Skip to Main Content
 

Global Search Box

 
 
 

ETD Abstract Container

Abstract Header

“These books give me life”: Considering what happens when comics and graphic novels are welcomed into a middle school space

Dallacqua, Ashley Kaye
http://orcid.org/0000-0002-7862-5647
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1460632506

Abstract Details

2016, Doctor of Philosophy, Ohio State University, EDU Teaching and Learning.
This year-long, ethnographic study documents the use of comics and graphic novels as academic literature across the curriculum in a suburban middle school. Because the use of this medium in classrooms is relatively new, it is a process that has not been extensively documented. While comics and graphic novels can provide a complex and valuable experience for readers, they can also be challenging to both students and teachers. In particular, this dissertation documents the tensions that surfaced as comics and graphic novels were integrated into a curriculum. This study is situated in a middle school entrenched in neoliberal ideologies, with focuses on high-stakes testing, a standardized curriculum, and individual, rather than collaborative work. Yet, the faculty in this middle school was also inviting nontraditional texts into classrooms, and operating in tension with a neoliberal agenda. By focusing on teaching and learning literacy practices with comics and graphic novels and talk about those practices, this study also addresses negative assumptions and hesitancies around such texts being used for academic purposes. Participants included seventh grade teachers and students engaged in working with and talking about comics. This research considers how comics and graphic novels were welcomed into this school, as well as impacts around time and space, and positioning. All of these themes point back to how comics and graphic novels were working within and against normative structures in this school. This study is positioned to consider conventional literacy practices and how teaching and learning with comics and graphic novels supports and disrupts those practices. Serving as an example and a starting point for bringing this dynamic medium into classrooms, this study fills a significant gap, supporting and challenging traditional literacies practices and analyzing potential for new ways of operating in a school.
Caroline Clark, PhD (Advisor)
Mollie Blackburn, PhD (Committee Member)
Mindi Rhoades, PhD (Committee Member)
292 p.
Education; Language Arts; Literacy; Literature; Middle School Education; Science Education; Social Studies Education; Teaching
Literacy; comics; graphic novels; neoliberalism; teaching; middle school

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Dallacqua, A. K. (2016). “These books give me life”: Considering what happens when comics and graphic novels are welcomed into a middle school space [Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1460632506

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Dallacqua, Ashley. “These books give me life”: Considering what happens when comics and graphic novels are welcomed into a middle school space. 2016. Ohio State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1460632506.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Dallacqua, Ashley. "“These books give me life”: Considering what happens when comics and graphic novels are welcomed into a middle school space." Doctoral dissertation, Ohio State University, 2016. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1460632506

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1460632506
1,082
© 2016, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.