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Elissa Polanco

                            Multimodal Texts, Reading Comprehension, and Cultural Literacy

Getting students to be intrinsically motivated to read is a feat all on its own, but a question that stumps many educators and researchers is the question of getting students to be able to develop their literacy and reading comprehension on a level that will keep up that intrinsic motivation. The last thing an educator wants is for their students to feel stuck, frustrated, and give up on reading– then an educator can lose that student for months, maybe even through the whole school year. To develop a student’s reading comprehension abilities is to develop their literacy, and for modern day students who have lived through the COVID19 pandemic and live in the digital age, literacy development seems to be behind due to these factors. Adolescent’s today have never known a world that was not digital– they grew up playing video games and using iPads and Chromebooks in schools. The modern day adolescent is a digital native, and because of their rearing in the digital age, they may also have a lower attention span, and less intrinsic desire to read and learn in a classroom in general.

In “Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants, Part II: Do They Really Think Differently?” Marc Prensky (2001) researches these ideas about Digital Natives, and his findings and opinion remain true even 20 years later when modern day adolescents are well into digital nativeship;

“Sure they have short attention spans—for the old ways of learning, '' says a professor. Attention spans are not short for games, for example, or for anything else that actually interests them. As a result of their experiences Digital Natives crave interactivity—an immediate response to their each and every action. Traditional schooling provides very little of this compared to the rest of their world (one study showed that students in class get to ask a question every 10 hours). So it generally isn’t that Digital Natives can’t pay attention, it’s that they choose not to.

Clearly, lower attention spans and thus, lack of intrinsic motivation for school is prevalent, but it is up to educators to conform to the changing society and the changing students that reflect that society. Lack of intrinsic motivation and lower attention spans can be worked around– why should we work against an adolescent's digital world where they are entertained in the matter of seconds with their devices? As educators, we need to move with the tide, and not work against an adolescents ever-changing world. Jalal Nouri in “Students Multimodal Literacy and Design of Learning During Self-Studies in Higher Education” makes an amazing connection to research - “In tune with contemporary neuroscience research which has revealed that multimodal learning is beneficial (Fadel & Lemke, 2012), several studies have shown that students are more comfortable and perform better in multimodal learning environments that cater for their predominant learning style” (2019, 3). Catering to adolescents' newfound learning styles is extremely important for their own ability to develop literacy and reading comprehension, which will inevitably aid in intrinsic motivation after students understand that all they needed for further development was a different way of learning.

In Improving Literacy and Communication Language magazine in 2017, Lina Sun (2017) advocated for using graphic novels when educating, specifically for English Language Learners, but the benefits are universal for all learners including, and especially, students who struggle with literacy. “Because their format combines language and images, graphic novels can help students access the text in various ways beyond what the traditional linear format of print text can offer. Sun also argued that using graphic novels in the classroom can spur adolescents toward understanding a story from multiple—even global—perspectives, which is an important task in today’s increasingly borderless world” (2017). Perspective building is extremely important in any student's education, but specifically in the ELA classroom. Some students who struggle with reading comprehension and literacy will unfortunately miss out of perspective building because they aren’t meeting the mark on what they need to understand in order to grasp texts. For this reason, multimodal texts, and specifically graphic novels, serve as a wonderful bridge for students to reach higher levels of reading comprehension.

Not only do graphic novels aid with struggling readers, but they aid in cultural literacy specifically. In David E. Low’s “Students Contesting “Colormuteness” through Critical Inquiries into Comics” (2017), Low explores how graphic novels in particular can be a great strength when it comes to the “colorblindness” that many people have when it comes to race. This “colorblindness” is disguised as positive, when in reality, not seeing color is perpetuating racial issues. Many students and even educators have been conditioned to talk about race by tip-toeing around it, on eggshells. However, multimodal texts like graphic novels make race, cultures, and inherent differences impossible to unsee because of the actual images on the page. Low explores how graphic novels have been seen as “kid” books by educators, often not being used in classrooms as novels should be used over forms of street or pop culture that are ‘less intelligent’ (2017, p. 21). However, the studies show that graphic novels are becoming increasingly popular in classrooms because of their culturally diverse literacy aspects.

In “Reading Images in American Born Chinese through Critical Visual Literacy” by Melissa Schieble (2014), through an analysis of a culturally diverse graphic novel, she explores how culturally relevant graphic novels are most definitely beneficial in a classroom, both in regards to reading comprehension and general literacy, as well as cultural literacy; when reading from a graphic novel such as American Born Chinese, “a reader searches for hidden messages, ideologies, and power interests behind the information conveyed in texts and locates these messages as part of larger social, historical, and political contexts” (49) Therefore, their perspective building is developed, as well as their reading comprehension. Not only do students benefit from the literacy aspect of reading comprehension, but they benefit in their cultural and racial literacy which will inherently aid in all aspects of their development– the bounds reach beyond the educational sphere. Schieble states that “Fostering students’ racial literacy simultaneously builds their critical thinking and academic skills” (2014, p. 49). Schible explores the aforementioned topic of working with digital natives as well; “Because students interact in a highly visual world through their Internet practices, video games, film, and television, teaching students to read media and images from a critical stance is increasingly important.” Multimodal texts such as graphic novels offer adolescents the chance to engage in a form of literature that is less foreign to them. On the same token, their perspective building and cultural literacy rises. Using texts like American Born Chinese or Persepolis in a classroom can be highly beneficial, because these texts highlight an adolescent's experience with society based on their race, cultures, and genders.

There is no room to be ‘colorblind’ in these texts– you can see the colors of the characters on paper, you can see their cultural foods and wardrobes, and you can see as well as read their emotions. Multimodal texts such as graphic novels provide a space for adolescents to truly grasp what a novel is saying, without the frustration regular prose texts can bring to some struggling, and even non-struggling readers. Graphic novels should be implemented into school curriculums for these vast reasons, and shouldn’t be looked at as ‘less intelligent,’ rather, they should be looked at as promoting different kinds of intelligence which will promote intrinsic motivation within students to read.

References:

Low, D. E. (2017). Students contesting “colormuteness” through critical inquiries into comics. English Journal, 106(4), 19-28.

Nouri, J. (2019). Students multimodal literacy and design of learning during self-studies in higher education. Tech Know Learn, 24, 683–698. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10758-018-9360-5

Prensky, M. (2001, November). Digital natives, digital immigrants part 2: Do they really think

differently? On the Horizon, MCB UP Ltd. https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/10748120110424843/full/html

Schieble, M. B. (2014). Reading images in American born Chinese through critical visual literacy. English Journal, 103(47).

Sun, L. (2017, November). When literacy gets critical. Language Magazine. https://www.languagemagazine.com/2017/11/19/literacy-gets-critical/

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Hi Elissa!

Thanks for sharing!

Given the great prevalence of technology, it certainly makes sense to include it in today’s classrooms.

However, I wonder if there is too much stimulation in digital environments that might prevent young people (and even older) from doing deep concentrated reading?

Thanks again!

Dino