The Multigenre Research Project (MRP) was a project for my Communication Disorders (CD 315) at Marshall University. This is not your typical research project. You end up putting so much more of yourself into this project that its impossible to compare it with anything else you’ve ever done. You feel an enormous sense of accomplishment when it finished. You stand back and say “WOW” I did that. It’s totally unbelievable.

When I first started out I didn’t even know what a “Genre” was. Thanks to Ms. McComas, I now know more than the definition. It’s defined as a type of writing but I see its even more than that. It’s a collection of many pieces of work. So a Multigenre Research Project is a combination of many types of writing developed by the student. Included in your works can be newsletters, poems, brochures, journal entries, letters, scripts, and e-mail exchanges. Three pieces of writing are mandatory and they include a poem, webliography, and PowerPoint presentation. The other four can be chosen from the list. In doing this MRP, I included many different voices. You can see the voice of the client, family member, speech-language pathologist, swallowing disorder support group leader and various members of the group reflected in this MRP.

All the characters portrayed here are fictitious, but based upon real people who I've come in contact with during my life. Herbert and Wanda Mae remind me of my parents. They crack me up.

A great deal of thought and consideration was put into my MRP. My foundation question was “Why do people who can’t eat or swallow feel their life has less meaning?” In order to answer my question, I had to look at the social and psychological aspect of swallowing disorders. Each genre was careful selected so I could tie them together with my seventh (unifying) genre. I choose to do the poem and journal entries in Herbert’s voice, because only someone with a swallowing disorder can know the agony it entails. In my eyes, only Herbert could do this. The e-mails were in Wanda Mae’s voice because she has suffered right along with Herbert. Therefore, I had Wanda Mae contact Herbert’s speech-language pathologist to find out information about a support group. And because Herbert is so contrary, it is important that Wanda Mae push him to attend the support group meeting. My PowerPoint presentation and brochure are done in the voice of a speech-language pathologist. I have used the presentation and brochure as a way to inform the reader about swallowing disorders. They focus on swallowing disorders and how they can affect your self-image as well as provide informative information. I must say that I have worked extremely hard on this project and most of my semester, has been spent in this room, typing on my computer.

When it’s all said and done, I hope you enjoy reading my project. Also, I hope you will gain something from reading it. Perhaps you will get a better understanding, of the devastating affects a swallowing disorder can have on someone’s life. I hope so. This work also reflects a lot of “Me” in it, just a senior in the Communication Disorders program at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia.

Geneva M. Skeens