subject: What Did They Get Out Of Reading And Why Should Teachers Care? [print this page] The participants in this study discussed a number of roles reading held for them, ranging from leisure reading to more intense, reflective practices. For some, reading was a temporary shelter from worries, a companion when lonely, or a mirror that allowed them to view themselves and the world differently. Using reading as focal practices (Sumara, 1996), my participants were achieving outcomes such as expertise, connoisseurship, mental development, or enlightenment. Their behaviors transcend the nerd-in-the-basement stereotype attributed to adults who read comic books, but because of the texts being read, such reading practices have often been conflated with unauthorized, even "renegade" activities (Worthy, 1998).
However, when Aaron, Kyle, Peter, and Roger read to do research, enrich their lives, or find meaning, they were taking part in mental exercises that have been valorized by various institutions for millennia as being part of a balanced "arts of existence" (Foucault, 1984/1985) in the western world. Their reading Links Of London Charms practices provide evidence of meaningful uses for popular culture texts that might be taken up by educators or researchers working with students using graphic novels or comic books. This potential has been embodied in part by the recent move for the inclusion of popular culture, including graphic novels, which are extended works that use the sequential art style that originated in comic books (Alvermann, Moon, & Hagood, 1999; Jacobs, 2007; Morrell, 2004; Xu, 2005; Yang, 2008).
The current study contributes to this popular culture movement with voices of people who are not literacy experts or educators speaking about how they have used these texts in their lives. Even though they did not involve themselves in literacy education by trade, they did describe meaningful interactions with texts that they derived on their own. What is more, these participants have developed their textual interactions over a number of years, and their descriptions cast a portrait of how those reading practices develop over a lifespan. Even when reading texts typically held in low regard, they were able to explore themselves and their relationships with their worlds. If nothing else, these readers' descriptions of their literacy practices lend more credence to the roles of choice and interest in reading (Allen, 1995; Smith & Wilhelm, 2002).
Education research has suggested that regular and frequent engagement in reading has positive effects on learning and scholastic performance (Brozo, 2002; Schwanenflugel, Hamilton, Kuhn, Wisenbaker, & Stahl, 2004), and my participants described conditions that fostered such engagement. With the potential limitations of the texts and activities in school, opportunities to capitalize on interest and choice may be few.
When the definition of legitimate text becomes limited, educators also limit what students might be able to access that could spark their interests and become the impetus for lifelong learning. Increasing the ranges of texts available for student use, including comic books and graphic novels, may address this Links Of London Bracelets situation. However, inclusion of texts such as comic books does not necessarily guarantee school success. As students, my participants ran the gamut, from "nerds" who "got all As" like Kyle, to students like Aaron who had experienced some academic failures, to others who lost interest in school and "more or less sat it out."
This variety among readers suggests that we should examine ourselves, our students, and what people do with texts before we start ascribing certain activities and functions to those texts. Comic books may not be a silver bullet, but used mindfully, with an eye to students and their contexts, they may be powerful resources for sparking student interest and learning.
