(I Want To Live On An) Abstract Plain

Apologies to Frank Black: I'm stealing one of his song titles for this post's title. That's a fan-made video for the song up there that I found on YouTube.

I got an email from my advisor, timed 9:31, telling me that I had to change something on my Chapter 4 and that I had to write an abstract. Luckily, I read this email at 9:35. So, I fixed my Chapter 4 and then wrote an abstract.

At 10:55, I got an email from my advisor that read:

"Your chapters are done--congratulations! Your abstract needs work--you can do that over the next few days. It's time to work on your presentation."

Then at 10:56, I got one that read:

"The three students I said I thought would be ready for July comps have finished their papers. So add them to the list!"

Here's the first draft of my abstract:

This study documents two ninth-grade students as they used the creation of comic strips to improve comprehension and boost engagement. Over the course of two months, the researcher collected data during discussions that occurred while the students used graphics software to create comic strips adapting two literary works for a general audience. The research also collected data from the two comic strips. Data were analyzed for evidence of comprehension and engagement. Research findings elaborated on the value of alternative responses to text, collaboration, scaffolded learning, and out-of-school reading. This work prompted questions about several areas for which further research is needed, including the nature of literacy in an increasingly visual world emerged and the role of a student in a study.

Chapter 5 = done!

My advisor informed me that my Chapter 5 is done. That's the complete text of the email above. Nice! I'll I have left to do is give it all one last proofreading, put all my chapters and appendices into one document (for page numbering purposes), write an "Acknowledgments" page, write a table of contents, get two forms signed by my advisor, and create a slide show for oral comps day on July 31. Oops! I almost forgot: My advisor needs to approve the second draft of my Chapter 4, but I'm not too worried about it.

Awaiting feedback on Chapter 5

I sent my first draft of my Chapter 5 to my advisor yesterday. I'm sure she'll have some kind of feedback for me at our meeting later today. Here's an excerpt:

McKool (2007) and Norton (2003) believed that there was a strong relationship between success in school and the amount of out-of-school reading a student does. Alicia and Joe are proof of this concept. Though Alicia’s most recent reading assessment ranked her as Minimal (Discovery Education, n.d.), both she and Joe had been ranked as Proficient as well as Advanced at least once earlier in their careers, according to data retrieved from the district’s student information database by Adam High School’s head counselor. Contributing to this success was their reading habits. During the interview that took place early in the study, Alicia reported that she often read comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels (see Appendix L). She said she read them on an “annual” basis. After talking further with her, I came to the conclusion that she interpreted the word annual to mean “all year round.” At least one adult in her life directly supported her out-of-school reading; her legal guardian and she enjoyed reading collections of Aaron McGruder’s comic strip, The Boondocks (McGruder, 1999-2006). Similarly, Joe had an older brother who shared his enthusiasm for comic books and similar texts. During his interview (see Appendix M), Joe reported that he “always” liked to read comic strips, comic books, and graphic novels and that he read them on a “biweekly” basis. Both students stated that they gained access to comic books and similar texts in several places: public libraries, school libraries, books stores, comic book specialty shops, and the internet. The fact that Alicia and Joe reported that they had access to comic books and similar texts in school libraries resonated with Cho, Choi, and Krashen’s (2005) observation of the educational mainstream’s growing enthusiasm for such texts.

[Note: "Alicia," "Joe," and "Adams High School" are pseudonyms.]

Chapter 4 is almost done!

This morning I emailed a post-feedback draft of my Chapter 4 to my advisor. I expect it to be approved. Here's an excerpt:

A second exchange illustrates the category of “Engagement: Not Computer-Specific Statements” (ENCS-S). First, I will provide context for the exchange. On March 20, Alicia and Joe were close to finishing their second and final comic strip, an adaptation of the folk tale, “The Indian and the Hundred Cows.” Near the end of the story, one of the characters, a priest, grows fearful of the titular Indian. During a work session for which Alicia was absent, Joe used a simple graphics program found on most computers to begin modifying a photo of an angry priest that was used on the first page of the strip (see Appendix T). His goal was to change the priest’s emotion from anger to fear, but he was not finished. Alicia dragged and dropped the unfinished image into Comic Life and into the third and final panel of the second and final page of the comic strip. The original photo of the angry priest and the final version of the frightened priest can be seen in Figure 4. What follows are excerpts from the March 20 work session. Alicia and Joe were debating the definition of the word scared and how best to visually represent the priest’s fear in the comic strip.

[Note: "Alicia" and "Joe" are pseudonyms.]

Chapter 3 is done!

My Chapter 3 was approved last Saturday. Here's an excerpt:

On June 2 and 3, 2009, I had Alicia and Joe [pseudonyms] engage in an exercise that would help me further understand their comprehension of the two literary sources for their comic strips. Prior to the meeting, I divided Alicia and Joe’s first comic strip, an adaptation of a poem by Anne Bradstreet titled, “Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666,” into 25 elements. I defined an element as any one of the following: a caption box containing text, a speech balloon containing text, a though balloon containing text, or an image. A panel could have been comprised of more than one element. For example, the ninth panel on page one consisted of two elements: a photo of a burning house and a speech balloon that read, “This chapter of my life ended with my house.”

I gave each of the two students a table listing the 25 elements in the left-most column (see Appendix H). A second column was titled, “The element (image or text) connects to the following paragraph(s) and/or sentence(s).” Each student was asked to place an X in the second column if he or she believed that the element could easily or logically be connected to a specific sentence or paragraph in the text. A third column was titled, “Elaborate on the connection between the element and the original text.” I inserted data from each student’s table into another table for my use that was designed to allow me to see both students’ responses to each element at the same time (see Appendix I). It also included a fourth column titled, “Does [the teacher] see the connection made by the student?” I placed an X in the column if I agreed with the student’s connection between the comic strip element and the original text. The next day, the process was repeated for the comic strip adaptation of the folk tale, “The Indian and the Hundred Cows,” which I had divided into 30 elements (see Appendix J).

Chapter 2 is done!

Chapter 2 was tentatively approved last Saturday and then officially approved the next day after I did some minor editing. Here's an excerpt from an earlier draft of the first paragraph. My advisor suggested a rewording for the paragraph that I don't love. I'll be making a case for the original wording or something close to it at a meeting that I have with her later today. The excerpt:

A burgeoning body of research supported the idea of the medium of comic books as a tool to facilitate the literacy development of young readers (Carter, 2007). Many educators saw comic books as a bridge to traditional literacy. For example, Rabkin asserted that comic books could act as a missing link between picture books and chapter books (as cited in Notarianni, Wallace, & Gorman, 2008). Conversely, some educators and comic book creators stressed that the medium, which is based on the idea of pairing words and pictures in a complex arrangement of panels to form a narrative, is valid in and of itself, and symptomatic of a new literacy that encompasses all media. Art Spiegelman, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his graphic novel, Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, illustrated this in a lecture titled “Comix 101” at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (November 30, 2005). Both stances worked to combat the idea that comic books are, at best, a disposable diversion, or, at worst, a plague on children (Hajdu, 2008).

Chapter 1 is done!

My Chapter 1 was approved last Saturday. Here's an excerpt:

In my case study, I documented a team of two students as it used comic books to improve comprehension and boost engagement. First, the team read a comic book adaptation of a work of canonical literature found in the textbook adopted by Adams High School. After reading two selections from the textbook, I audio-recorded the students as they collaborated on creating comic book adaptations of the works using Comic Life software (Plasq, 2007). The software allowed users to import digital photos or digitals scans of original artwork and organize them into the kind of multi-panel pages found in comic books and graphic novels. I also videotaped the computer monitor while the students collaborated, printed copies of each comic strip in various stages of development, and interviewed the students before and after each meeting. I was curious to see how the act of collaboratively adapting a work of prose for the comic book medium affected the comprehension of and engagement with works of prose.

Slowly, slowly...

My "Action Research" project is coming along. I spent the weekend revising Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of the required five and emailed them to my advisor. Tonight I plan to finish a draft of Chapter 4 and then email it to my advisor. I want to have an "advisor-ready" draft of Chapter 5 done by the time I go to bed on Thursday. I just made scans of the two comic strips "Alicia" and "Joe" made using Comic Life software. Above you'll see their comic strip adaptation of an Anne Bradstreet poem. Below is an adaptation of a folk tale.