Indigeneity and the Graphic Novel: Native American Students Respond to Louise Erdrich's "The Shawl"

• In Event: 61.026 - Comics and Critical Engagement in Literacy Education and Research

Abstract

Objectives:
Studies have described the importance of identity in adolescent development and engagement with school (Nakkula & Toshalis, 2008; Alvermann, 2007; Moje, 2008). Marginalized groups, including indigenous learners, face specific and unique demands in finding a place in traditional school settings (Cleary & Peacock, 1998). This study examines how several Native American learners produced a graphic novel in response to the fiction of Ojibwe-American author Louise Erdrich (2009), while responding to several distinct themes about being Native American, social justice, and communities of identity within American society.

Frameworks: This project is part of a curricular collaboration that stresses critical literacy through student engagement with provocative questions about identity, justice, and the American democratic ethos. Meaning is the meeting place between identities, created “at the point where two or more voices come into contact” (Danielewicz, 2001, p. 145). Communities of marginalized learners have funds of knowledge (Moll, 2014; Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gonzalez, 1992) that offer resources and scaffolding for developing literacies in deep and meaningful ways, particularly if offered provocative and engaging digital age opportunities (Gee, J., & Hayes, E., 2011).

Methods/Data Sources:
This project embraces an action research methodology (Whitehead & McNiff, 2006). Inquiry occurred within a professional development collaboration between university faculty, secondary teacher candidates, and two secondary classroom teachers who coordinate an interdisciplinary social studies and English curriculum designed for at-risk high school students. The researcher’s stance is participatory, with an emphasis on improvising best practices in response to the daily needs of learners who have rarely been engaged actively by traditional school instruction (Hubbard & Power, 1999). Data consist of classroom observation, student work samples, discussion with the classroom teachers, and final productions by students, including a publication quality sample of student work.

Findings:
Consistent with the findings of other researchers (Alvermann, 2007, Alvermann & Heron, 2001; Moje, 2008; Moll et al., 1992), the researcher observed funds of knowledge and context-rich identities that students brought to their final engagement with this project. Similarly, when offered authentic tasks and subject matter interwoven with inquiry (Wilhelm & Smith, 2007), these Native American learners offered a robust reading of award-winning literature, bringing their own unique voice and imagery to the production of a graphic novel around Erdrich’s “The Shawl.”

Scholarly Significance:
Secondary student production of graphica in response to challenging literature has not been studied adequately, and this project represents a small step toward understanding how student production of graphica can offer a structure for close reading, meaningful rereading, and a mature interpretation of fiction. Similarly, Native American learners’ engagement with 21st century technology and multimodal literacy has been studied almost not at all, so the use of graphic production to elicit understandings of indigeneity is a valuable contribution to our understanding of marginalized learners’ literacy identities.

Author

• Christopher William Johnson, University of Minnesota - Duluth