The growing popularity of graphic novels for younger readers is hard to miss. This article provides specific ways to think about, recognize, and teach with multimodal texts that leverage student interest. In this English language arts unit, we taught a sixth‐grade class how to read and comprehend the complex design elements common to the graphic novel form. The class used both student‐selected graphic novels made available to them by the researchers and a whole‐class graphic novel, One Dead Spy by Nathan Hale. Teaching students how to effectively comprehend graphic novels is much like teaching anything: By identifying the content and strategies that need to be taught, we then identified the corresponding teaching strategies needed. This article reports on the content and strategies, specific ways to help students come to a greater understanding of the text in hand, and graphic novels as a literary form.
In many classrooms, teachers have started to incorporate graphic novels in classroom instruction. However, research has suggested that some readers may have limited understanding of how to read graphic novels, which can create challenges for teachers using the medium. Drawing from a larger study, this article highlights two cases, an expert graphic novel and an expert traditional print text reader, to illustrate how the expanded four resources model may be used as a framework to guide novice graphic novel readers as they engage with graphic text. The article provides next steps for educators as they begin their journey with graphic novels.
This article presents a framework for increasing students' awareness of the need to and skill in critically evaluating websites as sources of information. P eter (all names are pseudonyms), a fourth grader, was assigned to write a report on the respiratory system. He did a quick search through Google and identified two websites to read. One was a three-page website with many color drawings by a child for a class project, and the other was a comprehensive website by the American Lung Association. After spending half an hour reading the one with many drawings and a few minutes browsing the comprehensive one, he started to write the report.
Graphic novels in the K-12 classroom are most often used to motivate marginalized readers because of the lower text load and assumption of easy reading. This assumption has thus far been unexplored by reading research. This qualitative multiple-case study utilized think-aloud protocols in a new attention-mapping activity to better understand how expert readers use intentional attention shifts to make meaning in graphic novels. Four expert graphic novel readers, and four expert printdominant readers, between ages 16 and 20 were asked to trace their attention across the opening pages of five graphic novels and to predict what the story was about. Utilizing digital video recordings as the primary data source, analysis included creating a visual representation of each reader's attention patterns, time used, as well as the complexity and accuracy of his or her predicted stories. Findings indicate that the expert graphic novel readers initially attended to visual elements to gain an understanding of genre, character, and possible plot points. Only after attending to the illustrations did they decode the written text, and finally synthesized the two. The expert print-dominant readers predominantly attended to written text effectively but did not use illustrations to support or extend their understanding or meaning making in the text. This study complicates current assumptions about the ease of reading graphic novels by observing expert-print dominant readers and expert graphic novel readers negotiate written text and illustrations.
Much of the language at academic conferences is purely metaphorical, so it is important to understand the cultural–historical significance of the metaphors used in constructing organizational gatherings, especially the metaphor invoked by the town hall meeting. Town halls/meetings were spaces where members gathered for democratic rule in a particular geopolitical space that was stolen, settled, and colonized. They often excluded women, indigenous people, and people of color. In using this name, then, Literacy Research Association (LRA) engages in settler colonialism in as far as it is considered townish and aspires to recreate the metaphorical essence of town meetings. However, the historic interconnectedness of LRA, the town hall, and settler colonialism can be upended. In fact, LRA can reimagine the entire concept of the town hall and create new metaphors upon which to base the gatherings. This article departs from the idea of the town hall, and it also departs from the traditional structure of academic papers. Specifically, this article highlights position statements written by five scholars who embody numerous social and individual identities. In each statement, the scholars discuss their ideas for the future of LRA—their concerns and their hopes. Additionally, the article includes symbolic sketches of LRA members to represent the people who are often muted within the organization. Essentially, we, the authors, begin an imagining process as we speculate on what LRA meetings can look like when marginalized voices speak out not only about their questions and concerns but also about their solutions.
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