Social and Relational Aspects of Comprehending in One Fourth Grader’s Unaided and Illustration-Aided Picturebook Retellings

Abstract

In this article, we present one fourth grader's unaided and illustration-aided retellings of The Other Side. Using a qualitative clinical case study approach, we examine comprehending activity in these retellings using microethnographic discourse analysis in conjunction with dialogic self theory and a transactional model of reading. Analysis indicates that illustration-aided retelling results in qualitatively different comprehending activity than unaided retelling. John's illustration-aided retelling demonstrates relational involvement in the social world of the story and a more aesthetic stance characterized by movement between multiple character positions and their perspectives. John's unaided retelling shows a nearly singular, outsider position and an efferent stance, characterized by summarizing and reporting. In addition, this study suggests that microethnographic analysis is a useful framework for noticing and understanding social and relational aspects of comprehending in illustration-aided retelling. Specifically, in illustration-aided retelling, the reader's use of contextualization cues and dialogic activity of turn-taking were accompanied by social imagination and intersubjective relationships with characters. Other social and dialogic aspects of the illustration-aided retelling included intertextuality and narrative coherence both frequently involving polychronic activity. Implications of illustration-aided retellings as assessments of readers' comprehending activity within picturebooks are discussed.

Expanding Meaningfulness in Literacy Research: Possibilities of a Relational Perspective

“…Popova asserts that reading is a form of social cognition, because interactions in the social worlds of narrative involve the “careful and deliberate process of intersubjective sense making”—not very different from other forms of interaction in social worlds (p. 55). This is consistent with my own work in which I have theorized both reading engagement and comprehending as intersubjective activity within the vicarious social worlds of text, requiring social imagination and social understanding—imagining the thoughts, feelings, intentions, and beliefs of characters while reading (Lysaker, 2014; Lysaker & Nie, 2017; Lysaker et al, 2011). Again, there are similar constructs in language theory.…”

“…I will now address the question of how readers and writers establish relatingness. Drawing on my recent work extending dialogic theory (Lysaker, 2014; Lysaker & Arvelo-Alicea, 2017; Lysaker & Nie, 2017), I articulate a set of self-activities and posit that these activities establish relatingness during comprehending specifically (Lysaker, in press). I also address the question of why relatingness with and within texts is experienced as transformative.…”

“…Comprehending and composing lived as languaged events involve a withness of self and text, a merger of actual and imagined worlds, an in-between (Bertua, 2014; Rosenblatt, 2004; Shotter, 1999). This experience of an in-between suggests that selves experience movement in and out of text worlds as well as within them (Karsten, 2014; Langer, 2011; Lysaker & Nie, 2017; Sipe, 2000). Activity within storied worlds, as readers make sense of the inner worlds and realities of characters, involves imagination and social understanding (Keene, 2006; Lysaker et al, 2011; Mar, Oatley, Djikic, & Mullin, 2011) and is emotionally fueled and textured (Keene, 2006; Lysaker & Arvelo-Alicia, 2017; Mar et al, 2011).…”

Self-Actualization in 21st Century Through Lift-the-Flap Story Book Based on Child Friendly

“…Illustrations in illustrated textbooks give positive effects to students. [21] the positive impact begins with the message in the illustrated picture book. This is supported by research conducted by Pantaleo[22] that visual design on picture books can improve students' critical thinking skills.…”

Engaging Possibilities: Reinvigorating the Call for Research on Reading

“…I see a connection between this phenomenon and the student descriptions of reading in my own work that indicated a heightening of social imagination, particularly for characters they became involved with in stories. Judith Lysaker (e.g., Lysaker & Nie, 2017; Lysaker, Tonge, Gauson, & Miller, 2011) has accomplished groundbreaking work to help us theorize about reading among young children as a relational, transformative enterprise. Also relevant, Richard Anderson, in brief remarks to a crowd gathered in Berkeley, California, in the summer of 2018 to celebrate the substantial research contributions of P. David Pearson upon the occasion of his retirement, argued that perhaps we ought to view the reader as storyteller, explainer, and arguer, a proposition that immediately galvanized the audience.…”