Adolescents and “autographics”: Reading and writing coming-of-age graphic novels

Hughes, Janette Michelle, King, Alyson, Perkins, Peggy, & Fuka, Victor. Adolescents and “autographics”: Reading and writing coming-of-age graphic novels. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(8), 601-612.

This account describes a project where high school age students in Canadian programs for “at-risk” youth benefited from reading graphic novels and then creating graphic representations of key events in their lives. We hear much more here about the processes students went through during the creation of the graphic representations than about how the reading of such novels was scaffolded and facilitated. We especially see six individual case studies, drawn from two different kinds of programs (one a “workplace education” program in a regular school setting and one an alternative setting for students who had been unable to remain in a secondary school). The first two authors are faculty members at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology; these two faculty members apparently partnered with the second two authors, who worked with the students. Data here are qualitative and anecdotal; we do not see any quantitative data here or much strong, unequivocal evidence of actual learning outcomes, though from the descriptions here, the creation of the graphic representations seemed to engage at least some of the students, and built their confidence in their ability to communicate in various ways.

The results shared here are interesting if not earth-shaking. The study is not the strongest it could be methodologically, but it is authentic and has some rich descriptions of the students and how they went about creating the visual representations. What I liked about the project was the willingness to think outside of traditional notions of print literacy, which these students had not been successful with and which did not engage them. Text is more than just linear print, and in fact, being able to “read” and “write” graphic texts will probably be a necessary workplace and life skill in the near future. I would still hope that if these students can achieve a level of success and confidence with visual texts, that success might somehow provide them with a bridge to print texts, and the opportunities and choices that skill with print texts can provide, but that may be the reading specialist in me talking. The most important thing is to help students discover and maximize their various literacy (in today’s broader terms) strengths.