Dual Pathways to Expression and Understanding: Canadian Coming-of-Age Graphic Novels

Abstract

In this article, the authors examine three Canadian coming-of-age stories, written as graphic novels, and pay particular attention to how the images and print text come together in the telling of the narrative. This approach reinforces the notion that form and content cannot be separated in this medium. Drawing on examples from each of the graphic novels and the interviews with the graphic novelists who wrote them, the article explores the complexity of the coming-of-age Janette Hughes is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education. Currently, Dr. Hughes is primarily focused on two SSHRC-funded projects. Students, Poetry, and New Media explore/show how the performative affordances of new media interact with students' creative processes, specifically how students' poetic thinking gets restructured and reorganized as they use new media to create digital poems. In the second project, Students as Performance Mathematicians, we consider parallels between the arts and mathematics: between what makes for ''a favourite book or movie'' and what makes for ''a favourite math idea or activity.'' It also leads us to look to the performing arts to understand students' repertoires for organizing and expressing the mathematical ideas they seek to communicate to one another and to their worlds outside of the classroom. Additional research projects focus on critical literacy through new media, graphic novels in the classroom, using wikis to teach reading and writing, and children's discourses in virtual play sites like Club Penguin and Webkinz World. Alyson King is a lecturer in the Communication program, Faculty of Criminology, Justice and Policy Studies. Dr. King's current research project explores how children, adolescents, and young adults read and understand non-fiction graphic novels/texts. Dr. King is also working on an online resource to help students develop the basic writing and math skills needed for university. This project is under development at NOOL.ca. In another project, Dr. King is examining how children learn and play in online virtual worlds such as Webkinz World. Other research interests include the history of women and higher education, the role of science, technology and education in creating a modern Canada, and the history of educational technologies.

Adolescents and “Autographics”: Reading and Writing Coming‐of‐Age Graphic Novels

“…The class was divided into two groups of three, and each group was given a different graphic novel to read. Both books are growing in popularity: Skim was nominated for a Governor General's Literacy Award in 2008, and Paul Has a Summer Job is used in high school and university classrooms across Canada (Hughes & King, 2010).…”

A Suite of Strategies for Navigating Graphic Novels: A Dual Coding Approach

“…Some researchers have challenged that assumption. Hughes and King () stated, “Contrary to a trend to promote graphic novels as ‘simpler’ texts for struggling readers, we argue that graphic novels require different and possibly even more complex reading skills than traditional print texts” (p. 65). Connors () suggested that successful reading of graphic text “belies the idea that there is little skill or knowledge involved in reading images, and it challenges teachers and students alike to ask what graphic novels require them to know as readers” (p. 37).…”

“…Despite many studies attesting to the powerful relation between images and memory (Burmark, ; Stokes, ), teaching visual literacy has not typically been a general focus of reading teachers (Hughes & King, ; Serafini, ). Burmark () even cited the work of Paivio and Mayer to support a strategy for using anchor images with inference questions to support transference of new learning to long‐term memory.…”

Design para acessibilidade e inclusão

“…Isso possibilita a construção de uma história ímpar para o aluno, o que consequentemente afeta seu processo de aprendizagem. Quanto à Participação Voluntária, observa-se que a utilização de narrativa em histórias em quadrinhos hipermídia é um fator que motiva a participação do aluno no processo de aprendizagem (GERDE, FOS-TER, 2008, SHORT, REEVES, 2009HUGHES, KING, 2010;BUSARELLO, 2011). No caso dos quadrinhos criados, a história auxilia na interpretação e exemplificação de um conteúdo que pode parecer abstrato aos alunos.…”