really Know?, and I've been gathering some great ideas that I want to try.
A few thoughts to remember:
"my goal is to let students work on their own or in groups for two-thirds of the period, leaving one third of the time for whole-class instruction" (35).
"When students have the majority of class time to read, write, and discuss, I have the opportunity to gather data that tells me what they need" (35-36).
See notes on how she organizes her classes into workshops on p. 39-41.
Learning target charts p.48.
Inner voice sheets p. 50.
"Allowing students to be metacognitive at the end of the period and share new learning makes others in the class smarter, and it gives the teacher insights into students' patterns of understanding and confusion" (57).
"Students didn't understand how important it is to have a question in mind when it comes to research and building background knowledge.  It's no wonder they aren't digging into the reading.  Many don't have a clear question, which means they don't have a way to sift and sort information" (62).
"whoever is doing the reading, writing, and talking is doing the learning" (69).
Tovani recommends this website.  Be sure to come back to this and spend more time with it:
http://guides.library.harvard.edu/friendly.php?s=sixreadinghabits&gid=4877   (76).
"The inability to annotate something related to the reading alerts learners that their minds have wandered, which gives them an opportunity to go back and reread before their thoughts stray too far from the text" (77)
Tovani has students write annotations on sticky notes since they cannot write in their texts.  Then she has students select the sticky notes that they want her to assess (82).
"When I ask students to choose their annotations, it forces them to determine what is important.  It gives them ownership of their thinking and allows them to decide what they want me to assess" (84).
"When students understand that I don't have to give as many quizzes or assign sets of comprehension questions when they annotate, they are much more likely to engage.  I also find that when struggling readers learn that I'm not looking for one way to think about the reading, they are more likely to share their thinking in annotations" (87).

Tovani, Chris. So What Do They Really Know? Portland: Stenhouse, 2011. Print.

Low on new ideas today, but I wanted to be sure to make note of this link for "This I Believe."  I think a project of this type would be a great addition to an e-portfolio.  http://thisibelieve.org/search/