These next few chapters have given me great insight into developing a large-scale multigenre project.  This year I know that it will have to be a smaller version since I haven’t implemented enough genre study throughout the year.  I’m still excited to try it, though, and I can use this year as a trial run (plus I can hopefully get some good examples to show next year’s students).  I do wish there were more examples to show my kids.  I like how the chapters emphasized peer conferencing.  I think kids can learn so much from critiquing each other. The write-alouds have also proven to be very effective in my kids’ biography writing, so I’m sure they would be great for multigenre (and any kind of writing) too.  I was thinking about only offering my students a few genres to choose from so we could really focus on the aspects of those particular genres.  For example, I could show several literary examples with letter writing etc.  In a way I feel this would help the students have a better idea of a few particular genres, but I don’t want to hinder creativity if they’d rather do something different.  I guess I could just focus on a few, but then keep the option open if they want to do something else.  Next year, of course, I’d be able to focus on many different genres throughout the year so they’d be familiar with a larger variety. 

I have decided to do my multigenre project on a person in the Civil War.  We are going to learn about the Civil War in my classroom in the next few weeks, so I thought it would be great to tie in a multigenre study (using my project as an example).  Not to mention we have NO time for social studies, so I practically RELY on Language time to teach history.  I was going to do my project on Rose O’Neal Greenhow, a female spy for the Confederates in the war.  I was really excited about it…and then I realized that I had a great-great- (great?)  grandfather in the Civil War who got his arm blown off in a battle etc.  I know my grandpa has a good bit of information on him.  I thought it would be an awesome opportunity for me to talk to my grandpa about our family history (we have sooo much family history and I’m awful b/c I don’t know anything about it)!  Not to mention, it would be more personally meaningful, and I would still learn a lot about the Civil War.  I’m going to my grandparents as soon as I can to make sure there is enough research…if not, I’ll use the spy as a backup.  Let me know what you guys think!