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Writing with Passion: Life Stories, Multiple Genres
Good writing takes passion. That passion may be purely intellectual or it may be driven by strong emotion. From this stance, from the necessity of writing what matters in his life, Tom Romano's new book has evolved. Writing with Passion resounds with Romano's passion for teaching, learning, reading, and writing as well as for the people who have influenced his life and his work. It is both visionary and practical. In one sense, Romano is philosophical, encouraging teachers to help students explore their world through language. He recommends looking beyond the tried and accepted to question arbitrary divisions about reading and writing and even, occasionally, to break standard rules and forms of writing. At the same time, he offers concrete ideas that you can attempt with your students-alternate style maneuvers, multigenre research papers, ways to nurture responses to literature, and genre exploration. All through the book you'll read Romano's personal stories. He writes about students who have been brave, articulate, and committed to their work; his own experience as a reader and writer; his father's emigration from Italy; the connections his daughter made to her deceased grandfather. Interspersed between the chapters are "Interludes" stories, poems, impressions, and mini-essays that set a tone, slip in information, or serve as examples. They represent many different genres, including persuasion, argumentation, exposition, narrative vignettes, poetry, and memoir. Sometimes Writing with Passion reads like a novel, sometimes like a memoir, sometimes like a persuasive essay. Whatever the genre, the ideas it espouses are always clear and accessible.
238 pages, Paperback
First published July 17, 1995
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52 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
February 14, 2021
A Song of Himself: Tom Romano’s Writing with Passion
Published in 1995, Tom Romano’s Writing with Passion: Life Stories, Multiple Genres is part narrative, part exploration, part poetry, and part persuasive essay. Created from his experiences as an educator, a writer, and a student himself, this book demonstrates Romano’s passion for the generative nature of writing.
Writing with Passion contains eleven expository chapters interspersed with “interchapters” that set the tone and provide examples to support Romano’s ideas. With an artful blend of selections of poetry, stories, writing samples, and personal reflections, Writing with Passion itself is an example of the multigenre writing style Romano expounds.
Among other reasons, Romano wrote this book in response to important gaps he noticed in academia such as narrative thinking and writing, drama, journaling, poetic writing, and holistic approaches to writing and reading. Early in the book, Romano explains that writing both analyzes and synthesizes ideas and experiences. Expository texts use creativity just as much as creative writing uses logic to render emotions and experiences. In expounding these ideas, Romano breaks down many of the unnecessary barriers between genres.
This vanquishing of barriers between genres culminates in Romano’s presentation of the multigenre research paper. Several chapters are devoted to this concept, its inception, and its use in practice. As Romano explains,
“The multigenre research paper I’ve described in this chapter requires that creativity and imagination be part of research. Personal stamps are what I want to see. I value the diversity of the students. … The multigenre paper recognizes that there are many ways to see the world, many ways to show others what we see” (p. 130).
The idea of the multigenre research paper has roots in Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reader response which Romano also presents in this text as he explores holistic reading and writing. Most importantly, it is grounded in Romano’s “love and respect for all the various genres we might write.”
Writing with Passion is an accessible text that writing teachers can adapt “to their own needs and visions.” It will encourage writing teachers to incorporate concepts and practices that are often outside of traditional academia. These practices embrace the process of development, the generative and creative nature of language, the development of a writing state of mind, and a holistic approach to teaching that leads students to trust themselves as readers and writers, with faith and fearlessness.
“To write words that stick with readers you must have—or develop—faith in the validity of your feelings. You must be fearless in writing the words that emerge in your mind when you focus or compose. It is during this concentrated, unfettered act of using language that you have the best chance to discover ideas, visualize images, stumble into effective language” (p. 31).
As a multigenre piece of text itself, this creative and informative text is a pleasure to read and easy to learn from. A tribute to the people and experiences that enriched Romano’s life, Writing with Passion is a song of himself.
Published in 1995, Tom Romano’s Writing with Passion: Life Stories, Multiple Genres is part narrative, part exploration, part poetry, and part persuasive essay. Created from his experiences as an educator, a writer, and a student himself, this book demonstrates Romano’s passion for the generative nature of writing.
Writing with Passion contains eleven expository chapters interspersed with “interchapters” that set the tone and provide examples to support Romano’s ideas. With an artful blend of selections of poetry, stories, writing samples, and personal reflections, Writing with Passion itself is an example of the multigenre writing style Romano expounds.
Among other reasons, Romano wrote this book in response to important gaps he noticed in academia such as narrative thinking and writing, drama, journaling, poetic writing, and holistic approaches to writing and reading. Early in the book, Romano explains that writing both analyzes and synthesizes ideas and experiences. Expository texts use creativity just as much as creative writing uses logic to render emotions and experiences. In expounding these ideas, Romano breaks down many of the unnecessary barriers between genres.
This vanquishing of barriers between genres culminates in Romano’s presentation of the multigenre research paper. Several chapters are devoted to this concept, its inception, and its use in practice. As Romano explains,
“The multigenre research paper I’ve described in this chapter requires that creativity and imagination be part of research. Personal stamps are what I want to see. I value the diversity of the students. … The multigenre paper recognizes that there are many ways to see the world, many ways to show others what we see” (p. 130).
The idea of the multigenre research paper has roots in Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reader response which Romano also presents in this text as he explores holistic reading and writing. Most importantly, it is grounded in Romano’s “love and respect for all the various genres we might write.”
Writing with Passion is an accessible text that writing teachers can adapt “to their own needs and visions.” It will encourage writing teachers to incorporate concepts and practices that are often outside of traditional academia. These practices embrace the process of development, the generative and creative nature of language, the development of a writing state of mind, and a holistic approach to teaching that leads students to trust themselves as readers and writers, with faith and fearlessness.
“To write words that stick with readers you must have—or develop—faith in the validity of your feelings. You must be fearless in writing the words that emerge in your mind when you focus or compose. It is during this concentrated, unfettered act of using language that you have the best chance to discover ideas, visualize images, stumble into effective language” (p. 31).
As a multigenre piece of text itself, this creative and informative text is a pleasure to read and easy to learn from. A tribute to the people and experiences that enriched Romano’s life, Writing with Passion is a song of himself.
April 3, 2008
Tom Romano’s Writing With Passion is one of those rare college textbooks I have been able to read through without succumbing to a short doze or two. I love the glimpses we are given into others’ writing styles. At first I was confused and not quite sure where he was trying to go with all those excerpts. What was I supposed to learn from them? Then, he began to pull it all together and I caught his vision of passion about writing.
After reading some of the first pieces in the text book, I began to realize that any narrative I’ve written in the past is wanting and incomplete. I always thought I was just inept at writing dialogue. Now I see I was never taught how to go about, nor encouraged to explore that uncharted territory. It may seem a little late for me to begin working on something as simple as that, but I find Romano’s words inspirational. I think it is worth a try. I will have to first overcome my fear and as the text states, “have faith in the validity of [my] feelings.” I have so many stories I want to tell, but each of them are waiting to have voices attached. As with dialogue, I am equally inept at poetry. I never took a creative writing class because I did not think that sort of thing suited me. I felt incapable of writing anything that had good rhyme and meter. Everything I wrote somehow became doggerel. Now that I have read some contemporary verses, I am excited to begin contributing my own experiences and thoughts into the world of prose, a medium that agrees with my talents a bit more.
I can see why Romano suggests teachers expose their students to contemporary models of writing. From the small morsel he provided, I feel motivated to read some of the works he named and also to write myself. In our writing, we naturally try to imitate the type of words we read. It makes sense, then, that so many students feel they cannot write anything worthwhile because they are only reading works from a completely different century or era. I had not come to that conclusion before now. By that same token, it is only logical for teachers of literature and writing to be producers of literature and writing. Rarely do we see this on the junior high and high school level. Why is that? I know that professors are strongly encouraged, and in some cases required, to write material of their own. What about other teachers? Is it because they have no free time to compose, or because no one expects them to create anything? Is it taboo for junior high and high school English teachers to have a life or even a secondary income?
The older I get and the more I read, the greater my desire to write becomes. I appreciate how Romano adds to that aspiration. Sondra Perl’s Understanding Composing is not as motivating to me, but I had never heard of the terms “felt sense” and “projective structuring” before. I love how that philosopher defined the former term: “the soft underbelly of thought . . . it is body and mind before they are split apart.” It is funny because stories and ideas are often formed in my head, but they never quite seem to reach paper in the same striking fashion. Apparently I need to pay more attention to my feelings and ask myself questions to get in the right mode. I think the majority of the time I spend writing is utilizing projective structuring. Perhaps I need to let go of that tendency and simply let the words flow from my head and heart to the lines on a page. I can’t wait to begin.
After reading some of the first pieces in the text book, I began to realize that any narrative I’ve written in the past is wanting and incomplete. I always thought I was just inept at writing dialogue. Now I see I was never taught how to go about, nor encouraged to explore that uncharted territory. It may seem a little late for me to begin working on something as simple as that, but I find Romano’s words inspirational. I think it is worth a try. I will have to first overcome my fear and as the text states, “have faith in the validity of [my] feelings.” I have so many stories I want to tell, but each of them are waiting to have voices attached. As with dialogue, I am equally inept at poetry. I never took a creative writing class because I did not think that sort of thing suited me. I felt incapable of writing anything that had good rhyme and meter. Everything I wrote somehow became doggerel. Now that I have read some contemporary verses, I am excited to begin contributing my own experiences and thoughts into the world of prose, a medium that agrees with my talents a bit more.
I can see why Romano suggests teachers expose their students to contemporary models of writing. From the small morsel he provided, I feel motivated to read some of the works he named and also to write myself. In our writing, we naturally try to imitate the type of words we read. It makes sense, then, that so many students feel they cannot write anything worthwhile because they are only reading works from a completely different century or era. I had not come to that conclusion before now. By that same token, it is only logical for teachers of literature and writing to be producers of literature and writing. Rarely do we see this on the junior high and high school level. Why is that? I know that professors are strongly encouraged, and in some cases required, to write material of their own. What about other teachers? Is it because they have no free time to compose, or because no one expects them to create anything? Is it taboo for junior high and high school English teachers to have a life or even a secondary income?
The older I get and the more I read, the greater my desire to write becomes. I appreciate how Romano adds to that aspiration. Sondra Perl’s Understanding Composing is not as motivating to me, but I had never heard of the terms “felt sense” and “projective structuring” before. I love how that philosopher defined the former term: “the soft underbelly of thought . . . it is body and mind before they are split apart.” It is funny because stories and ideas are often formed in my head, but they never quite seem to reach paper in the same striking fashion. Apparently I need to pay more attention to my feelings and ask myself questions to get in the right mode. I think the majority of the time I spend writing is utilizing projective structuring. Perhaps I need to let go of that tendency and simply let the words flow from my head and heart to the lines on a page. I can’t wait to begin.
June 29, 2021
Writing with Passion
By Tom Romano
I chose to read this book for no other reason than the title grabbed me, but I will admit I expected to be disappointed. However, at just over 200 pages, "Writing with Passion" is not the painful textbook slog I expected it to be. I don't know exactly why that was my expectation, but I don't think I've ever read a non-fiction book that was less academic and more anecdotal than this one is. There are eleven chapters and a handful of appendices. Each chapter ends with a short poem or prose selection that illustrates integration with the overall theme of the book. The appendices are individual, unrelated pieces of writing in different styles by different contributors, and a couple of them are highlights of this book.
The theme of "Writing with Passion" is essentially a plea for authenticity. Romano endorses writing from the heart without pushing for a particular style, opting to advocate for the expression of true self and knowing that this authenticity is messy, layered, and real. "Writing is a mural, not a snapshot," he said in the opening of Chapter 4. "It is large and contains multitudes: meticulously-developed thinking that shares vision and ideas with unknown others; scribbled, cryptic notes to trigger memory; complicated novels peopled with dozens of characters…" One can picture this visually, particularly if they are from a city with murals found on city walls.
I get from "Writing with Passion" that a bit of poetry scribbled on a napkin in a restaurant has more authenticity, more passion, than some hyper-produced, written-by-committee, high-budget screenplay or novel created for the sake of popularity or profit. This implies that the feedback for and grading of such works should include constructive intentions designed not to pick apart word usage and punctuation, but instead to encourage authentic expression and a passion for art for art's sake, without worrying about a perfect grade. The student very likely has never been told that it is okay to do freewriting about any subject in using any form they choose. More often than not, they will have been told to create something in the style of this famous poet or that well-known essayist. It is hard to write with passion when the finished product so clearly has to conform to someone else's value system. Creative writing in general does not lend itself to traditional grading. It would be better to push students to plumb the depths of their own values and find their own words without regard for being "wrong" or "right." Labels kill passion. They kill it.
By Tom Romano
I chose to read this book for no other reason than the title grabbed me, but I will admit I expected to be disappointed. However, at just over 200 pages, "Writing with Passion" is not the painful textbook slog I expected it to be. I don't know exactly why that was my expectation, but I don't think I've ever read a non-fiction book that was less academic and more anecdotal than this one is. There are eleven chapters and a handful of appendices. Each chapter ends with a short poem or prose selection that illustrates integration with the overall theme of the book. The appendices are individual, unrelated pieces of writing in different styles by different contributors, and a couple of them are highlights of this book.
The theme of "Writing with Passion" is essentially a plea for authenticity. Romano endorses writing from the heart without pushing for a particular style, opting to advocate for the expression of true self and knowing that this authenticity is messy, layered, and real. "Writing is a mural, not a snapshot," he said in the opening of Chapter 4. "It is large and contains multitudes: meticulously-developed thinking that shares vision and ideas with unknown others; scribbled, cryptic notes to trigger memory; complicated novels peopled with dozens of characters…" One can picture this visually, particularly if they are from a city with murals found on city walls.
I get from "Writing with Passion" that a bit of poetry scribbled on a napkin in a restaurant has more authenticity, more passion, than some hyper-produced, written-by-committee, high-budget screenplay or novel created for the sake of popularity or profit. This implies that the feedback for and grading of such works should include constructive intentions designed not to pick apart word usage and punctuation, but instead to encourage authentic expression and a passion for art for art's sake, without worrying about a perfect grade. The student very likely has never been told that it is okay to do freewriting about any subject in using any form they choose. More often than not, they will have been told to create something in the style of this famous poet or that well-known essayist. It is hard to write with passion when the finished product so clearly has to conform to someone else's value system. Creative writing in general does not lend itself to traditional grading. It would be better to push students to plumb the depths of their own values and find their own words without regard for being "wrong" or "right." Labels kill passion. They kill it.
January 31, 2011
Throughout the last 10 years, I have leaned on many teacher-writers for inspiration and the will to keep on doing my thing, but the closest one to the kind of teacher I aspire to be is Mr. Tom Romano. I discovered Writing With Passion while still in college, but it's hard to reread it now with the intent of pointing out exactly the impact his theories of literacy and writing instruction has had on me. He is one of my teacherly fathers, and I am better having read his work.
Please note, this is not a book for everyone. Any educator threatened by passionate teaching outside the box should be advised to pass on this one. But for the rest of us, he is a breath of fresh air. He tackles the need for "harmonious others," alternate style, the importance of the narrative stance, and sustaining faith and fearlessness through the writing process. This is also the book where he officially introduced MULTIGENRE to the world. And he does it all while modeling the very approach he argues for (the book is filled with poignant personal anecdotes, enlightening stories and artistic crots by Romano himself and dozens of his past students).
His words on PASSION are probably the thing that is going to get me through the rest of the year. During a year when so many colleagues have dishearteningly "misread" my passion as obstruction or sheer negativity, Romano's words resonate: It is only with passion that anything beautiful gets created. As a teacher, I am inspired by Romano's call for classrooms to be filled with passionate risk-taking, rebellious but meaningful instruction and unbridled creativity. I am inspired to work toward creating beauty in my classroom and in my school.
"Onward, teacher-warrior!" he essential cries out to me.
"Onward!" I respond.
Please note, this is not a book for everyone. Any educator threatened by passionate teaching outside the box should be advised to pass on this one. But for the rest of us, he is a breath of fresh air. He tackles the need for "harmonious others," alternate style, the importance of the narrative stance, and sustaining faith and fearlessness through the writing process. This is also the book where he officially introduced MULTIGENRE to the world. And he does it all while modeling the very approach he argues for (the book is filled with poignant personal anecdotes, enlightening stories and artistic crots by Romano himself and dozens of his past students).
His words on PASSION are probably the thing that is going to get me through the rest of the year. During a year when so many colleagues have dishearteningly "misread" my passion as obstruction or sheer negativity, Romano's words resonate: It is only with passion that anything beautiful gets created. As a teacher, I am inspired by Romano's call for classrooms to be filled with passionate risk-taking, rebellious but meaningful instruction and unbridled creativity. I am inspired to work toward creating beauty in my classroom and in my school.
"Onward, teacher-warrior!" he essential cries out to me.
"Onward!" I respond.
May 21, 2008
Love this book! Tom is a wonderful individual and his book changed my thinking on writing. It catapulted me into the idea of multigenre writing and how it allows us to break out of the box of conventions. Also see Winston Weathers' work on Grammar B.
June 22, 2009
This book, although a little heavy on the personal anecdotes, describes some greats ways to allow students to develop at writers. Given freedom and encouragement, high school students can do some incredible writing. Favorite parts are discussions of "Grammar B" and multi-genre research projects.
July 2, 2009
The more I read this book the more I enjoyed it. Romano has some great ideas on writing with passion (hence the title!) and his ideas for multi genre writing have inspired me. I look forward to incorporating many of his ideas in the classroom.
September 20, 2008
Tom Romano inspires me! :)
March 24, 2010
This changed the way i approach my own writing and the writing of my students--one of my favorite Romano books. When it comes to this, he is the man!
May 2, 2010
The multigenre research paper seems like a cool idea. I look forward to trying it with students.
January 14, 2011
This is a really handy teaching book. I love all of the genre project ideas!
June 4, 2011
This book inspired me to teach writing in a different way and to incorporate the multi-genre research paper in my class. It was just what I needed at the mid point in my career to feel refreshed.
December 18, 2008
Great source for teaching ideas.
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April 12, 2017This book is very helpful in providing practical application of writing instruction for the middle grades classroom. Though a bit dated, it still has some value and some wonderful insight into just how one teacher reached his students through writing and writing instruction.
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