Candid Beauty

Before this book I had never heard of multigenre writing. But even now as I write this my word processor doesn’t recognize multigenre as a word, so I don’t feel that bad. Three Things jumped out at me as I read the first nine chapters of Blending Genres, Altering Style. The first was I had a nostalgic feeling from reading the first example. As I said I’ve never been exposed to multigenre writing, at least to my knowledge, but it had some quality that made me feel as if I had. Second was one of the shaded in boxes with teacher’s comments. It talked about how much she enjoyed reading multigenre papers, vs. student’s other work. And third, how sincerity and experience with the topic is absolutely necessary for most multigenre writing to work.
While reading “Cosmetic Clips” I was thinking to myself, “This is supposed to be some new, crazy way of writing, but I seem to be absorbing it so naturally.” When I think of new genres of art I picture something trying to be too artistic, like a black and white film narrated and shot by the perspective of a transvestite candy wrapper. Done right, these read like an effortless and authentic piece of writing. Not only does the whole measure up to more than the sum of the pieces, but each individual piece compliments, and adds depth to every other piece.
Multigenre writing is a fulfilling and constructive exercise for students, but advantages exist for teachers too. As Sue Amendt said in Chapter one multigenre papers are much more enjoyable to read than traditional research papers. I could relate for two reasons. One, I immediately enjoyed reading these. Two, much of what I’ve written in my academic career, although well done and crucial to my development as a writer, has been bull*#!@. Voice carries through in these pieces, but one crucial element is needed.
A multigenre paper must be have the honesty and sincerity and that can only come from experience and knowledge of the writer. It’s stated in the text, and demonstrated in class. Trying to take on a topic that’s not a part of the writer will be distant, and maybe confusing. The piece we looked at in class, which eventually was found to be about loneliness, was clearly a valiant effort, but did not have a coherent message. But I may be a bias observer considering I’m a pro-choice, borderline agnostic.
I quite enjoyed this reading; even more so after the examples and discussion in class. If and when I become an English teacher a multigenre paper will definitely be part of my curriculum. I’ve included a link below that will take you to a site where Tom Romano takes you through writing workshop. Although there’s not much about multigenre writing, it still gives some very good teacher advice. It also has audio clips of Romano, which for me, were nice for putting a voice to the writing in our book.

Romano_Link