Multi-Modal Research (Caroll and Bailey)

To compliment Bailey's and Carroll's introductory scenario, I offer my own anecdote about student research.

Picture it. My classroom. Last Year.

My students are settling in on computers to start "research projects." The term is loosely applied considering that it did little to establish specific resources that could be used, featured no scaffolds to enhance student performance, and required all students to answer the same question. The topic was compelling. We'd spent 20 minutes two days earlier debating the legality of the veil in Persepolis and connecting it to the criminalization of its wearing in many European nations. However, I was shocked to see my students staring blankly at the prompt with little desire to do anything but waste time browsing through news articles without bothering to write anything down.

"C'mon!" I'd shouted. "You guys were so into this the other day!"

"Mr. Shook," stated Monique (she was never shy about voice how people felt). "Essays are boring."

I had, simply put, always associated research projects with essays. The two were one in the same. I had not experienced Kristen's paradigm shift or her discovery of "new literacies" (79) to integrate into her curriculum. However, I now totally see the value. This year, instead of an essay, student presented their research on Romeo and Juliet as Prezis complete with music and documentary clips. The result was similar to the article and my role shifted as student responsibility and choice increased. Like the authors, I found, " a balance between allowing students to create their own path of inquiry and providing the guidance they need to juggle all the parts of the research process as they read and write for information (80)." 

The final research prompt, offering students multiple options for activities is the next step. This will allow students to use research to produce a variety of tasks (such as children's books, graphic novels, blogs, etc.) In fact, this is the model out senior research project is based on next year in which students must complete a task from each of four multimodal genres. We'll see how this goes. While engagement will certainly increase, some bugs will need to be dealt with before it transitions into a fine-tuned machine.