Linguistics and the Study of Comics

Because I've talked about comics and autism as well as comics and literacy here, I thought you might be interested in this review of Linguistics and the Study of Comics (edited by Frank Bramlett).

Survey Says My Family's Not So Strange After All

According to a national survey commissioned by SleepBetter.org and conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, one in four Americans (23%) say that Goodnight Moon is their all-time favorite bedtime story. The study also says that moms are doing the bedtime story reading 3-to-1 over dads. But what's most surprising, to me anyway, is the fact that even more popular among young children (age 7 or younger) than bedtime classic Goodnight Moon are the stories that their parents make up themselves!

Now our family has a long tradition of making up stories -- not only at bedtime, but we share them at the breakfast table, and when we spend time with extended family (holidays, etc.) we spend time sitting around making up stories together: One person starts with the first sentence, the next person adds the next line, etc., and you go around the room with each person adding a sentence until the story is finished. (Warning: This is where family issues will be aired; the little brother will mock his sister, mom will mock dad, grandma will mock mom, etc. -- which is all in good fun, unless your participating teens are surly.)

Anyway, I just thought that our kids liked our stories and storytelling time because, well, frankly, because they were weird. ...Apples not falling far from the tree, and all that. *wink*

But it turns out, this sort of "weird" is in the majority -- making us all "normal."

Now The Bedtimes Stories Project is collecting these stories in their Sleepy Tales Book.

To encourage folks to submit their original family bedtime stories (all authors retain the copyrights to their stories), The Bedtime Project's got the incredible Betty White involved! (You know I adore Betty White!)

Not only has Betty even written her very own bedtime story, Sleep Better Snowball!, but she'll be reading from the Sleepy Tales Book -- and she may also read one of the submitted bedtime stories!

If you you want your story to be evaluated as one of the stories that Betty White will read from at the May 26th event in L.A., you need to submit your story by midnight EST Sat. May 22, 2010.

Also, by the end of the program in July, one story will be selected to inspire an illustration by noted artist Bill Nelson. The deadline for a chance to have your story illustrated by Nelson is midnight EST, Wednesday June 30, 2010.

So submit you family's story asap. Who knows, it could win a really cool honor! Stranger things -- like our kids liking our made-up stories -- have happened. *wink*

More On Comics & Reading, From The Experts

In addressing the matter of light reading became a stepping stone to further reading, this piece by Bernice E. Cullinan (New York University) published at the American Library Association has this to say:

There is some evidence from case studies and large group research that light reading, such as comic books, leads preteens and young adults to more, if not always higher quality, reading. For example, researchers Dorrell and Carroll (1981) placed comic books in a junior high school library but did not allow them to circulate; students had to come to the library to read them. The researchers compared circulation figures of non-comic-book material and total library use during the seventy-four days the comics were in the library with the fifty-seve days prior. Library use increased 82 percent with a 30 percent increase in the circulation of non-comic-book material. Other studies, however, showed that comic book reading does not correlate positively with higher levels of literacy (Allen, Cipielewski, and Stanovich 1992).

Additional Reading:

In The New York Times, Superman Finds New Fans Among Reading Instructors.

Teaching Tips: Comic Strips as a Text Structure for Learning to Read, at the International Reading Association.

Bilingual Students Learn To Read By Sharing Comic books

More on literacy and comics, this from a press release from the International Reading Association:

Spider-man, Hulk, and Wild Girl Help First Graders with Language and Reading

Primary school teachers routinely read to their students, but it took an innovative first-grade teacher to interest Portland State University professor Jason Ranker in studying how comic books helped young English-language learners with reading and writing.

Ranker, whose research interests include visual literacy and marginalized learners, joined sixteen bilingual students one to two mornings each week to observe how their teacher developed sophisticated literacy skills by reading comic books to her class.

“Several researchers have noted the use of simplistic or reductionistic pedagogy when teaching reading to English-language learners,” Ranker suggested. “This teacher didn’t settle for that approach. Instead, she demonstrated that comic books can help students understand story structure, distinguish between dialogue and narration, and explore broader media issues—in this case, gender stereotypes.”

To demonstrate, Ranker highlights three lessons. The teacher used a Spider-Man story to illustrate how problem-solution scenarios make a story interesting, a technique students put to use in generating their own stories, some about super-heroes, some not. It was the tale that featured both the Hulk and Catwoman that opened the issue of gender. A student’s question, “Who is stronger, Catwoman or Hulk?” led to an extensive discussion about how strength is portrayed and a search for a female superhero, Wild Girl, whose version of strength differed from the Hulk’s.

Ranker sees an important connection that students can make using their pop culture knowledge as a frame of reference for in-school literacy activities. “Movies, music, comic books, and video games tell stories in their own ways. They create familiar territory for students to learn about how stories are told. As the teacher guides them through the story, students also get insights into their own reading and writing practices.”

Ranker also addresses several other issues connected to the use of comics, but clearly sees a value beyond their use to motivate reluctant readers. “Because they have the capacity to increase interest and motivation, comic books are an effective way of increasing reading comprehension and comprehension strategies."As highly visual texts, they are especially effective for second language learners, who can use visual support even when they may not have the aspect of the relevant target language that they might need in the given instructional context."

More On Comics & Aspergers

Following my post on Auspies and Manga, and how I might learn something from my daughter's obsession with it, I spotted this post at Newsarama's blog. He's quoted a passage from Frank Santoro's post, which frankly is really for die-hard comic fans. But the passage pulled at my earlier thoughts & so I'm going to re-post it here for parents.

There’s often too much emphasis on reading a comic like a novel when really it should be discussed like a painting or a sculpture. Far from dismissing these “out there” comics… I found myself simply hoping to discuss them and appreciate them better, and to do that I think a broader approach has to be encouraged, towards a less conservative definition of comics… I’ve always felt that all comics are inherently narrative because of the form that the book takes. For that matter a single image, an abstract painting, for example, is often narrative. Jackson Pollock’s paintings are narrative — you can follow him, the story of him working by the lassos of color — and the same is true even with the color field abstractionists like Frankenthaler. It’s just a broader range, a greater bandwidth for inventing narrative.

Again, I'm not really certain what this all means -- or if in fact it means anything in the world of Aspergers. But it pulls at the threads of the sweater just a bit more...

The Aspergers/Anime Connection

Allie, the eldest who's an Auspie, had oral surgery recently, so I went in search of cheap manga comic books. She loves anime and manga, but me not-so-much. I'm not only a fan of reading, but manga and anime present parenting problems. For example, in Japan animation and comics aren't just for kids but in fact has an adults only genre called hentai, which is porn. Even the graded or rated stuff isn't a certainty for I've found in books rated 13+ lots of nude topless women, in showers etc., with very adult themes, such as men spying on them. So you really have to screen books and videos to make sure they are appropriate.

In the recent issue of Wired, there were several featured articles on manga, and while I was disappointed to not see any notices or warnings on the issue of hentai, there were some very interesting things. For example, How Manga Conquered the U.S., a Graphic Guide to Japan's Coolest Export is not only very cool but it gives newbies (manga virgins) an idea of what it's all about.

However, of most note to parents of special needs kids was this bit from This Is Your Brain On Manga:

and played But as a Westerner without deep experience with manga, I displayed the hallmarks of what we might call a "prose mind." My eyes herked and jerked across each page, stopping to linger over any text I encountered — almost as if I were scouting for words rather than absorbing pictures. a Then he asked one of his research assistants, 29-year-old NakamichiKeito, to step up. Keito was asked to read a passage from Yanki-kunMegane-chan, a series he doesn't usually follow. When NakazawaKeito's video, it was a revelation. His eyes slalomed smoothly from page edge to page edge, rarely stopping at the text. In fact, there were portions of pages that his eyes never touched — because, as Nakazawa explained, Keito was either processing the words through his peripheral vision or simply imputing what was there. Like a seasoned skier, he moved with great speed yet remained acutely aware of his surroundings.

Keito has a "manga mind," capable of understanding context, supplying missing information, and interpreting word and image as one.

As a parent of an Auspie, I'm now thinking about manga differently.

While I originally barely tolerated anime, I did learn to twist that obsession of hers into the manga books -- hey, it was some form of reading. (And it did reignite her passion for reading after a several year hiatus.) But now I wonder if this "manga mind" thing, where a person views and interprets differently, is some key to further understanding how my daughter receives information.

Perhaps it will lead to more insight. Perhaps not.

But it does mean I will be moving more quickly on screening the piles of manga books and anime videos I have laying about the house.