BRW writing genres

Hi everyone,

Somewhat in parallel with (perhaps) the ideas that Mike mentions in his blog post about guiding students to write overviews of issues in his Improving Research and Writing course and, by doing so, to develop alternative genres, I have been trying to encourage students to create their own report formats in my Basic Research and Writing course.

I’ve explained to students that there is no set way to write a report so they should try to develop their own way for a particular research and writing cycle. As the students were keeping weekly research diaries in the Spring semester, I encouraged them also to see a report as a way of writing the story of their research and of combining and re-working their research dairies into a report.

You can find some examples on my website here. In some cases the sense of personal narrative and voice is very clear (see this report on climate change for example). In other cases the students there is perhaps a more conventional feel to the final reports as in this one on the aging society for instance. However, in another the writer has decided to include a few visual elements to enliven their report (see this report on space exploration).

Now in September as I look at these reports from distance in Geneva, I am wondering how things will develop for the students in the coming semester. I hope they continue to diversify, and I am wondering what near-peer models of alternative genres would be useful for the students to look at.

Cheers

Andy