Content

I believe this Multigenre Research Project was assigned to us was to give us a different attitude, for lack of a better word, about approaching research papers. It involves the use of many different ways of presenting the information from a creative standpoint, but also with a factual base. Initially, we were to choose a main question that interested us and that we wanted to find more answers to (and almost certainly not the answer). After that, we developed a set of more narrow questions that would lead to specific information necessary to answer the main question as fully as possible. After that, we were to choose from a list of provided types of writings and the voices or viewpoints from which we would write them. In the end, we were assigned the task of making the project cohesive and finding a way to not only to make the genres “flow” together, but also to, literally, make navigation through them as easy as possible.

Process

Many times during the completion of this project, I found myself using processes I had never had to use before, like pretending I’m an audiologist or thinking about what a parent whose child was just diagnosed with a severe hearing loss might think or feel. But before all of that came along, I was definitely challenged to complete other weekly tasks with this course, almost all of which involved a lot of thought and careful review. That was definitely a change of pace from the normal frenzy of online research that usually happens the night before I need the information. One of the other new processes I used was that of making webpages. I know I wrote in my online journal about this stuff all the time, but I definitely never thought I would be making webpages….ever! Another new process that I discovered about the class was that I had never before met online for a class. Meeting on the MOO was new and kind of hard to get the hang of, but once the second week rolled around, it was like I had been in chat rooms all of my life! Having a week or two to get assignments done was also a challenge in time management, which I almost always just barely passed. :) Almost every week, I waited until Sunday night to finish my assignments and, although I didn’t miss any deadlines (at least, I think and hope I didn’t!), I definitely could have used my time a little better.

Premise

So what did I learn about this project that I hadn’t really thought about before? With regards to my specific essential questions, the answer is that deaf children are taught how to read and write many different ways. Most of the time, the SLP isn’t involved very intensely, unless, of course the reading tasks (taught at school) are incorporated into the therapy sessions. Learning to read and write is essential to ensure success, regardless of hearing or deaf, and when another handicap is added to illiteracy, it makes having a productive life even harder. With regards to this project, I learned how neat it can be and how much you really can learn just through reading someone else’s creative ideas. I never would have given much thought to any emotional aspects of communication disorder topics had I not been challenged and required to. One of the neat things I realized about this project is that, instead of just spoon-feeding people the facts about what we found, we instead challenge readers of our projects to determine their own ideas or answers by taking in all of the information and the subtle ways in which it’s presented. With regards to the entire course, my ideas are these: anyone can make webpages, be careful about how much information you assume is completely valid, don’t ever take CD 315 in the fall of your senior year :) and hang on with hope because the end of the semester shows up a lot earlier than it’s supposed to! I’ve also learned how satisfying it is to close the books on a semester’s worth of work and to remember how defeated I already felt after one week of this semester’s class. Now, as the dust is still settling, I can see that all that remains is a cute little book of information, neatly packaged and ready to be read.