Reaching Out: A Publication Trend Analysis of Scholarly Articles Discussing Graphic Novels and Reluctant or Struggling Readers

Graphic novels combine short text and pictures to tell a story or convey information while still engaging the reader visually. This is a potentially useful tool for reaching out to struggling and reluctant readers. Struggling readers have difficulty reading and understanding what it is they are reading. Pictures allow for more context clues than just text alone, allowing for the potential for greater success in comprehension for struggling readers. Reluctant readers, on the other hand, may have more of a distaste for reading. In some cases, they are capable of understanding what they read, but they do not enjoy the activity and tend to avoid it. Graphic novels allow for a more visual experience when reading and potentially grabbing and holding the reluctant readers' interest. The purpose of this study is to analyze the publication trends in library and information (LIS) journal articles as well as educational journal articles that discuss graphic novels and reluctant or struggling readers, specifically publication trend over time, authorship, core journals, and the number of articles that are based on surveys or interviews.

The Benefits Outweigh the Costs: Divine Benefaction and Human Obedience in 2Cor 6,1–7,2

When 2Cor 6,1–13 and 7,2 are viewed primarily as self-defence intended to facilitate reconciliation, it is likely that 6,14–7,1 will be handled as a digression or an interpolation. But when 6,1–13 and 7,2 are read as part of an appeal for obedience directed at reluctant readers, the appearance of purity exhortations in 6,14–7,1 becomes predictable given everything we know about the Corinthians. Leveraging a careful re-reading of 6,12–14, the present essay argues that 6,14–7,1 should be viewed as central to this section of 2 Corinthians, and Paul’s defensiveness in the surrounding text should be interpreted first and foremost in relation to objections to his purity policies.

Promoting reading using the school library

How does your school library support reading and reading skills? Valerie Dewhurst offers some practical reflections and ideas, including on engaging reluctant readers

“This Thing We Have Done Together”

This chapter analyzes Toni Morrison’s Beloved (1987) alongside Jesmyn Ward’s Salvage the Bones (2011) and Sing, Unburied, Sing (2017) to investigate how contemporary African American literature witnesses the aftermath of slavery alongside the intersecting jeopardies of blackness, womanhood, and poverty. Both authors’ novels prompt readers to engage the trauma of American slavery. Ward’s books also treat other racially-charged traumas, such as the devastation of Hurricane Katrina (2005) and the incarceration of African Americans as a contemporary form of slavery. Both authors’ novels employ ghosts to symbolize the need for American trauma to be witnessed. In contrast to Morrison’s Beloved, however, Ward’s ghosts do not need to be exorcized in order for communities to heal. Instead, Ward’s ghosts resurrect to witness testimonies cut short and to impel even reluctant readers to confront, through fiction, America’s painful histories.

Desirability of Multimedia Hyperlinks in Fiction to Foster Pupil Reading Motivation and Immersion

Reading from digital screens has become increasingly common practice in educational and recreational reading. The response to this digital shift has been twofold. Some suspect it will harm children's ability to perform deep reading; others highlight its potential to support reading among different groups. Digital reading tools, such as fiction with multimedia hyperlinks, could engage particularly reluctant readers or children from low-literate families. This chapter presents the results of an experimental, mixed-method study that identifies hyperlink type and frequency desirability in literary texts. A comparative analysis of respondent perspectives revealed that teachers mark on average more explanatory and enriching hyperlinks than pupils. Pupil and teacher hyperlink type desirability are significantly influenced by respectively literary genre and reading motivation, and importance of pupil reading motivation and media use. Pupil and teacher explanatory hyperlink frequency are significantly influenced by respectively literary genre, and importance of pupil reading motivation.

Re-looking at Robert Frost’s “Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening” through an Islamic Prism

This paper presents a possible new religious meaning of Robert Frost’s well-known poem “Stopping by Woods on Snowy Evening”. This new meaning exploration is carried through an Islamic reading of the text. The study investigated how much correspondence the poem shares with Islam and what representation of Islamic themes and teachings is possible to exist in the text. To this end, a critical analysis was done to ferret out religious essence contained in the poem. The analysis was based on the post-structuralism literary theory which expostulates that a text has no fixed meaning; in a text, there can be multiple meanings. Based on this theory, the analysis shows that the poem exhibits a drawing of Islamic inspiration for search for Allah, articulates philosophy about Islamic ways of life, presents justification of the good and bad of life, Allah’s prohibitions and commandments, and Muslim roles and responsibilities. The poem is thus infinitely of more value as a piece of literary work and reluctant readers of Muslim tradition might consider reading the poem with new greater religious significance. This study, thus, adds a new value to the poem.

Engaging Teachers With Students

To motivate struggling and reluctant readers, teachers must first learn about students and their abilities. This knowledge will allow teachers the opportunity to mold units of instruction and present students with texts framed in a manner that will connect their experiences with the material. This chapter provides strategies for engaging with students to learn more about their personalities and reading abilities. Also included are strategies for connecting complex texts with student interests for reluctant readers as well as instructional methods to assist struggling readers.