Exploring the intertextualities in a grade 7 student’s graphic narrative

Abstract

This article features a case study of the graphic narrative that was produced by Santino, a Grade 7 student. The analysis of Santino's work focuses specifically on the intertextual strategies of appropriation, parody and pastiche. The graphic narrative was created when Santino was a participant in a classroom-based research project that explored how developing students' knowledge of literary and illustrative elements affects their understanding, interpretation and analysis of picturebooks and graphic novels, and the subsequent creation of their own print multimodal texts. Ecological and sociocultural perspectives on teaching and learning in classrooms framed the research. During an 11-week period, Santino participated in interdependent activities that offered him opportunities to learn about metafictive devices, some art elements, and a few compositional principles of graphic novels. Santino had the opportunity to apply and represent his learning by creating his own multimodal print text as the culminating activity of the research. The content analysis of Santino's written and illustrative text revealed that Santino's participation and engagement in a particular classroom community of practice affected his learning of the content and concepts under study, that his graphic narrative is a plurality of other appropriated and parodied texts, and that the pastiche nature of his work reflects the influence of texts that Santino had read and viewed outside of school.