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Fearless Writing: Multigenre to Motivate and Inspire Tom Romano. Portsmouth: Heinemann, 2013. Print.
Imaginative, creative, passionate: these are words writing teachers love. The Common Core State Standards, however, emphasize terms such as informative, academic, evidence-based. We'll all nod in agreement-those characteristics are important as well, and they have their place. But at the cost of imagination and creativity? At the cost of the principles and practices that impelled many writing teachers to become writing teachers?
Tom Romano thinks not.
In his new book on the multigenre project, Fearless Writing: Multigenre to Motivate and Inspire, he encourages teachers and students to embrace imagination and creativity along with argument and narrative. As teachers wrestle with how to meet standards in their classrooms, some may feel they must give up creative lessons and activities they love, but Romano says otherwise. His book is not just the theory and how-to of teaching multigenre: It is multigenre. He uses his subject matter to convey what he writes about: the teaching of and benefits of multigenre research projects, a paper composed of multiple genres and subgenres that hangs together as a unified piece. He challenges the notion that genres such as poetry and flash fiction are not academically rigorous. He provides new ways teachers can incorporate creative writing into their classes through his style of research, as well as how to encourage critical thinking, revision, and creativity.
Romano begins his book with Walt Whitman: "I am large, I contain multitudes." He describes the history of multigenre, opening with an example, and refers readers to a website with more examples and practical resources. He describes how he prepares students for a multigenre project as...