Children’s Interest in Reading the Comics

Witty, Paul A.

doi:10.1080/00220973.1941.11010239

Cited by 38 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 1 publication

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…If students only chose from a list of one type of comics, then responses would only test the popularity amongst that particular type and not comics as a diverse medium. Similar to drawbacks from the Norton (2003) and Witty (1941) studies, Lui's (2004) study only highlighted the effects of one type of visual on adult L2 comprehension.…”

Section: Drawbacks or Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 84%

“…During that time period, the results showed that more boys than girls from all grade levels read comics. More importantly, an average amount of students read a significantly high number of comics (Witty, 1941). Given the history of comic readership in the U.S., comics could have had a place in the educational setting, claimed the wellknown researcher and author in linguistics Stephen D. Krashen (as cited in Schwarz, 2006).…”

Section: Motivation and Comicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Unlike Arlin and Roth (1978), other researchers used reliable and valuable means of collecting data to understand motivation while using comics during L2 learning (Witty, 1941;Norton, 2003;Bruton & Marks, 2004;Jones, 2010). The studies included datum compiled from interviews, surveys, and questionnaires, which gave qualitative data to explain why students found comics attractive or why students were motivated to read selections from this medium as opposed to another media.…”

Section: Strength In the Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…In addition, instruction and practice using the scale would have been an additional procedure to ensure that every student used the tool correctly and that researchers were collecting reliable and valid data on vocabulary acquisition. During Witty's (1941) study, the researcher wanted to determine how popular comics were by asking students which comics they read more often. However, it was unclear whether or not students were given a list of comics to choose from.…”

Section: Drawbacks or Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Even though Milton (2008) compared other visuals to comics and the effects the different mediums had on students' retention, more research is needed. Reflecting on questions about the types of comics used during the Witty (1941) and Norton (2003) studies, researchers should compare the differences between various styles of comics under the umbrella medium. In the past, the pop culture superhero comics were popular, but today comics come in different forms and styles and are written for different purposes.…”

Section: Implications For Future Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 4 more Smart Citations

Are Comics Effective Materials for Teaching Ells? A Literature Review on Graphic Media for L2 Instruction

Clark¹

2017

IJAEDU- International E-Journal of Advances in Education

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In spite of the arguments teachers, parents, librarians, and critics have raised against students reading comics, research has demonstrated the effective use of comics in the classroom. This paper is a review of the literature that justifies how comics have been used to spark student motivation, heighten vocabulary acquisition, enhance multiple literacies, and improve multimodal skills during the learning process. These multimodal skills are essential for reading comics, since readers are required to make meaning of the visual, audio, and narration features of a comic. Even though the idea of using comics in the general education classroom is becoming more accepted, these discoveries still do not answer a vital question in the field of English Language Learning Pedagogy, which is "Are comics effective materials to use with English Language Learners (ELLs)?" This question helps professionals and researchers further explore the legitimacy of using comics as a tool for teaching and improving language skills. Using James W. Brown's (1977) research as a theoretical foundation, experiences that language learners encounter while reading comics in the target foreign language are clarified. In addition, further language pedagogical practices, based on fieldwork and teaching experience with ELLs in public grade schools and universities in New York City and abroad, are proposed at the conclusion of this literature review. Such proposed practices are instructional practices from the following locations: New York, United States; Tsinghua University in Beijing, China; Chon Buri, Thailand; Traduc Inc. in Santiago, Chile; and Puerto Bolivar, Ecuador.Keywords: ENL, EFL, comics, motivation, vocabulary, multimodal texts STAKING OUT A CONTROVERSY ABOUT CHILDREN READING COMICSDuring fieldwork in a third grade dual English and Spanish language classroom in New York City, several newly arrived and long term English Language Learners (ELLs) were observed. Scrambling through shelves of the school library on a typical Wednesday, the class was searching for books they could read during independent reading time. One ELL had chosen a picture book Knuffle Bunny by Mo Williams, while another ELL selected the graphic novel Bone by Jeff Smith. When the teacher spotted the reading selections by these students, she immediately informed them to find another book: "preferably a chapter book," she added. It seemed as though this teacher did not take the graphic novel genre as appropriate reading material for her students, since comics and graphic novels included more visuals and less text when compared to the Education, Vol. 3, Issue 8, August 2017 http://ijaedu.ocerintjournals.org 299 traditional chapter book. IJAEDU-International E-Journal of Advances inThe idea that comics and graphic novels were not "real" or "preferable" reading materials through the eyes of many teachers is a reoccurring historical argument. Psychiatrist Fredric Wertham was one of the first wellknown and published critics who argued against children reading comic bo...

show abstract

Section: Drawbacks or Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 84%

Section: Motivation and Comicsmentioning

confidence: 99%