Latinø Children and Their Picturebooks Over Time

Engaging youth in early and sustained conservation education has important implications for promoting positive attitudes and behaviors in those who will become the future of conservation and management. Toward this goal, visual narratives (comic books, graphic novels) are an increasingly popular method used by conservation scientists to educate young people due to their approachable use of art and narrative storytelling. However, no studies have directly assessed how visual narratives compare with more traditional forms of conservation education for youth. We asked, how does education about biodiversity through visual narrative affect student perceptions and knowledge of science content relative to a traditional resource, and is there a novelty effect when using visual narrative versus traditional resources? To assess our questions, we utilized a semistructured approach to develop a biodiversity education program. Specifically, we developed an original graphic novel (visual narrative treatment) and a slideshow presentation (traditional treatment) with the same content to educate children about wetland biodiversity. We recruited, trained, and randomized 26 third‐grade teachers to deliver either the visual narrative or traditional resource in their classrooms. Students completed pretest, posttest, and follow‐up surveys assessing their perceptions of science and knowledge of the lesson content. Students in the visual narrative treatment held more positive perceptions of science (by 3.79%, p = 0.001), whereas students in the traditional treatment performed better on content quizzes (by 7.97%, p = 0.002). We found evidence for a novelty bias when using the visual narrative but not the traditional resource. These findings point to the importance of understanding the target audience and clearly defining educational goals. Overall, our results contribute to broader understanding of the relative benefits and limitations of conservation education through nontraditional means and of practices for successfully delivering effective, accessible, and rewarding conservation education to educators and youth.

This research addresses visual narrativity in the case of Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel, Persepolis. This novel is an autobiographical memoir about the Iranian-born author’s childhood and early 20s and a new form of literature ‘depicting’ a story with both image and text together, ‘visual narrativity’. In narrative studies visual narrativity refers to written images in traditional text-based novels and narrativity of visual images in paintings. Significantly, graphic novels combine these two aspects of visuality and narrativity. What matters in Satrapi’s artistic world is not its genre style but the storytelling medium as she ‘writes’ images and ‘draws’ a text. Moreover, this unconventional novel offers the pleasure of ‘reading’ the story as it ‘depicts’ Marji’s outcry for freedom and independence. In other words, the novel’s artistic and functional, visual narrativity is conducive for reader identification: Satrapi’s signature hand drawings in black & white and episodic structure as well as her compelling storytelling sprinkled with a good sense of humor. In summary, graphic novels help readers and scholars to transcend the boundary of novels, paintings, comics and revisit their natural process of appreciating narratives, “painting a picture,” literally and figuratively.

“One of the few forms of art specific to the postmodern cultural paradigm” (Mitchievici 2014: 23), comics have become a global phenomenon and an important part of the contemporary global popular culture, already validated by intellectuals such as Umberto Eco, Roland Barthes or Alain Robbe-Grillet. Comics resort to several means of expression, namely “verbal, pictorial, and typographic signs” (Kaindl 2004: 190), and therefore, in order to be fully deciphered, a semiotic analysis on the verbal and visual components, as well as on the relation between text and image proves fruitful. A multimodal and sequential art, comics employ both visual and verbal narrative, graphic scenes co-occurring with text, materialised as dialogue, free indirect discourse or the narratorial reporting. Besides verbal utterances and image content, formal aspects of the composition, such as the layout of the page and panels, sizes, lettering, colours, shapes, etc are of vital importance in comics as they convey thoughts, emotions, actions and meanings in their own in universally recognisable codes. Hence, our paper intends to investigate the visual and verbal dimensions of the comics, in terms of their components, relations and functions, as text and image co-participate in the process of meaning making and communication. Meanings transmitted via graphics usually complement verbal message and contribute to meaning making, but they may also substitute or dissonate with the verbal content, which may result in ambiguity, irony or other effects intended by the designers. “A multimodal social-semiotic approach assumes that all modes of representation are, in principle, of equal significance in representation and communication, as all modes have potentials for meaning, though differently with different modes” (Kress 2010: 104). Due to their multimodal character and versatility in terms of formats - i.e. comic strips, graphic novels, gag and political cartoons, webtoons, webcomics, digital comics -, themes and audience, comics have emerged as an extremely popular art that allows not only aesthetic but also ideological, historical or semiological approaches. Our paper proposes a qualitative research on the way visual and verbal narratives contribute to meaning making and decoding in the iconic contemporary Romanian comic magazine Harap Alb Continuă (The White Moor Continues), as well as on the relation between the source 19th century text and its comic format adaptation. Keywords: Multimodality; Visual narrative; Verbal narrative; Romanian comic strips; HAC!

This chapter analyzes contemporary Danish visual narratives that challenge existing definitions of types of texts within children's literature studies. Some of these challenges may be related to the fact that an increasing number of picture books have older readers as their intended audience, which is reflected in developments in form as well as content. Other challenges may be linked to the fact that the picture book changes and develops in an interchange with other media and modes of expression. In the Scandinavian book market, a significant change is the publication of visual narratives that combine elements from traditional picture books for younger children and elements from comics or graphic novels. The chapter focuses on points of view and visual narrative strategies, including reflections on self-referential elements in the images. It discusses the concepts and definitions related to visual narratives for children and young adults, and illustrates how specific works challenge the existing conceptions.

In this chapter, Powell highlights the advantages of incorporating graphic novels into the Gothic literature classroom. Considering texts such as Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and their graphic novel adaptations, Powell discusses the ways in which the universality of comics and the ability of comic characters to adapt through the years allow students to relate to older texts in a new and refreshing way. As Powell demonstrates, comics and other forms of visual narrative are universally engaging and can serve as a means to usher reluctant readers toward a more pleasurable, and thus successful, classroom experience, while introducing the visual narrative to the Gothic literature classroom not only bridges the gaps with less advanced learners, but engages all levels of students, better ensuring mastery of complex Gothic topics.

A story in a comic book employs different visual elements such as images, text, speech balloons, caption boxes, symbols, and sound effects. These elements work in harmony to convey the narrative to the reader. The Sound-Symbolic Words (SSWs), popularly studied as onomatopoeias, represent various sounds to enhance the visual narrative. This paper presents an analysis of examples from popular comics and graphic novels to provide an understanding of SSWs beyond their usage for conveying sound. It investigates the contribution of SSWs to carry forward the narrative, thus bringing SSWs to the forefront at par with image and text. This study attempts to redefine the role of SSWs and their significance in visual narratives. Various narrative functions of SSWs are identified and named as temporal-marker, spatial-marker, action-marker, emotion-marker, and identity-marker. The analysis helps to draw inferences about represented sound and its importance in printed comics. The study opens up possibilities for comic book artists to deliberate on the idea of SSWs as a narrative element and to implement them creatively to produce better visual narratives.

In this interview, Sean Michael Wilson delves into his multifaceted career as a graphic novel writer, revealing the intricacies of his creative process, the challenges of adapting complex subjects into visual narratives, and the evolving role of graphic novels in cultural discourse. With over 40 projects under his belt, Wilson shares his approach to beginning new works, whether they stem from original ideas or are adaptations of historical events and existing literature. He discusses the balance between authenticity and readability, the importance of research, and the collaborative dynamic between writer and artist in bringing graphic novels to life. Wilson also touches on the broader implications of graphic novels in education and social commentary, the economic realities of the industry, and the impact of digital platforms on publishing. His experiences across different cultures, particularly between the West and Japan, provide insight into the global reception of his work. Throughout the interview, Wilson emphasises the power of graphic novels as a medium for storytelling, education, and political engagement.

[W]e should no longer naively expect that statements about a given epoch or complex of events in the past correspond to some preexistent body of raw facts. For we should recognize that what constitutes the facts themselves is the problem that the historian, like the artist, has tried to solve in the choice of the metaphor by which he orders his world, past, present, and future. --Hayden White, The Burden of History (47) Repetition with a signal difference (xxiv) is one way of understanding signifyin' as an African American figure of expression and, according to Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the principle tropological framework for approaching African American cultural production. Although such definitions of the trope of tropes (52) emphasize its roots in the acoustic sphere of communication, signifyin' also takes vivid, if less examined, shape in the visual field. Rich examples may be found in graphic novels by African Americans where narrative drawings combine with strategies for revising the boundaries between and white, past and present, performance and history, and a range of other binary formulations central to the maintenance of Western culture. In a medium that presents inimitable possibilities for representing trauma through the expressive spatialization of time, graphic novels by Ho Che Anderson, Aaron McGruder, Kyle Baker, Lance Tooks, and others explicitly thematize what Hayden White locates as the burden of history within the particular registers of an African American context and milieu. Rather than reflect the putative facts of history from some transparent or bounded notion of a black perspective, these texts question institutions of recollection, such as documentary photography and Hollywood cinema, upon whose premises any such thing as the past is produced for scrutiny in the first place. This essay examines revisionist historicity as expressed in Ho Che Anderson's critically-acclaimed multi-volume biography of Martin Luther King, Jr. titled King (2005). Anderson draws on, redraws, and draws over the visual archive of experiences that have come to be associated with existence in the United States. King will play a central role in this essay, but I will also contextualize its aesthetic procedures by examining their operation in Lance Tooks's Narcissa (2002), an artsy melodrama of raceconsciousness, and later in the essay the slap-stick political spoof Birth of a Nation (2004), jointly created by Aaron McGruder, Reginald Hudlin, and Kyle Baker. However disparate in style, subject, and sentiment, these visual narratives by graphic novelists signify on and reconstitute the political past to intervene in the enduring legacies of slavery, minstrelsy, apartheid, and commodification that haunt the present. Informed by historical structures of spectacle, the display of bodies undergoes a process of media negotiation in graphic novels by authors and writers. Lance Tooks's Narcissa provides a case in point. While the main story is about a young avant-garde filmmaker who suddenly learns that she has only a few days to live and so sets off for Europe before completing a film project, there appears early on a set piece of racist Hollywood images against which the graphic novel establishes itself as a counter-narrative (fig. 1). (1) Diegetically we come to learn that these are the images that Narcissa, the title heroine, actively opposes in her own films, but their addition works non-diegetically as well, interrupting narrative coherence with a dream-like temporality that recontextualizes the graphic novel as a conscious revision of media constructions of embodiment. Political resistance to institutional configurations of visibility link character and author, since Narcissa's status in the film industry is doubly minoritized (being both and a woman); this marginalization is perhaps all too familiar to Tooks, a minority working in a predominantly white and male world of comics. …

The intention of this bibliometric study is to examine the research on the use of graphic novels in classrooms and libraries during the past two decades to highlight how this topic has changed and developed over time. The focus of the research is on the use of nonfiction graphic novels in the English Language Arts, Writing, Social Studies, History, Science, and Math classrooms. This study notes similarities in the research on uses for graphic novels and identifies the prevailing journals which have published articles on this topic. The authors who have written about this topic the most frequently are identified. This study also provides a list of some highly recommended nonfiction graphic novels cited in the research by authors for classroom use.

This study examined the nature and frequency of error in high school native English speaker (L1) and English learner (L2) writing. Four main research questions were addressed: Are there significant differences in students’ error rates in English language arts (ELA) and social studies? Do the most common errors made by students differ in ELA and social studies? Are there significant differences in the error rates between L1 and L2 students in ELA? Do L1 and L2 students differ in how frequently they make the most common errors in ELA? Written work of 10th and 12th grade students in five states was collected. The sample included 178 essays (120 in ELA and 58 in social studies) from 67 students (33 10th graders and 34 12th graders; 49 native English speaking students and 18 English learners). Results indicate that there were significant differences in the frequencies of errors between ELA and social studies, with higher error rates in social studies. In addition, L2 writers had significantly higher error rates than L1 writers in ELA. Aside from a few types of errors (spelling, capitalization, and some punctuation errors), most types of errors appear relatively infrequently in school-sponsored writing. Moreover, the eight most common errors accounted for a little more than half of all errors, and these did not differ significantly between ELA and social studies writing or between L1 and L2 writers.

The article presents a specific perspective on modulation as a universal strategy for translating multimodal graphic novel, while exploring the interplay between visual and verbal elements in meaning construction. It explores how the interaction of these modes influences the interpretation of the work, considering the author’s intentions and cultural contexts. This study reformulates the concept of modulation (Vinay and Darbelnet), redefining it as a broader strategy of free sense-for-sense translation rather than merely a single technique. Thus, the research demonstrates modulation to function as a comprehensive strategy, resulting in pragmatic cultural adaptation by enhancing lexical equivalence, which is technically achieved through various translation transformations. Furthermore, the study demonstrates that modulation integrates multiple techniques, such as transposition, substitution, and reformulation among others, depending on the communicative needs and contextual demands of the translated text. The primary goal is to assess whether the main cultural references of the original text are preserved or diluted in translation with the strategy of modulation used, by means of identifying examples, outlining the components of the target text, and observing the modulated versions. Through the lens of modulation, a descriptive analysis of a historical graphic novel focuses on its pragmatic functions and the dissemination of historical and cultural concepts, examining how shifts in perspective influence meaning adaptation in translation. Specific objectives include observing the interaction between modes of expression, further analysing translation techniques, and conducting qualitative analyses of the corpus. The methodology, therefore, combines a qualitative approach with methods of observation, description, and comparison, alongside elements of multimodal discourse analysis. Redefining modulation as a key translation strategy allows for a more comprehensive and justified exploration of the translation process. Translation decisions are made through a meticulous process of analysis and evaluation, ensuring that the complexity and richness of the original text’s multimodal resources are preserved. Moreover, the modulated versions are validated through these multimodal resources, which serve as essential elements in shaping effective adaptation strategies. The study then proceeds to evaluate the data obtained from the selected corpus, carefully comparing the translated versions with the original and drawing conclusions based on the findings of the descriptive analysis. Through this process, the research aims to provide a nuanced understanding of the constraints imposed on cultural elements in translation. The research corpus includes the historical graphic novel Persepolis, its Russian version by A. Zaitseva (2007), and its English versions by M. Ripa (2003) and B. Ferris (2004) and has a thematic thread of historic moment depicted through visual narrative, where time and space are interpreted both visually and verbally. This selection considers the conceptualization of temporal and spatial dimensions within the narrative, focusing on how specific historic moments are represented and structured. Additionally, the study explores the role of the chronotope in shaping the relationship between these dimensions, analyzing how time and space intertwine to create meaning. The connection between temporal progression and spatial representation is examined in both the original and translated texts, highlighting the narrative strategies employed to convey historical contexts and cultural frameworks. It analyses the relationship between space and time as formally reflected in both languages, along with the expressive tools of the original and the translation strategies used in the Russian versions. The translation of multimodal sets involves a process of transposition and reconstruction of meaning that reveals the modal hierarchy of the translator and/or the publisher. In this process, one mode may be prioritized over another, as seen in the covers of Persepolis. Although the multimodal dimension of literary works remains intact, the perception of prioritizing one mode over another can be inferred from the components the translator chooses to alter. The results of the qualitative analysis show how the translator’s intervention influences the final effect of the target text, highlighting the importance of the translator’s agency in overcoming the linguistic and cultural gaps. In the corpus, the techniques of transposition, amplification, substitution, compensation, discursive creation, description, omission, generalization, particularization, and borrowing are demonstrated as being employed within the universal strategy of modulation, which involves shifting perspectives, modes of thinking, and ways of expressing ideas. This strategy encompasses a dynamic shift in perspective, altering not only how things and objects are viewed but also adjusting the modes of thinking and the ways ideas are expressed. By manipulating these elements, the translator ensures that the nuances of the original text are conveyed in a way that resonates with the cultural and linguistic context of the target audience. Through these techniques, modulation facilitates the pragmatic adaptation of the message, enabling both the translator and the reader of the target language to navigate complexities of meaning, cultural references, and expression in the translation process. This study demonstrates, through examples drawn from the corpus, the distinction between translation strategy and technique. It shows that these techniques function within the broader framework of the modulation strategy, facilitating the pragmatic adaptation of the original text. By employing techniques such as transposition, substitution, reformulation, amplification, generalization, description, compensation, and creation, the translator ensures lexical equivalence in the target language. These techniques allow for modifications to the grammatical category of a word or expression without altering its underlying meaning, thereby facilitating the adaptation of the text to the linguistic and cultural system of the target language. The translation of graphic novels is an expanding field that necessitates a multidisciplinary approach, integrating linguistics, semiotics, cultural studies, and translation theory. This study paves the way for future research in intersemiotic translation and cognitive studies, particularly in the translation of texts across diverse genres and styles. In conclusion, multimodal translation extends beyond the linguistic component and requires an understanding of the different multimodal levels at play, as well as a deep awareness of the cultural context of the languages involved. It also demands a high level of stylistic sensitivity and creativity from the translator. Ultimately, effective translation entails skilful interpretation and adaptation of the message to suit the target audience, using the most appropriate translation techniques.

There are two uniquely engaging qualities about Appupen’s works: first, all of his graphic novels are predominantly near-silent graphic novels with minimal use of words; and second, there is a conscious and sustained artistic effort towards myth-making in all his works. In the ‘post-millenial’ Indian graphic novels scenario, where much of what gets published can be neatly categorised into sub-genres such as graphic retellings of epics (Amruta Patil), Classics and Mythology/Biographical adaptations (Campfire titles), mock-superhero comics (Gotham/Virgin Comics), political satire and the city-dweller’s angst (Vishwajyoti Ghosh and Sarnath Banerjee), Appupen’s works stand out differently, in almost every aspect of comparison: content, art style, visual narrative structure and ideology. This difference in his oeuvre, allows the artist and his works to defy canonisation. While it may be difficult to pin down Appupen’s works to a genre/category, they can be treated as silent graphic novels. The focus of this paper would be to show how Appupen uses silence as both a motif and a technique in visual narration, to weave a world of modern mythology, the purpose of which is quite literally to draw out a parallel with our living world and make the reader/viewer rethink our potentially apocalyptic conditions.

This article takes as its object of analysis the graphic novel adaptation of Paul Auster's novel City of Glass (1985) by Paul Karasik and David Mazzucchelli (2004). The adaptation serves as the ground upon which to analyse the differences between novels and graphic novels with respect to how they employ metafictional devices. Metafiction involves the use of strategies, in most cases peculiar to the medium, which force the reader to reflect on the fictionality of the text and, consequently, the nature of writing. One of the main targets of such strategies is the reader's perception of the unity of the narrative voice and its role in establishing a coherent ontology. One of the strengths of Auster's novel is its capacity to establish and then subvert the narrative voice through a series of unexplained ontological shifts in the plot and repeated contraventions of the rules separating the author, character and narrator. The reader is continually seduced into thinking that the precision of the narration will lead to a coherent account of the relationship between the various plot strands, but this assumption is repeatedly challenged, as is the reliability of the authorial voice. Karasik and Mazzucchelli endeavour to reproduce the ontological uncertainty of Auster's text but they are presented with a difficulty that arises from the duality of narration in the graphic novel, as each thought, description and passage of dialogue is accompanied by a sequence of images. The structure of the graphic novel is such that the verbal narrative is always incorporated into the spatial field, which, I will argue, is accorded ontological priority. The visual narration includes details that are not present in Auster's novel, and this sometimes confirms or supports a particular narrative thread that remains only a latent possibility in the novel. At the same time, the visual narration is imbued with a consistency not found in the shifting narrative voice of the novel. The article will draw on theorists working within the various sub-disciplines (Philippe Marion (1993), Thierry Groensteen (2007) and Brian McHale (1987)). The theory of metafiction is used to develop some of the questions concerning adaptation and to explore further the role that the image plays in delineating the comic book's fictional world.

This chapter provides a brief introduction to the history of graphic novels in American schools, followed by a review of the literature regarding past graphic novel use. The authors then turn their attention to the real possibilities for use in schools in several major categories as described by current researchers, specifically in English language arts, math, social studies, science, and internet research. The chapter closes with suggestions as to what must take place in order for teachers to integrate graphic novels more effectively in their classrooms and highlights research areas that need to be addressed to support them.

The present paper is an attempt to analyse the use of Indian mythology in Graphic Novel. As an emerging literary form, Graphic novel (also known as Graphic literature and Visual narratives) seeks to explore novel means of telling stories. Indian Graphic novels draw extensively from Indian Mythology to revisit, revise and retell the wonder tales of India, while addressing contemporary concerns like covid, pollution, gender discrimination and the like.The paper is centred on Amrita Pati’s Sauptik: Blood and Flowers, that addresses the gory reality behind the Kurukshetra battle, which is a ruthless infliction on lives and nature. Patil has framed her narrative to dwell on the damage rather than the honour attributed to wars in general, by the mainstream narratives like the Mahabharata and Ramayana. The papers shall unfold the means and methods Patil has used both in text and image to investigate human greed against nature and fellow humans, which are universal problems, irrespective of the time and space.