"I Keep Sticking With the Picture": English Language Learners Reading and Discussing Graphic Novels

• In Event: 60.069 - Critical Engagements With Graphic Novels and Fantasy Texts

Abstract

Existing scholarship on graphic novels situates graphic novels in a multiliteracies framework; discusses how graphic novels can be used in the classroom; and analyzes the graphic novels themselves. Fewer studies, however, address how English language learners respond to graphic novels and to what extent and under what circumstances graphic novels can facilitate English learners’ language and literacy development. Drawing on sociocultural literacy perspectives and utilizing interpretive inquiry approaches, the researcher examines female English learners’ responses to and experiences with graphic novels. The findings focus how girls read and in some cases, misread the word and images; and on what kinds of resources and strategies they drew on while reading graphic novels.

Author

• Jie Yie Park, Clark University