Purpose: The paper shows the interpretive impact of different constructions of the point of view available to the reader/viewer in book and animated movie versions of a children's picture book, a novel for pre-adolescents/early teenagers, and a graphic novel for adolescents and adults. Design/Approach/Methods: Excerpts from book and animated movie…

This paper extends research that looks at the intersection of multimodal composing and maker education. We present findings from a fourth iteration of a multidisciplinary classroom design study in which high school youth made digital comics based on literary novels in an 11th grade language arts classroom in a predominantly Hispanic, low-SES,…

Critical race media literacy refers to the ability to (a) recognize negative stereotypical portrayals of historically oppressed groups in media, (b) question media producers' intentions, and (c) produce media content that does not perpetuate stereotypes. Critical race media literacy can be taught in many college classes, but an undergraduate…

The authors detail how one fourth-grade teacher implemented a comics writers' workshop in the weeks that concluded the academic school year. Each phase of the comics writers' workshop is described. Students interpreted and analyzed the words, images, and design features that compose published comics before constructing and publishing their own…

Reading is an important skill for work success and navigating the world today. However, the number of U.S. readers is on the decline. Between 2014 and 2018, it is estimated that approximately 720,000 Deaf readers stopped reading. When asked why, many said they didn't really enjoy reading. Such individuals are becoming what are called reluctant…

The goal of literacy development at schools is a standing feature of the curriculum. In spite of this, the means to develop critical thinking in students often comes up short. The development of literacy and critical thinking can be presented in engaging and memorable ways, but schools often defer to what they have done in the past; namely through…

Our understanding of reading--including reading multimodal texts--is always constrained or opened up by what we consider to be a text, what aspects of a reader's embodied activity we focus on, and how we draw a boundary around a reading event. This article brings together five literacy researchers who respond to a human-scale graphic novel,…

The authors present research findings from a collective case study (n=5) conducted in a multimodal composition course for pre-service English teachers. Researchers studied how a course focused on how multimodal composition influenced pre-service teachers' identities as writers and their stances on literacy instruction. Data consisted of students'…

This study analyzes how second, third, and fourth graders in a racially integrated suburban school engaged in multimodal meaning making in the context of a book club discussing Ben Hatke's graphic novel "Zita the Spacegirl." Qualitative analysis of field notes and assessments indicated three overall findings: First, students responded to…