From the editor

Though many of us have been crossing genres in our teaching for years-- blending novels, poetry, and short stories in literature units, for example-fewer of us have sanctioned multigenre writing, where student papers might consist of letters, poems, art, music, and even excerpts from newspaper articles blended with traditional prose. Yes, it might be scary for us to encourage multigenre reading and writing in the face of standards and testing, but I suspect that our students will embrace it because it allows them to exercise choice in their writing and challenges them to do the kind of work that requires them to think critically while also satisfying their curiosity. For those of us contemplating true multigenre teaching, the articles in this issue will be a good start as we learn how teachers are using zines, theme baskets, and Radical Change Theory in their classrooms and how they are taking a multigenre approach to teaching Transcendentalism, young adult literature, film, and the research paper.