Understanding the Use of Graphic Novels to Support the Writing Skills of a Struggling Writer. (Dissertation, 2013) electronic version

UNDERSTANDING THE USE OF GRAPHIC NOVELS TO SUPPORT

THE WRITING SKILLS OF A STRUGGLING WRITER

by

Christina L. Voss

M.A.T., Southern Illinois University, 2007 Ph.D., Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germersheim, Germany, 2003 M.A., Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germersheim, Germany, 1998 B.A., Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germersheim, Germany, 1995

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the

Doctor of Philosophy

Department of Curriculum & Instruction in the Graduate School

Southern Illinois University Carbondale May 2013

Copyright by Christina Voss, 2013 All Rights Reserved

DISSERTATION APPROVAL

UNDERSTANDING THE USE OF GRAPHIC NOVELS TO SUPPORT THE WRITING SKILLS OF A STRUGGLING WRITER

By

Christina L. Voss

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial

Fulfillment of the Requirements

for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

in the field of Curriculum & Instruction

Approved by:

Dr. Lynn C. Smith, Chair

Dr. Kelly F. Glassett, Chair

Dr. D. John McIntyre

Dr. Michael Molino

Dr. Mary Bogumil

Graduate School Southern Illinois University Carbondale

May 2013

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AN ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION OF

CHRISTINA L VOSS, for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in CURRICULUM & INSTRUCTION, presented on 01/10/2013, at Southern Illinois University Carbondale. TITLE: UNDERSTANDING THE USAGE OF GRAPHIC NOVELS TO SUPPORT

THE WRITING SKILLS OF A STRUGGLING WRITER Chairs: Dr. Lynn C. Smith & Dr. Kelly F. Glassett This mixed methods study combining a single-subject experimental design with an

embedded case study focuses on the impact of a visual treatment on the handwritten and typed

output of a struggling male writer during his 5th through 7th grades who has undergone a

longitudinal remedial phase of two and a half years creating text-only material as well as graphic

novels (on paper, on the computer, and online). The purpose of this research was to develop and

assess the effectiveness and practicability of a visual treatment in order to help this high-

achieving student with excellent comprehension and oral skills but impaired execution of writing

tasks to produce cohesive, well-organized stories within a given time. It was hypothesized that by

breaking up the assignments into visual chunks (speech bubbles), taking away the threat of a

blank page to be filled by text only, exercising his artistic capabilities, and fostering pride of

authorship and achievement through (online) sharing, this treatment would improve the

participant’s written output in quality, quantity, and pace.

The 6+1 Trait® Writing Scoring Continuum (Northwest Regional Educational

Laboratory, early 1980s) was employed to assess the participant’s writing performance, and the

0.Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC) (Flanders, 1970) were used to note his on-

task/off-task behavior and the categories of his responses during tutoring sessions. An auditor

was employed to confirm the investigator’s evaluations; if contradictions occurred, the artifact in

question was omitted from the study. The participant underwent extensive educational

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assessment regarding his reading and writing predilections and habits prior to study begin

(quantitative data) in the form of rating scales, such as the Classroom Reading Inventory, the

Elementary Writing Attitude Scale, and others. He was further observed during clinical

supervision (audio- and videotaping), and underwent qualitative assessment (content analysis of

written output) during the study, and post-study performance tests (quantitative and qualitative

data). Baseline graphs were employed to establish the traits of his writing behavior during all

three experimental stages (pre-treatment, treatment, post-treatment), and tutor logs shed further

light on the participant’s feelings and behavior under each condition.

The interwoven mixed data revealed that the participant enjoyed the tutoring sessions,

and even cried twice when he missed one, but that his attention deficit and off-task behavior

severely interfered with the organization and quantity of his written output. The Flanders analysis

showed that the slightest distraction through his environment (tutor, second tutee, etc.) took his

focus off his writing tasks, and that the tiniest thing out of order (e.g., a wrong digital display of

the current time of day on his computer screen) could occupy his thoughts for minutes, or trigger

an exaggerated outburst after half an hour. Flanders also confirmed, as the higher quality of his

output had shown, that the boy was strongly motivated by what interested him (Star Wars), and

that he would put extra care in the creation of corresponding tasks. It can be concluded that self-

chosen material, and not the format of graphic novels, motivated the participant to work. The

content analysis of his post-treatment essay as compared to his pre-treatment essay showed that

he was able to finish it, that the length had augmented, that the chronological order of events was

maintained thanks to having learned organization through panels, but that the creativity and ideas

had declined. Finally, the analysis of The 6+1 Trait® Writing Scoring Continuum, which

examined ideas, organization, voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and

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presentation of ten writing samples per stage, showed that the participant had scored 30.2 in the

pre-treatment stage, 29.2 in the treatment stage, and 32.8 in the post-treatment stage. Given that

the participant had matured during the two and a half years of study, the gain was not important

enough to justify a graphic novel intervention to improve the writing of this specific student. The

astonishing low score in the easiest stage, the treatment stage itself (where he only had to fill in

speech bubbles) was a result of the genre itself (which called for less descriptive written output)

and of the fact that the participant thought this stage was “easy” (as per interview from

05/17/2011) and might have felt not sufficiently challenged.

It can be concluded that the graphic novel treatment was effective in helping with the

chronological organization within the participant’s texts, but this goal could maybe also have

been achieved by structuring through sub-headings or perhaps voice recordings of a list of steps.

Due to the high off-task behavior and time consumption, this treatment would not be feasible in a

classroom setting, but might work in a resource room. During the treatment, the participant

revealed himself as auditory, not just visual learner, who was motivated by sound and music,

especially in combination with his online Star Wars photo story; he was planning on an animated

story with movie features. In the future, this highly articulate child would benefit from self-

chosen writing tasks that include the creation of online stories with pictures, animation, and

sound. His behavior needed more remediation than the quality of his written output.

Future studies should investigate the effectiveness of writing workshops using graphic

novels within the classroom setting, as proposed by Thompson (2008), and also assess the

benefits of digital story-telling (Burke & Kafai, 2012) as an additional motivational factor, while

putting special emphasis on students who display autistic and ADHD behavior.

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DEDICATION

To the most authentic, creative, and perfect boy writer I have ever known – may people

who encounter a writer’s block always be able to say, with the words of my little Remy:

“Here, we don’t have text – here, we have music!”

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This dissertation would not have been possible without the support from several

individuals who in one way or another contributed to the completion of this study.

All good things come in threes: First and foremost, my gratitude goes to my three committee

chairs, Dr. Marla H. Mallette (who guided my progress from the humble beginnings in the

Reading Clinic in 2009 through 2012), Dr. Kelly F. Glassett (2009-2013), and especially Dr.

Lynn C. Smith (2012-2013), who served the shortest time but did the most work.

I am also indebted to my committee members Dr. Mary Bogumil and Dr. Michael R.

Molino from the English department, who made sure I used the APA style correctly and polished

my conventions, and had a job to finance my education.

Heartfelt thanks go to my auditor, Mrs. Kay M. Purcell, engineering professor emeritus, who

patiently graded 30 writing samples.

I am grateful to Mr. Jeff Smith, the author of the Bone graphic novel series, whom I had

the pleasure to meet at the 2010 Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, for his beautiful cartoons

that enticed my case study participant to write, and to Ms. Kathleen Glosan, his Production

Manager, for the very kind correspondence and help with securing the copyright permission to

reprint some of the graphics.

Likewise, I want to express my gratitude to Mr. Nunzio DeFilippis and his wife, Christina

Weir, who created the script and general layout of the graphic novel of Fitzgerald’s The Curious

Case of Benjamin Button, and their very talented illustrator, Mr. Kevin Cornell. This book was

the Α and Ω of my “treatment.” Thanks also go to their editor, Mr. Jason Rekulak, of Quirk

Books, for his friendly communication and the copyright permission.

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I am very thankful to the mother of my case study participant, who suffered the

mysterious appearance of armies of LEGO® star fighters, droids, bounty hunters, and clone

troopers invading her house – even her bathroom – as those were some of the incentives her boy

received for his cooperation. May the Force help her clean up after him!

Finally, I thank both my German and American families and my friends for patiently

taking care of my physical and social needs during this time of reclusion. I am back!

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................................... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................................v

LIST OF TABLES ........................................................................................................................ xii

LIST OF FIGURES ...................................................................................................................... xiii

CHAPTERS

CHAPTER 1 – Introduction .................................................................................................1

1.1 Statement of Problem .........................................................................................1

1.2 Subjectivity Statement .......................................................................................2

1.3 Significance of Problem .....................................................................................5

1.4 Formulation Stage ..............................................................................................6

1.4.1 Mixed Goal .........................................................................................6

1.4.2 Mixed Objectives ................................................................................7

1.4.3 Rationale for Mixed Approach ...........................................................7

1.4.4 Purpose for Mixed Approach ..............................................................8

1.4.5 Mixed Research Questions .................................................................9

1.5 Assumptions .....................................................................................................10

1.6 List of Terms ....................................................................................................11

CHAPTER 2 – Literature Review .....................................................................................14

2.1 Struggling Writers ............................................................................................15

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2.2 Clinical and Educational Use of Visual Strategies ..........................................23

2.2.1 Motivation and Socialization ............................................................26

2.2.2 Reading Comprehension ...................................................................29

2.2.3 Creative Expression, Vocabulary, and Concepts ..............................31

2.2.4 Organization, Sequencing, and Coherence .......................................34

2.2.5 Letter Recognition, Word Recognition, and Story Recall

Through Graphics ..............................................................................34

2.2.6 Enhanced Understanding of Explanatory Text through Illustrations 45

CHAPTER 3 – Methods ....................................................................................................48

3.1 Participant ........................................................................................................48

3.2 Investigator .......................................................................................................51

3.3 Researcher-Participant Relationship ................................................................52

3.4 Setting ..............................................................................................................53

3.5 Procedure: Three-Stage Treatment ..................................................................54

3.5.1 Stage I (Pre-Treatment) .....................................................................54

3.5.1.1 Reading Clinic: Nine Lesson Plans ....................................54

3.5.1.2 Private Tutoring .................................................................56

3.5.2 Stage II (Treatment) ..........................................................................57

3.5.3 Stage III (Post-Treatment) .................................................................58

3.5.4 Berninger’s Research as Grounding for Intervention .......................58

3.6 Theoretical Perspective: Pragmatism in Data Collection and Analysis ...........68

3.7 Planning Stage .................................................................................................63

3.7.1 Mixed Research Design ....................................................................63

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3.7.2. Mixed Methods for Data Collection ................................................64

3.8 Techniques for Data Collection .......................................................................66

3.8.1 Quantitative .......................................................................................66

3.8.2 Qualitative .........................................................................................66

3.9 Techniques for Data Analysis ..........................................................................66

3.9.1 Quantitative: Baseline with 6+1 Trait® ............................................67

3.9.2 Qualitative .........................................................................................69

3.9.2.1 Observations, Field Notes, Data Logging ..........................70

3.9.2.2 Constant Comparative Method ..........................................72

3.9.2.2.1 Comparison of Incidents Applicable to Each

Category ..............................................................72

3.9.2.2.2 Integration of Categories and Their

Characteristics ......................................................75

3.9.2.2.3 Delimiting of the Theory .....................................77

3.9.2.2.4 Composing of the Theory ...................................78

3.9.3 Mixed ................................................................................................79

3.9.3.1 Syntactic Analysis ..............................................................79

3.9.3.2 Content Analysis of Major Artifacts ..................................80

3.9.3.3 Flanders Interaction Analysis .............................................80

3.10 Delimitation ...................................................................................................81

3.11 Limitations .....................................................................................................82

CHAPTER 4 – Findings ................................................................................................................87

4.1 Quantitative Analysis: Output Differences between 3 Stages .........................90

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4.1.1 Baseline with 6+1® Trait of 30 Writing Samples ............................91

4.1.2 Comparison of Average Scores of 3 Stages ......................................95

4.1.3 Baseline with 6+1® Trait of Final Artifact per Stage .......................96

4.2 Qualitative Analysis: Experiences ...................................................................98

4.2.1 Constant Comparative Method: 30 Observations ............................98

4.2.1.1 Candidate’s Experience of Stage I ..................................101

4.2.1.2 Candidate’s Experience of Stage II .................................116

4.2.1.3 Candidate’s Experience of Stage III ................................130

4.3 Mixed Analysis: Effectiveness and Feasibility of the Intervention ...............143

4.3.1 Quantity, Pace, and Quality (Mechanics): Syntactic Analysis ........144

4.3.2 Quality (Content): Content Analysis of 2 Major Artifacts ..............149

4.3.3 Feasibility: Behavioral Analysis (Flanders) ...................................153

CHAPTER 5 – Discussion ...........................................................................................................169

REFERENCES ...........................................................................................................................177

APPENDICES

Appendix A: Case History ..............................................................................................187

1.1 List of Figures ................................................................................................187

1.2 Reading Clinic Report: Daily Program for 9 Tutoring Sessions ....................187

1.3 Private Tutoring Report .................................................................................211

Appendix B: 6+1 Trait® Writing Scoring Continuum ...................................................213

Appendix C: Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC) ......................................215

Appendix D: Participant’s Artifacts .................................................................................263

1.1 Final Essay, Stage I ........................................................................................263

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1.2 Final Graphic Novel, Stage II ........................................................................267

1.3 Final Essay, Stage III ......................................................................................282

1.4 Ten Writing Samples, Stage I ........................................................................285

1.5 Ten Writing Samples, Stage II ......................................................................299

1.6 Ten Writing Samples, Stage III ......................................................................333

1.7 Online Star Wars Graphic Novel (Stage II) ...................................................336

1.8 Writing Samples from Reading Clinic (Pre-Treatment) ................................364

Appendix E: Survey with Participant...............................................................................381

Appendix F: Copyright Permissions for Graphics ...........................................................392

VITA ..........................................................................................................................................405

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LIST OF TABLES

TABLE PAGE

Table 1: Dates of qualitative and quantitative artifacts ............................................................ 88-89

Table 2: Baseline data for all three stages ......................................................................................92

Table 3: Total score average of all three stages .............................................................................95

Table 4: Average scores of three final artifacts .............................................................................97

Table 5: Categories of observations for stages I-III ............................................................... 99-100

Table 6: Semantic analysis of stage averages ..............................................................................147

Table 7: Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories for stage II verbatim sample ................. 158-159

Table 8: Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories for stage III verbatim sample ............... 164-165

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LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

Figure 1: Example of mnemonic illustration for the letter “K” .....................................................36

Figure 2: Examples of word illustrations ................................................................................. 38-39

Figure 3 a): Example of scene illustrations (concrete)...................................................................41

Figure 3 b): Example of scene illustrations (abstract) ...................................................................42

Figure 3 c): Example of scene illustrations (panels) ......................................................................44

Figure 4: Graph of equal status concurrent design .........................................................................64

Figure 5: Baseline diagram of stages I, II, and III ..........................................................................94

Figure 6: Comparison of the average score of all three stages .......................................................96

Figure 7: Comparison of final product of each stage .....................................................................97

Figure 8: Handwriting sample (04/20/2009) ................................................................................106

Figure 9: Handwriting sample with lots of mistakes (08/17/2009) .............................................107

Figure 10: Hand-drawing sample of graphic novel creation from 06/28/2010 (Amulet) .............120

Figure 11a: Average number of clauses vs. sentences/phrases/fragments per stage ....................148

Figure 11b: Average words per artifact and clause, average total mistakes, and words/mistakes

ratio per stage ...........................................................................................................148

Figure 12: Speech bubble sample ........................................................................................ 156-157

Figure 13: Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories in stages II and III .....................................166

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CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

The present research describes the writing problems of a struggling writer, how an

imagery strategy using graphic novels can be applied in order to see how he experiences this

instructional method, and whether it has an effect on his performance. Picture writing (Oftedahl,

1948), the use of comics (Versaci, 2001) and graphic novels (Schwarz, 2007) in the classroom,

comic book projects in the community (Bitz, 2007), picture hypertext stories (Russell, 1996), and

neuro-psychological/medical experiments with dysgraphics regaining literacy through images

(De Partz, Seron, & Van der Linden, 1992) have been used by different educators and researchers

with positive results. However, research exploring instructional techniques with imagery has

been conducted mostly with struggling readers (Monnin, 2010), not writers.

1.1 Statement of Problem

A male junior high school student, whom I shall call Remy, struggled with writing and

underwent a longitudinal intervention in writing instruction. The problem consisted of his writing

lacking pace, quantity, quality, and ideas; he wandered off topic, had lengthy introductions

without coming to the point, and could not finish an essay. Prior Reading Clinic assessment (see

APPENDIX A, Case History) had revealed his “block” and lack of “executive function” when

beginning and ending a written piece, while he was excellent in oral narration. Although he was

medically undiagnosed, his writing showed several symptoms of dysgraphia (bad, irregular

handwriting, slowness, and drawing letters from “the wrong end”). In his junior high school, he

had an IEP in reading and mathematics for “executive function disorder.”

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1.2 Subjectivity Statement

Qualitative researchers are faced with the problem of subjectivity. I am trying to take

several precautions against an overwhelming subjectivity in the qualitative part of my research,

the case study, through triangulation, text-based analysis, reflections in my memos, and use of an

auditor to evaluate Remy’s written output, in order to preserve my study’s internal validity.

According to Drapeau (2002), while many qualitative researchers draw explicitly on subjectivity

because they can use their own experience to gain a better understanding of their participants

(Rennie, 1994; Schneider, 1999), whom they do not want to keep at a distance (Patton, 1990),

certain risks are involved, for example, projection on behalf of the investigator (Kahn, 1996),

limitations caused by the investigator’s own “blind spots” (Drapeau & Letendre, 2001), and

unclear demarcation between what qualifies as subjectivity and what as delusion (Brillon, 1992).

Drapeau (2002) demonstrates that a subjectivity analysis can be included in a research

project in order to serve two fundamental purposes, (a) understanding of the object of

investigation, and (b) understanding how significant personal relationships—in my case, the

tutor-tutee relationship—may influence data analysis and understanding. Therefore, I am going to

include a subjectivity statement in the following paragraphs. The purpose of the subjectivity

statement is to lay open all related experiences I have with regard to tutoring children with

language problems, including African American children, and to make transparent my

involvement with the Reading Clinic, the public K-12 school system in different countries, other

educational or community institutions, teaching, and private tutoring. Since I have a significant

influence on the participant, my personal and educational backgrounds are of importance.

I am a white, upper middle-class female in my late thirties, of German nationality, with a

Master’s degree in translation (English and French), a Master of Arts in Teaching for K-12

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(German, with endorsements in French and English), a Ph.D. in English, and I am currently

working on a Ph.D. in Curriculum & Instruction. Both my parents had acquired Master’s degrees;

my mother had studied pedagogy and psychology, and served as a special education teacher in

Germany in the early 1970s. My father, who died in 2005, worked as an engineer in St. Paul,

MN, from 1969-1971, and taught his children a little English even before they entered the school

system; however, we were not raised bilingually. Both my younger sisters also have a doctoral

degree (my middle sister is a dermatologist; my youngest sister received her Ph.D. in

philosophy).

Although by profession I teach college-level grammar and methodology for English

education majors, I have some experience in tutoring younger children. I grew up in Germany as

the oldest of three sisters. My earliest recollection of reading to my middle sister was when I was

in first grade and had just learned to read. My mother and I would sit on my sister’s bed in the

evening, and I was allowed to read (rather, spell) one sentence from the children’s Bible; then,

my mother would read a longer passage, and then it was my turn again. I was very proud, because

my little sister could not read yet. I still remember clearly all the crossed-out sentences that my

mother had deleted with a red marker from the Bible because they were not for me to see. I had

not heard of “child-appropriateness” yet, and was curious as to what I missed. I could not wait

until I would be able to read independently.

As soon as I could read, I read the translations on the backside of all food and drink

cartons I could lay hands on, and thus developed my predilection for languages. I also devoured

the 50-something volumes of Karl May (Winnetou, the chief of the Apache, and other stories),

and wrote down every allegedly “American Indian” word and every English word in a special

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vocabulary book, pretending to learn an “Indian language” and English. The first English word I

thus learned was, “greenhorn.”

At the age of 10, when German high school starts with 5th grade, I finally learned English

officially. As a teenager, I used to read to my youngest sister, and tutor my middle sister, who

was more gifted in math and science, in English. I was always talented in learning languages (I

studied six foreign languages; English, Latin, French, and Russian in high school and (except for

Latin) later in college, and Spanish and Polish privately after college), but rather mathematically

challenged. I cannot retain numbers in my head. Ironically, my best friend is a math professor.

In the early 1990s, as a high school student in Germany, I conducted paid after-school

tutoring for a student struggling in English (while taking tutoring lessons in math!). During my

language studies in college, I studied in St. Petersburg, Russia for a month; in Dijon, France, for

half a year; and in Illinois, U.S. for a semester. In May 2006, I moved to the United States to

become a language teacher. From 2006-2007, I was a student teacher at a high school in the rural

Midwest, teaching 9th and 11th grade English and 11th grade Honors German, and especially

focused on instructing a low-track 9th grade English Language Arts class, mainly composed of

African American boys with IEPs for various learning disabilities, such as ADHD, emotional and

behavioral disorders, anger management issues, dyslexia, and dysgraphia. I cannot say I had any

success at classroom management, but I enjoyed it. Since January 2009, I have assessed children

from the local Boys & Girls Club in reading, and worked with children from the community in

the context of the Reading Clinic at the university where I am a lecturer at the Department of

English. In the Reading Clinic, I got to know my case study participant and his younger sister.

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1.3 Significance of Problem

Frey and Fisher (2004) point out that many struggling adolescent readers and writers are

grouped in remedial classes where they spend hours with paraprofessionals and worksheets and

that the focus of intervention programs is often put on basic skills, such as decoding; however,

such interventions would go past the multiple literacies that students bring into the classroom

(Frey & Fisher 2004, p. 19). They found that when they employed alternative genres such as

graphic novels, manga (Japanese comics to be read from the back to the front), and anime

(Japanese comic motion pictures) in their teaching, they could build on their students’ multiple

literacies through the use of popular culture; they had their students create illustrated stories with

the help of the Internet, teen magazines, and above-mentioned genres (Frey & Fisher 2004, p.

19).

In the present study, the case of a boy is presented whose reluctance to write at our first

tutoring meeting (02/07/2009, Reading Clinic) seemed to be a writer’s block, but after thorough

observation and testing, it was determined that he was able to narrate orally and summarize text,

and that his comprehension, ideas, and verbal output were not impaired. He had just about the

same trouble beginning to write a story as ending it; he displayed several symptoms of

dysgraphia; his handwriting was slow and painful, and interfered with his motivation, and he

appeared frustrated, so he seemed to seek relief by making unintelligible noises, going to the

restroom, getting off task, hugging the teacher (he was a very physical person, sometimes

inadequately so), and losing focus. To restart after such an interruption presented the same

pattern all over again. The underlying problem seemed to be a mechanical problem (i.e., a

graphomotor issue associated with dysgraphia, the way of writing from the brain into his hand

and onto paper/into the computer), and the other symptoms might have been follow-up

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symptoms in a chain reaction (e.g., lack of motivation, off-task behavior, task-avoidance,

frustration, and non-performance). In the course of the present study, an intervention using

graphic novels was implemented to determine if through the use of graphic novels aspects of his

writing (e.g., motivation, pace, organization, sequencing, coherence, quantity, creativity, and

written expression) would improve. A strong rationale for this study is that, if the investigator

can gain an understanding of the participant’s experiences using graphic novels to help him

write, this intervention might be brought to this student’s teachers’ attention to help him achieve

in his classes, and it might further be useful to other students in similar situations.

1.4 Formulation Stage

Writing a mixed research study, according to Onwuegbuzie and Mallette (2011), can be

accomplished by dividing the process into three phases: the formulation stage (which can be

found in Chapter 1 of the present study), the planning stage (Chapter 3), and the implementation

stage (Chapter 4). The formulation stage includes the establishment of the mixed goal (step 1),

the mixed objectives (step 2), a rationale for the mixed approach (step 3), a purpose for the

mixed approach (step 4), and the mixed research questions (step 5). Those sub-points will be

discussed in the following section.

1.4.1 Mixed Goal (Step 1).

As Onwuegbuzie and Mallette purport in their essay, “Mixed research techniques in

literacy research” (2011), determination of the goal involves decision-making about the overall,

long-term aim of the mixed research study. The present study was designed to understand a

complex phenomenon: the writing difficulties of a boy who possessed above grade level reading

comprehension and oral skills. The mixed goal of this study, which was two and a half years

long, consisted of assessing the participant’s writing skills during three treatment stages and

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comparing the results quantitatively, as well as in documenting the participant’s experiences with

this intervention qualitatively in order to find out if and how a teaching strategy involving

graphic novels could help this struggling writer to perform better.

1.4.2 Mixed Objectives (Step 2)

Step 2, the objectives of the study, follows directly after the establishment of the goals for

the study. In this step, the investigator determines which of the following five major standard

research objectives applies to both the quantitative and qualitative phases respectively of the

study: (a) exploration; (b) description; (c) explanation; (d) prediction; or (e) influence (Mallette

& Onwuegbuzie, 2011). More than one objective may apply to each phase. In the present study,

the investigator will describe the participant and his peculiar writing difficulties in an in-depth

case study. The investigator will explore the phenomenon of “writing difficulties” quantitatively

through baseline assessment, the use of a treatment (graphic novels teaching strategy), and post-

treatment data. Further, the exploration will be qualitative through an in depth analysis of

observational data collected throughout the intervention. Through the manipulating of a variable

(changing a text-only writing task into a visually supported one), the investigator attempts to

produce a desired result, namely a written output of greater quality, quantity, and faster pace.

1.4.3 Rationale for Mixed Approach (Step 3)

The design of the present study depends on the purpose of the research and the

appropriate methodologies of investigation and data collection. According to Collins et al.

(2006), there are four major rationales for mixing quantitative and qualitative approaches:

participant enrichment, instrument fidelity, treatment integrity, and significance enhancement.

Through the mixing of quantitative and qualitative procedures (e.g., the use of quantitative rating

scales in combination with qualitative content analysis of written output), the integrity of the

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intervention is assessed, which means it is probed whether the graphic novel teaching strategy

worked. Further, through the mixing of quantitative and qualitative techniques, the investigator

tries to optimize data interpretations, since one method (case study) might complement the

findings of the other method (single-subject design). Although in recent years, researchers across

the content areas have suggested mixed research due to the obvious limitations of the

monomethodological approach, within the field of literacy, it has not been much used (Mallette

& Onwuegbuzie, 2011, p. 303); it is my hope that the present study can outline some benefits of

mixed research with regard to interventions for struggling writers.

1.4.4 Purpose of Mixed Approach (Step 4)

Onwuegbuzie and Mallette recommend that researchers use Greene et al.’s (1989)

framework, consisting of five broad purposes of mixed methods studies: (a) triangulation

(convergence and corroboration of findings from different methods examining the same

phenomenon); (b) complementarity (elaboration, enhancement, illustration, and clarification of

the findings from one method with results from the other); (c) initiation (identification of

paradoxes and contradictions that lead to a reframing of the research questions); (d) development

(using the findings from one method to help inform the other one); and (e) expansion (expansion

of the breadth and depth of the study by using different methods for different research

components) (Mallette & Onwuegbuzie, 2011). In the present study, the purpose for using a

mixed approach is triangulation (Greene, Caracelli, and Graham, 1989), in order to seek

convergence and corroboration of findings from different methods examining the same

phenomenon. Triangulation is "the combination of methodologies in the study of the same

phenomenon" (cited from Denzin, 1978, in Jick, 1979, p. 602) by which researchers can improve

the accuracy of their judgments of the same phenomenon through data collection of different

9

kinds. The most popular use of triangulation is the “between (or across) methods” type serving

largely as vehicle for cross-validation when two or more methods are congruent, yielding

comparable data (cited from Denzin, 1978, in Jick, 1979, p. 602). Denzin (1989) explains that

triangulation is a plan of action raising researchers above personal biases stemming from single

methodologies, and allowing them partially to overcome deficiencies from one method. If

researchers treat the act of generating observations as an act of symbolic interaction, the links

between observations and theories become more complete, and thus he claims triangulation of

methods to be “the soundest strategy of theory construction” (Denzin, 1989, pp. 318-319).

1.4.5 Mixed Research Questions

The challenge here was the establishment of appropriate research questions for a mixed

research design. Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2004) claim, “[w]hat is most fundamental is the

research question—research methods should follow research questions in a way that offers the

best chance to obtain useful answers” (pp. 17-18). Both Onwuegbuzie and Leech (2006) and

Tashakkori and Creswell (2007) recommend to establish either a single mixed research question

addressing the nature of mixing and integration, or a single mixed research question transcending

any subsequent quantitative and qualitative sub-questions. The concept of mixed research

questions was introduced by Onwuegbuzie and Leech (2006), who define them as

questions that embed both a quantitative research question and a qualitative research

question within the same question. That is, mixed methods research questions combine or

mix both the quantitative and qualitative research questions. Moreover, a mixed methods

research question necessitates that both quantitative data and qualitative data be collected

and analyzed either concurrently, sequentially, or iteratively before the question is

addressed. (Onwuegbuzie & Leech, 2006, p. 483)

10

In this vein, the investigator is following the first way delineated in the typology, with

only one mixed methods research question.

Quantitative research questions.

1. How does the participant’s written output differ from pre- to post-treatment?

2. What are the individual features of his written output in the pre-treatment, treatment, and

post-treatment stages?

Qualitative research question.

How does the participant experience the tutoring program using graphic novels to support his

writing skills?

Mixed research question.

In what ways (if any) are graphic novels a useful and beneficial intervention for a struggling

writer?

These research questions will be re-evaluated after completion of the study, leading to

modification and/or addressing of additional research questions.

1.5 Assumptions

A basic assumption is that graphic novels with their highly cinematic approach to

storytelling are motivating and enjoyable for youths and that today’s children and teenagers who

are frequently exposed to non-text visual media would feel comfortable with a classroom

application of graphic novels and image poetry. It is likewise assumed that in the highly graphical

environment of the 21st century, youths need to acquire visual literacy and are probably already

well-equipped with it through practice with video and computer games, I-Pods, cell phones,

Kindle, etc.

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Moreover, graphic novels convey messages through a combination of text and pictures

(sequential art), which breaks up the reading process into small, easily digestible chunks, and it

can be assumed that reading graphic novels becomes an easier and faster task for struggling

readers than reading text-only material. Consequently, filling in bubbles with coherent,

chronological text segments should become an easier and faster task for struggling writers than

writing text-only stories. It is finally assumed that not all visual stories are pulp fiction, but that

by teaching reading and writing through graphic novels adequate for the classroom, educators can

provide students with valuable learning goals as well as historical and contemporary political and

sociological information. Therefore, it is assumed that the participant does not regard the graphic

novel intervention as pure past-time activity of little academic value, but that he notices his new

reading material does deal with classic literature and is not a “dumbing down” of his abilities.

1.6 List of Terms

Aphasia:

According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary (2013, n.p.), aphasia is a defect in

the expression and comprehension of words, which is caused by damage to the frontal and

temporal lobes of the brain as a result from head trauma, tumor, stroke, or infection. The ability

to arrange words in a meaningful order may be lost. Receptive aphasia is a problem of input and

denotes the inability to understand spoken, written, or tactile speech symbols. Developmental

aphasia, as the term suggests, occurs during the maturation process of a child and is not a

permanent impairment, and acquired aphasia is the result of a suffered brain injury or infection.

Expressive aphasia deals with the deficit of orally expressing oneself by means of language and

is a type of apraxia; e.g. when somebody is able to comprehend a task, understand the word

provided, recall the required word, but is unable to utter it.

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Chunks:

According to Wickelgren (1979), chunking was originally formulated by Miller (1956)

and “probably means different things to different people,” but in his article, it stands for “a

learning process by which a set of nodes representing constituents (…) of a whole comes to be

associated to a new node that, thereby, represents the whole chunk (…)” (Wickelgren, 1979, p.

44). Chunking, or unitization, occupies a central position in the interpretation of the relationship

between organization and recall. Lower-order elements become grouped into larger wholes,

"chunks," that can function as unitary memorial elements. Chunking is particularly evident in

language as a result of associative experiences: syllables are chunked into word units, and words

into higher-order phrase units.

Dysgraphia:

According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary (2013, n.p.), dysgraphia is an

impairment of the ability to write caused by brain damage. It is expressed by extremely poor

handwriting or the inability to perform the motor movements required for handwriting. The

condition is associated with neurological dysfunction.

Developmental dysgraphia occurs during childhood and is not permanent. Acquired dysgraphia

occurs after a brain trauma or infection.

Graphic novel:

Novel with pictures; has a beginning, middle, and end; is longer than comic books; tells a

whole story.

Imagens:

According to Sadoski and Paivio (2004), “[c]ognitive theories usually specify basic units

or “building blocks” of cognition. The basic units in the verbal system are logogens, and the

13

basic units in the nonverbal system are imagens” (Sadoski & Paivio, 2004, p. 7). As such,

imagens are representational unit for mental images.

Imagery:

I am using the terms “image” and “imagery” here as distinction from above-mentioned

mental images, imagens, to refer to concrete visual imagery, i.e., nonverbal memory

representations of real objects and events.

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CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

Writing is not a single action, but a unity of components and thus a complex process. As

Berninger and Wolf (2009) define it, writing includes the act of producing written letters

(handwriting) or words (spelling), the generation of ideas, as well as the stages of the writing

process: brainstorming, planning, translating, and revising (Berninger & Wolf, 2009, p. 93).

Although research has shown that handwriting, spelling, and composition are individual

processes, they work in unity if adequately developed (Berninger & Wolf, 2009, p. 93). Since the

1970s, Berninger has studied struggling writers and the writer’s brain, and I have used her

findings as the theoretical model to base my graphic intervention on. In this chapter, I have

reviewed research about children’s difficulties with various components of the writing process,

as well as clinical and educational interventions, which use imagery to alleviate or solve those

problems.

I reviewed articles on children with diagnosed writing disabilities, such as dysgraphia

(Myklebust, 1973), and different teaching strategies that can be used to help them perform better.

Specifically, I used a book on written expression disorders by Gregg (1995), because my

participant had an IEP at his junior high school for “executive function disorder.” First, the term

“executive function disorder” has to be defined. Berninger and Wolf (2009) state that students

with dysgraphia, dyslexia, and oral and written language learning disability (OWL LD) have

oftentimes difficulties with executive functions, namely the mental self-government which helps

them to organize the learning process (Berninger & Wolf, 2009, p. 26). The symptoms are

inability to focus on what is relevant, ignoring what is irrelevant, switching between tasks, or

inability to stay on task; teachers can help those students by organizing the learning environment

15

and instructional day, teaching strategies to manage the learning process, and providing one-on-

one guidance (Berninger & Wolf, 2009, p. 26).

Berninger and Wolf furnish support for gender differences occurring in writing rather

than reading: “Boys tend to have more difficulties than girls in handwriting, spelling, and

executive functions for self-regulation of composing, and girls are more likely than boys to

compensate for both reading and writing problems in their adult years” (Berninger, Nielsen,

Abbott, Wijsman, & Rasking, 2008a, & Berninger et al., 2008a, cited in Berninger & Wolf,

2009, p. 94).

The suggestion of Berninger and Wolf to organize instruction is exactly what I was

aiming at with my private tutoring lessons: sequencing and organizing the writing process

(through graphic novel panels and speech bubbles), and guiding the struggling writer individually

through those tasks. However, since my participant was not medically, neurologically, or

psychologically diagnosed, I had to remain vague and also consult, next to medical research,

studies on struggling writers in general. Thus, I gathered and reviewed studies about clinical and

educational interventions using image strategies to make a case that all kinds of struggling

writers can internalize, understand, repeat, and use letters (Fulk, Lohman, & Belfiore, 1997),

words (De Partz, Seron, & Van der Linden, 1992), and plots/scenes (Wirtz, 1969) with the help

of pictures. This leads to a discussion of articles (Gould, 2001; Mayer & Anderson, 1992;

Monnin, 2010; Mori, 2007; Myklebust, 1973; Schwarz, 2007) on how imagery could be used

with regard to children and older students with reading and writing problems.

2.1 Struggling Writers

While there is a plethora of articles on struggling readers and dyslexia, literature on

struggling writers with undiagnosed problems has not been as abundant until approximately the

16

1980s; more has been written on children with diagnosed writing disabilities, such as dysgraphia.

Bradley-Johnson and Lesiak (1989) explain that until recently, “written expression” has received

little attention from psychologists and educators compared to reading; only when written

expression was included as a category for learning disabilities in Public Law (PL) 94-142 was

there a rise in new assessments of written expression, which until then had focused on spelling.

(Bradley-Johnson & Lesiak, 1989, p. 1) Written expression is composed of five inter-related

skill areas, (a) mechanics, (b) production, (c) conventions, (d) linguistics, and (e) cognition (cited

from Larsen, 1987, in Bradley-Johnson & Lesiak, 1989, pp. 2-3), and this complexity makes

diagnosis and remediation difficult.

Different forms of writing problems can be categorized under the umbrella term of

“dysgraphia,” which Myklebust defines as a deficiency in converting attained auditory and visual

prerequisites into a motor pattern, so that the individual cannot write (Myklebust, 1973, p. 164).

The unbalance of research in the fields of reading and writing can be pinpointed by the fact that

dyslexia is a psycho-neurological condition known since approximately 1865 and acknowledged

as causing reading difficulties, while with regard to its counterpart, dysgraphia, Myklebust says

that the interest used to be only on the input side (the receptive function; i.e., reading) and not the

output side (concomitant interacting expressive function; i.e., writing) (Myklebust, 1973, p. 63).

He contends that researchers can learn more about reading when simultaneously investigating

receptive and expressive functions (Myklebust, 1973, p. 63). As Myklebust points out, “[i]f the

reading level is at the expected age but writing is limited, the child’s condition may be

dysgraphia” (cited from Boder, 1971, in Myklebust, 1973, p. 126). Myklebust describes the

development of The Picture Story Language Test (PSLT), intended to provide an achievement

test for written language, “which, together with tests of reading, would permit appraisal of both

17

fundamental processes of the visual language form, input and output” (Myklebust, 1973, p. 161).

The test developers found it advantageous to examine the relationship between auditory and

visual language, and their investigations revealed that an assessment of written language (a trait

developed after reading, which, in turn, develops after spoken language) was useful in evaluating

those other two functions of language.

According to Gregg (1995), “written expression disorders” are often clinically identified

in persons with learning disabilities, but there is limited empirical research focus on the

breakdown of written language (syntax, text structure, audience awareness) (Gregg, 1995, p. ix).

He notes the vagueness of terms, such as agraphia, for disorders of written language “without a

clear description of the term and/or application to assessment,” and states that the majority of

agraphia studies have a narrow focus and result primarily from clinical observations of patients

with acquired neurological disorders (Gregg, 1995, p. ix), not developmental ones. In fact,

Myklebust (1965) was one of the pioneer researchers who looked at dysgraphia from a

developmental point of view (Gregg, 1995, p. ix). Gregg (1995) states that although it is easy

today to critique this research as simplistic, it provides a solid foundation for further

investigation of written language disorders among people with developmental expressive writing

disorders (p. 8). Myklebust had tried to convey that dysgraphia creates a breakdown between the

mental image of a word and the motor system (Gregg, 1995, p. 8). Gregg also emphasizes the

importance of cognitive and socio-cultural contexts of written expression disorders, and bemoans

the general confusion of researchers when dealing with writing difficulties. He maintains that

albeit there is an increased awareness of developmental written expression disorders,

professionals are still confused with regard to how to diagnose them, how to construct theoretical

models, how to identify a diagnosis, and how to account for the enormous variability in the

18

competency of written expression across the population of writers with learning disabilities

(Gregg, 1995, p. x).

Added to the confusion about diagnosis and establishment of theoretical perspectives is

the relative newness of scientific terms. Caplan (1987) noted that the terms “neurolinguistics”

and “linguistic aphasiology” are fairly recent and have only been in use since approximately the

1970s. They refer to the nature of language breakdown and the relationship between brain and

language, the study of which was already performed in the second half of the nineteenth century

(Caplan, 1987, p. 3). The affective domain also seems to play an important role during the

writing process of struggling writers; writing anxiety has an impact on the output. Gregg warns

about underplaying the significance of the correlation between anxiety and written language

competence and supports his stance by noting that generalized anxiety disorders can commonly

be seen in individuals with learning disabilities (Gregg, 1995, p. 6).

Recent trends show more research being performed with regard to children’s writing

problems. Gould (2001) states that in the past two decades, new ways of viewing written

language have emerged (Gould, 2001, p. 186): An analysis of what people do when they write,

together with Britton’s (1972) idea of a natural sequence of development through three modes of

language (expressive writing, transactional writing, poetic writing), caused a rise in research on

children’s writing (Gould, 2001, p. 186). With that, new approaches of teaching could be

formulated, focusing on writing as a process (Gould, 2001, p. 186). One of those approaches,

which often include imagery, is the “semantic map,” defined as “a graphic way of exploring the

relationships among words by categorizing them and connecting them to one another,” thus

“visually creating spokes radiating from a hub” (Gould, 2001, p. 208).

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More and more teachers are trying to meet the needs of struggling readers by

incorporating image strategies in the form of graphic novels in their teaching, and many

librarians propagate the integration and assemblage of graphic novels into school libraries (Mori,

2007). We are living in a technological age where visual literacies become exceedingly

important, or, as Kress (2003) calls it, we are experiencing “the greatest communication

revolution of all time” (cited from Kress in Monnin, 2010, p. xx). Children nowadays grow up

with lots of visual stimuli, and oftentimes are able to process visual information as seen in TV

clips, video games, I-pods, computer games, etc. much faster than adults. They do not depend on

“text-only” literacy. Technological literacy is taught in schools and is a prerequisite on the job

market. As Luke and Elkins (1998) put it, today’s adolescents experience the formation of

communities and identities in relation to changing textual and media landscapes; their literacy

involves persistence in an increasingly volatile and uncertain job market, and survival in a

consumer society where written and media texts define individuals “at every turn and in virtually

every domain of everyday life, in the shopping mall and the school, online, and face to face”

(Luke & Elkins, 1998, pp. 6-7).

Since “graphic novel” is a relatively new term coined in the late 1960s, scholarly

research, especially in the educational and not in the artistic realm, is not overabundant, yet it is

coming. Existing literature mainly deals with struggling readers (Monnin, 2010), but not

struggling writers who work with graphic novels. Few quantitative studies about classroom use

of graphic novels are available; most research is qualitative, such as reviews, philosophical and

opinion papers, and oftentimes consists in Master’s theses and action research papers. Mostly,

the investigators look at children with reading disabilities (Monnin, 2010), or at whole classroom

or community projects for minority or low socio-economic status students (Anderson, Anderson,

20

& Shapiro, 2005; Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith, 1986; Bitz, 2004; Frey & Fisher, 2004; Oftedal,

1948; Russell, 1996; Shapiro & Hudson, 1991). Thus, the effects of imagery strategies on

struggling readers as well as economically, behaviorally, mentally, and emotionally

disadvantaged students have been described, whereas there is still a need of understanding their

impact on struggling writers. Short-term, multiple-subjects studies have been performed, but

longitudinal single-subject experiments might shed new light on the effect of visual literacy on

the writing process of an individual.

Literacy cannot be measured by filling in multiple-choice bubbles and performing on

standardized tests alone. Teachers may notice that some students fail constantly on standardized,

norm-referenced achievement tests in reading and have problems comprehending print-only

material; yet, those students are secret comics or manga fans and actually do quite a bit of

reading in and out of school. They might also possess astounding media literacy through their

exposure to new communication technologies. In 1992, the Aspen Media Literacy Leadership

Institute (AMLLI) arrived at a definition of “media literacy” which is now widely used: “the

ability to access, analyze, evaluate, and create media in a variety of forms” (Center for Media

Literacy, 2010). This definition has been enlarged by the Canadian Center for Media Literacy,

according to which media literacy is a 21st century approach to education because it provides a

framework to access, analyze, evaluate, and create messages in different forms from print to

video to Internet; it builds an understanding of media in society; and it develops inquiry and self-

expression skills (Center for Media Literacy, 2010). Likewise, Mayer (1997) states that

"multimedia learning" occurs "when students receive information presented in more than one

mode, such as in pictures and words" (Mayer, 1997, p. 1). He explains that the near monopoly of

verbally-based instructional modes of the past has shifted in the recent years toward the stance

21

that meaningful learning takes place when students construct multiple representations of the

same material, including words and images (Mayer, 1997, p. 1).

What teachers can do is address visual and media literacies in children, to build on them,

to use them as a motivational factor and prior knowledge for them to learn new tasks in the print-

only domain, to engage with the world around them, and to reveal their inner self. The term

“visual literacy” was coined by Debes in the late 1960s as meaning the ability “to discriminate

and interpret the visible actions, objects, symbols, natural or man-made, that he encounters in his

environment” (Center for Media Literacy, 2010). The definition has since been expanded, for

example: “The ability to understand and produce visual images,” “learning how images convey

meaning,” [t]he active reconstruction of past visual experiences with incoming visual messages

to obtain meaning,” and “the ability to interpret and understand visual texts” (see Center for

Media Literacy, 2010, n.p.). Research has been conducted about how students (struggling or not)

benefit from visual literacies, such as comics, graphic novels, manga, picture writing, and

storybook reading in several different content areas (Schwarz, 2007). Schwarz (2007) argues that

students need to engage with social issues, media literacy, and critical thinking, beyond being

occupied with passing standardized tests (Schwarz, 2007, p. 9). She maintains that media literacy

forcibly leads to an examination of socio-political issues, such as the environment, consumerism,

and criminal justices, and that graphic novels as a popular new medium are often founded on the

author’s autobiographical experiences, promoting inquiry and engaging students who, in

particular, “are not well served by the usual text materials” (Schwarz, 2007, p. 9). Therefore, she

admonishes educators to consider graphic novels or to let students create their own (Schwarz,

2007, p. 9).

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Historically, educators have been rather hostile toward new literacies, especially visual

ones, trying from a purist’s point of view to define what belonged in schools, and what did not.

After all, a “textbook” was called this way because it contained text, and not images, and there

are few images to be found in early textbooks in this country. Monnin (2010) describes how the

perception of what should be taught has shifted from only print-text literacies to visual literacies

in the early 1900s. She explains the pre-existing teacher convictions of “what children should

read” by citing an event involving Charles W. Eliot, who, interestingly, is otherwise known as a

hero of college sports reformers and the first to criticize misplaced priorities represented by

intercollegiate athletics. Eliot gave rise to the use of image literacies in English Language Arts in

the 1890s due to his determined focus on print-text literacies. As president of Harvard University

and chair of the Committee of Ten, a group composed of education stakeholders selected to

decide upon a standard ELA curriculum for high school students, he decided with his committee

that students should be required to read “canonical” or “traditional” literature, and he bragged

that it “could all be found on a five-foot-long bookshelf” in his office, namely print-text literature

written by mostly white, male, British authors (Monnin 2003, Introduction, XIX). The National

Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) recommended in 1911 that teachers not take heed to the

committee’s suggestions but rather consider the proper interests of their students. Literary

scholars of the 1920s and ‘30s then purported – based on the works of Richards (1929) and

Rosenblatt (1938) – that the get-together of reader and text creates a “unique and aesthetic

meaning” (Monnin, 2003, XIX), and reader response theory claimed that English teachers should

be influenced by their individual students as individual interpreters of literature.

Dora V. Smith coined the term “English Language Arts” in 1952, which gave rise to the

expansion of the scope of responsibilities of English teachers, which were suddenly extended

23

from reading and writing to speaking and listening (Monnin, 2010, Introduction, XIX). The

Newsom Report in 1963 revealed that 50% of Great Britain’s adolescent population considered

itself marginalized by the English Language Arts curriculum, and admonished teachers to widen

their horizon on what they perceived as literacies, so that they could meet visual learners with

image-dominant popular culture literacies (Monnin, 2003, Introduction, XIX). Much research has

been done about how visual literacy, especially in the form of graphic novels, benefits struggling

teenage readers (Snowball, 2005). Fewer data, however, are available about the impact of image

strategies on struggling writers.

2.2 Clinical and Educational Use of Visual Strategies

The reputation and use of sequential art (graphic novels and comics) in education has

changed greatly in the past six decades. New York City psychiatrist Wertham who studied

juvenile delinquency warned Americans in the 1940s of the dangers of comic books, demanding

government regulation and publishing The Seduction of the Innocent, an accusation of comic

books he conceived as promoting racial stereotypes, homosexuality, violence, rebelliousness, and

illiteracy. While Wertham (1954), who put quotation marks around the word "reading" when

referring to comic books, still argued that comic books were a "death on reading," and that a

large proportion of the children who could not read well do read comic books habitually, just

gazing at the pictures and "picking up a word here and there," being comic-book addicts and

"book-worms without books" (Wertham, 1954, cited in Dale, 2007, p. 19), teachers brought back

comics into their classrooms in the 1970s. Thus, Haugaard (1973) explained how comics could

be used as a teaching tool to motivate slow-learning students to acquire reading skills.

In our present times, in her article, “In defense of graphic novels,” Hansen (2012), well

aware of criticism towards this genre, makes the case that it actually satisfies many of the

24

standards for the English language arts as purported by the International Reading Association and

the National Council of Teachers of English:

The first standard specifies that students need to read a “wide range of print and

nonprint texts” (19), and thanks to their combining of language and visuals, graphic

novels satisfy both of these categories at once. But graphic novels can help teach many of

the aspects of other standards, too. They could be used to discuss the multifaceted range

of human experience (standard 2 [21]); to highlight textual features such as sentence

structure, context, and graphics (standard 3 [22]); to teach media techniques and

figurative language (standard 6 [26]); to aid in learning to synthesize data from print and

nonprint sources (standard 7 [27]); to develop familiarity with differing cultures (standard

9); and to foster enjoyment in reading (standard 12 [32]). (Hansen, 2012, p. 60)

Nowadays, schools, libraries, and media centers are accumulating graphic novels

collections to motivate adolescents to read (Lyga & Lyga, 2004). Over the last decade, comics

have found a way into schools as a "scaffold for later learning that is perceived to be more

difficult," and graphic novels are used in teaching as a "road to higher forms of literacy" and "to

more challenging and, by implication, worthwhile texts" (Dale, 2007, p. 20). Dale, however,

steps away from the stance that "the visual is subservient to the written," and makes a case for

sequential art not being a debased form of word-based literacy, albeit a stepping stool to more

advanced textual literacy forms, but rather a complex form of multimodal literacy (Dale, 2007, p.

20). He claims that images, word balloons, lettering, sound effects, and gutters come together to

create meaning in multiple realms of meaning-making, the so-called "multimodality" (Dale,

2007, p. 21). Dale argues that even the shapes and design forms of text boxes in comics can have

special meanings; for example in one case where they looked like scrolls, they brought to mind

25

the time period and genre associated with pirates (Dale, 2007, p. 22). Thus, not only what the

words say, but also how it is said is important in multimodal literacy.

Carter (2007) argues that there is evidence that sequential art is slowly filtering into many

facets of English education and literacy instruction, making teaching move away from merely

letter-based, one-size-fits-all literacy toward materials matched to reach various student

populations. He complains about the dearth of essays on specific graphic novel titles in

educational journals, and admonishes educators to publish their research about the transformative

power of graphic novels to help youths relate to adolescent issues (Carter, 2007, p. 50). Carter

gives several examples of recent graphic novels that focus on real-life events in adolescents'

lives, such as puberty, teenage angst, rape, teenage pregnancy, political oppression, etc. He

teaches English education majors to apply sequential art in their teaching to expand their future

students' literacy skills.

Finally, it is left to Hibbing and Rankin-Erickson (2003) to state the obvious: it does

matter that the pictures are a true rendering of the text they accompany; otherwise, they are

irritating for the reader and interfere with his or her comprehension. The researchers tell an

incident about a group of reluctant readers from their middle school, who had read “A Few Dirty

Words” (Scott, 1999), a play about harassment in school. They recount that they almost faced a

student rebellion due to a single illustration: the depiction of two young male basketball players

and a female manager. Since the students had already created their mental image of the characters

according to what they had read, these images did not match with the illustration in the book:

According to the students, the two basketball players pictured were too young and the

boys’ shorts looked like dresses. There was a noticeable change in the students’ attitude

from that point on. The play no longer held credibility, and motivation to continue

26

reading it declined. This experience caused us to pay attention to the text-illustration

match in the materials we use with our students and to try to use a mismatch productively.

(Hibbing & Rankin-Erickson, 2003, p. 763)

In the following section, I will review studies about the effect of visual strategies in

medical and educational settings for the following areas: (a) motivation and socialization; (b)

reading comprehension; (c) creative expression, vocabulary, and concepts; (d) organization,

sequencing, and coherence; and (e) letter recognition, word recognition, and story recall through

graphics.

2.2.1 Motivation and socialization

Marshall (1987) described how he as a former boy reader had his literary revelation

through pictures by revealing certain strange, new, and pleasant feelings when looking at the

comic book image of Wonderwoman’s half-wrapped, starry chest: He soon came to ignore what

the heroine had to say in word bubbles, because his mind was enraptured by her chesty bubbles,

and “her ample, mammiferous parts had coaxed [him] gently into the wonderworks of puberty”

(Marshall, 1987, p. 59). He explicitly states that he does not want to make a stand for

pornography, but philosophizes about the lack in our society today for the “bridge that spans the

gap between childhood and adolescence for young males,” the “motivator and bubble-filler for

these boys” (p. 60). He contends that it is the fear of the publishers to offend the “Moral

Majority, the TV evangelists, the Bible-belt deacons” (p. 60), and asks whether anything can be

done about this. Marshall advocates for “honesty and reality and fun in books for boys, and for

girls for that matter” (p. 60), and admonishes that “implied morals” should come second, but not

first, in writing for young people.

27

Others have used comic books as a medium of re-socialization or art therapy, in order to

counsel troubled children in a playful way, without them noticing the teaching attribute while

they are having fun with words and pictures. Thus, Filitti (2006), a Mental Health Counselor,

Family Support Program Coordinator, and Resource Mapping Coordinator for Severely

Disturbed Children, created together with illustrator Erbes the Out of This World Comic Book

and Activity-Based Guidance Series for Kids, which he describes as “bibliotherapy” comics,

because they teach their readers important life skills, such as motivation, concentration, anger

management techniques, avoiding and dealing with bullying, and good study habits. The comics

are available in print and on his website, www.ootwcomic.com, to reach children with the

medium they are most comfortable with. Filitti and Erbes seem to aim mainly at boy readers, for

their titles are, Hey Max, Pay Attention! The Importance of Concentration, Max Strives for

Success! Victory through Motivation!, Face to Face with X-35. The Power of Anger

Management, etc., featuring a white blond boy on the cover, and a masculine, evil-looking robot.

The following study looks at boy writers.

In a one-week group project involving fourth grade boys, one of them a struggling writer,

Dudley-Marling and Paugh (2009) described how a group produced a six-page graphic story

about stunt riders, the text of which was typed by a classroom volunteer. The classroom teacher

applied a workshop strategy based on the assumption that the "process of becoming literate is an

inherently social one" (cited from Dyson in Dudley-Marling & Paugh, 2009, pp. 14-15). Her

students situated their collaborative writing in social worlds, self-selecting topics, sharing with

their classmates, performing peer-editing, and solidifying friendships. The classroom teacher

provided a variety of writing materials, such as unlined newsprint, which "encouraged students to

draw pictures and write shorter texts" (Dudley-Marling & Paugh, 2009, p. 17). The teacher

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experimented with different genres (including comics, instant messaging, etc.) and writing tools

(typewriter, pencils, pens, colored pencils, crayons, chalk) in order to motivate reluctant and

struggling writers and to make them aware of different writing purposes for a variety of

audiences.

In contrast to the above-mentioned study, Frey and Fisher (2004) investigated older

children; they used graphic novels, anime, and the Internet in an urban high school and observed

that their 32 ninth-grade students, who came from one of the poorest and most densely populated

communities of San Diego and were in a class for struggling readers and writers with a 72% ratio

of ESL students, became better writers. They found that the overall writing results were

excellent, and that they had achieved many of their goals: Their students increased their mean

written sentence length, they explored a more sophisticated word choice, all essays contained

dialog, and the story lines were in compliance with the requirements of fantasy or creative

writing. The researchers state that the average length of the illustrated stories was 478 words,

which represented some of the most sustained writing their students had engaged in up to the

intervention (Frey & Fisher 2004, p. 24).

In the same vein, another study focused on “at-risk” or problem students from low-

income families in an insecure social environment: Bitz (2004) founded the “Comic Book

Project,” which he calls a “wakeup call,” in which 733 children of inner-city after-school

programs were allowed to feature themselves in comic book stories and thus created a mirror-

image of urban life, focusing on such topics as gang violence, drug abuse, and opposite-sex

relationships. He argues that through producing art by means of a comic book format, the

children could express themselves in a healthy manner and were able to assert their thoughts and

beliefs, especially their fears and perceptions about their lives and future (Bitz, 2004, p. 39). Bitz

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contends that the children were not coached with regard to the content of their creations, but self-

selected their topics and the content “that they believe[d] reflect[ed] their experiences and

insights into the inner city” (Bitz, 2004, p. 39).

2.2.2 Reading Comprehension

Already in the 1940s, Sones (1944) found that students of "low and middle intelligence

levels" benefited especially from the visual aspects of comics when it came to reading

comprehension (Sones, 1944, p. 239) in an experiment with 400 sixth through ninth graders, split

into two groups that were homogenous in terms of grades and intelligence. The experimental

group received a story in comics, the control group received only the text, and afterwards each

group took a test on the content of the story. A week later, the experimental group received the

text, and the control group received the comics, and both were tested anew. In the first test, the

experimental group that had received the comics scored higher, and on the second test the control

group that had received the comics showed a higher improvement. Sones came to the conclusion

that there was a strong trend in favor of the picture continuity (Sones, 1944, p. 238), and

explained the results thus: the experimental group had neared saturation after reading the comics

and was unable to learn much more from the text-only version, while the control group only

reached saturation after having reread the text material in comics. His findings implied that it is

absurd to assume that all children read printed material with the same effectiveness (Sones, 1944,

p. 240), and that visual media can be a useful learning tool for visual learners.

Visual literacy includes both reading and writing and is gaining more popularity in

today’s classrooms. McVicker (2007) maintains that teachers of the children of the technology

generation need to recognize the need to take a new look at the meaning of literacy in our society

and to prepare their students to be able to read in the print world as well as in the digital world

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through comprehension induced by visual imagery. Reading comics, students blend graphics and

print which facilitates the process of meaning making. The author claims that visual

representations help the children to develop better spatial concepts, so that the readers do not

have to imagine textual details such as color, size, or distance (McVicker, 2007, p. 85). Comics

enhance and extend the communication through the text, attract the children’s attention, and help

them to understand unknown parts in the language. Therefore, the author states that “[i]t is clear

that visual literacy skills assist literacy development, maintenance, and comprehension of text”

(McVicker, 2007, p. 85).

Regarding textual comprehension, McVicker (2007) further argues that comic strips as a

text structure are a perfect vehicle to instruct children in reading strategies, enticing them to

activate prior knowledge and to function at a higher level of Bloom’s (1984) taxonomy. She

explains that interpretation and synthesis at the top of Bloom’s hierarchy of skills can be

achieved through visual strategies to lead the students to higher order thinking: “As the reader

synthesizes how a visual representation cooperates with what is read in the text, new connections

extend comprehension” (McVicker, 2007, p. 85). She claims that through this process, readers

can connect new information to existing schema or create new schema to match the situation:

“As readers view visuals, they confirm or disconfirm how the new information fits into existing

schema and a wider knowledge base is formed for future reference” (McVicker, 2007, p. 85).

In order to investigate students’ use of time while reading, Arlin and Roth (1978)

conducted a study with third-grade students who read either comics or books under 20-minute

free reading conditions per day. It was found that initial reading attitude was positively related to

time spent on task when children were reading books. Initial reading comprehension was

positively associated with time-on-task and time-on-reading in children reading comics.

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However, the researchers also found that less time was spent on-reading with comics than with

books, and that this was particularly the case for poor readers. The results further showed that

poor readers gained more on tests of reading comprehension when reading books than when

reading comics.

2.2.3 Creative expression, vocabulary, and concepts

Already in 1948, Oftedal wrote about her classroom experiment with third-grade students

to whom she taught picture writing as a new tool in creative expression—and this was in the

early stages of educators becoming aware of visual literacy. In anecdotal records from her

ethnographic field research of classroom observation, Oftedal notes with regard to children

struggling in different areas of writing, that picture writing had a different meaning for her

diverse students: One boy who was unable to meet the demands of creative expression and

unenthusiastically contented himself with meeting the demands for handwriting came to a new

level of self-expression. One girl who used to express her story ideas freely in handwriting with

little or no regard for mechanics and was unable to share her handwritten stories due to

illegibility experienced the joy of sharing through picture writing. Two other students who had

little content to express, who were stilted in expression due to their concern with beautiful

handwriting and correct spelling, thus found a release from their high standards in mere

mechanics of expression. Another boy who needed a lot of time to put his story down in

handwriting found a means of recording and sharing his story ideas in picture writing, and his

own interest and enthusiasm were great (Oftedal, 1948, p. 43).

It is especially the latter case of the student who needed so much time to handwrite that

correlates with my present study about a struggling junior high school male writer who also is

never able to finish a story, because writing is a slow and tedious process for him, while he has

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all the ideas in his head and would like to share them. Oftedal’s qualitative study can be regarded

as a pioneer study of a new field, a new literacy. The format of graphic novels had not yet been

invented, and comics were not yet perceived as “literature” and a valuable classroom tool, but

“picture writing” comes very close. Oftedal thus created a precedent for further articles on the

benefits of visual literacies on students, especially, struggling writers.

The relationship of drawing (doodling) and writing as personal expression was also

shown by Sheth (1974), who kept a journal of image poems from 1968-1971 which was later

published as a book. She calls her doodles an “extension” of her writing, and ponders upon the

movie-like character of doodles. She “felt” her poems “visually,” and describes that drawings

came upon her accidentally, first as doodles, which slowly grew and got closely connected with

her writing, just like an extension. She created a volume of image poems which has a character of

its own, because she “felt them visually, sometimes still as a painting and other times as a

moving film” (Sheth, 1974, Introduction).

The “visual feeling” of text as if it were a painting or movie may help struggling readers

and writers not only in the context of English Language Arts, but also in other content areas

where graphic strategies have been applied. Thus, Anderson, Anderson, and Shapiro (2005)

investigated how multiple literacies could be supported by engaging parents and children in

mathematical talk within storybook reading, where “most of the mathematical discourse that

occurred… centred on the illustrations” (p. 9), and their results suggest that mutual storybook

reading holds considerable potential for the children to learn mathematical vocabulary and

concepts. What works in mathematics can certainly be applied to other subjects, such as English,

history, social studies, etc. For example, there are excellent graphic novels teaching historical

contexts and vocabulary, such as Maus, which deals with the Holocaust.

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Mori (2007) discusses negative reactions towards graphic novels; thus, some teachers

complain they are “too easy to read,” “dumbed down,” and in one instance, a father told a

Japanese man who grew up reading manga he “would be stupid if [he] read manga and tried to

make [him] stop reading it” (personal communication, cited in Mori, 2007, p. 30). However, she

also cites a university professor who thinks graphic novels have “challenging” vocabulary, and

that one could get “pretty meaty stuff in comic books” (cited in Mori, 2007, p. 30). Mori further

cites Stephen Krashen, who dispelled the assumption that comic books are “harmful”: “there is

considerable evidence that comic books can and do lead to more ‘serious’ reading” (cited from

Krashen, 1993, in Mori, 2007, p. 30).

Versaci (2001) points out that comic books can help children to develop analytical and

critical thinking skills and to read beyond the level they are taught (Versaci, 2001, p. 64). He

claims that comic books, more so than traditional forms of literature, help children ask and

answer deeper questions, because they offer more than the standard literary devices of point of

view, narrative, characterization, conflict, setting, tone, and theme: “they also operate with a very

complex poetics that blends the visual and the textual (…). By combining words and pictures,

comic books force students, rather directly, to reconcile these two means of expression” (Versaci,

2001, p. 64).

Creative expression and the exploration of new media and formats can also be fostered in

students through online composition. Nowadays, graphic novels can be expanded to the realm of

online graphic novels. Russell (1996) attempted this in his study about re-conceptualizing

pedagogy, in which he purports the use of students’ hypertext stories with pictures and words. He

observed 19 eighth-grade female students from the private S. Hilda’s School in Southport,

Queensland, Australia, who were of an average age of 13. He notes that all students came from a

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high socio-economic status and that the school was well equipped with information technology,

with which the girls were familiar and to which they had access at home. This paper from 1996 is

certainly one of the earliest studies on the impact of the Internet (technological literacy) in

combination with a new form of visual literacy (graphic novels). The author makes a case for

hypertext software by stating that it “permits students to produce stories which include pictures

and words,” and that the “increasing need for teachers to consider the addition of pictures to their

pedagogy of story-writing means that some teachers will choose to modify the ways in which

they teach” (Russell, 1996, p. 6).

2.2.4 Organization, sequencing, and coherence

A study involving very young students was conducted by Shapiro and Hudson (1991),

who were able to show the increase of story length, coherence, and cohesion in young children’s

picture-elicited narratives when conducting a picture booklet experiment (reduction of task

demand). They submitted 48 preschoolers and 48 first graders, who were randomly chosen from

private and university-based schools, to a picture booklet experiment. Their results indicate that

preschool children’s storytelling abilities are tenuous, but not as poorly developed as previously

assumed; by the age of six, children grasp episodic structure and command narrative devices for

cohesive storytelling better, but still need support.

2.2.5 Letter Recognition, Word Recognition, and Story Recall with Graphics

In this section, I want to demonstrate how graphics have been used to teach struggling

readers and writers letter recognition, word recognition, and story recall and interpretation. As

Myklebust (1973) puts it, “[t]here is a relation between imagery and memory which, perhaps, is

best described by the statement that there can be no imagery without memory” (Myklebust, 1973,

p. 175). He explains that as a cognitive function, imagery generally refers to the ability to recall

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experience in total or in parts visually by picturing it in the mind, a process called

“revisualization” (Myklebust, 1973, pp. 175-176). He describes dyslexic students who can only

read auditorially, but not visually, because they cannot picture what letters and words look like.

In letter-completion tests, children were given partly finished letters and asked to complete them,

but due to a lack of internalization of the completed part, those children were unable to associate

it with the missing part, and hence, could not write (Myklebust, 1973, pp. 176).

There is a continuum of tasks with a rising scope of literacy that can be positively

impacted by pictures. Regarding the lowest literacy stage, simple letter recognition, Fulk,

Lohman, and Belfiore (1997) conducted research on the effects of integrated picture mnemonics

on the letter recognition and letter-sound acquisition of transitional first-grade students with

special needs by showing them graphic representations which still contained the letter in them,

for example a kite for the letter “k,” and a cup for the letter “c.” They found that this was an

effective instructional technique, and their follow-up data at two- and four-week intervals

demonstrated that the learning results maintained over time.

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Figure 1. Example of mnemonic illustration for the letter “k,” Fulk, Lohman, & Belfiore (1997,

p. 36). Reprinted with permission.

A study regarding whole-word recognition was performed by de Partz and colleagues

(1992), who investigated a re-education of a surface dysgraphia with a visual imagery strategy,

which means a re-teaching of a patient who had lost the ability to write due to a brain disease and

subsequent brain surgery. The authors’ hypothesis was that the case study participant had lost the

relevant orthographic representations of some words. De Partz, Seron, and Van der Linden

worked with a 24-year-old male patient who had contracted encephalitis in 1984, which resulted

in a lobectomy of the left temporal point and suction of the lower area of his left frontal lobe. As

a consequence, he suffered from a gross alteration of consciousness, and a neurological

examination showed a right hemiparesis, which is a weakness of the right side, not as severe as

paralysis, and mild right hemispatial neglect, which is the inability to perceive and process

stimuli on the right side of the body, without hemianopia (meaning that the sensation, namely his

37

vision, was not impaired). Their method consisted in re-teaching the patient in two stages: In the

first stage, he was re-taught some complex graphemic contextual conversion rules, and in the

second stage, the researchers created an original imagery strategy to re-teach him the writing of

ambiguous and irregular words.

The researchers found that their patient had lost the representation of words and was not

merely impaired in accessing their stored representations in his memory. This important finding

led them to stage two of their treatment, namely the application of an imagery strategy. The

patient (whose native language was French) was shown a pictorial representation of a word; for

example, the word “pathologie” was represented by PAT, the H being a long stretcher with a

corpse lying on it, and then OLOGIE. The word “hôtel,” which has an accent circonflexe over the

“o,” was represented by a capital H with a page boy in uniform standing behind it, holding

invitingly on his outstretched hand the ^ which looked like a roof, namely the roof of a hotel.

Then followed the letters OTEL. The word “flamme” had two M’s represented as flames. The

word “ennemi” had the “e” and the two “n’s” depicted as angry faces staring hatefully at each

other (De Partz, Seron, & Van der Linden, 1992, pp. 389-390). I have included the corresponding

pictorial representations from their study below:

38

39

Figure 2. Examples of word illustrations by de Partz, Seron, & Van der Linden, 1992, p. 388.

Reprinted with permission.

The procedure was as follows: the patient had to (a) copy the written word with the

drawing; (b) was trained to reproduce from memory the written word with the embedded drawing

after a delay of ten seconds; and (c) was trained to produce the written word and the drawing in

response to the word spoken by a therapist. The results showed that after three months of such

training, the patient’s performance showed a sharp contrast between trained words (0% correct in

pre-therapy writing, but 91% correct in post-therapy writing) and untrained words (0% correct in

pre-therapy writing, but 30% correct in post-therapy writing). The authors rejected the null

hypothesis and concluded that there were strong indications that the improvement of their

patient’s writing was not due to a general spontaneous recovery effect, which means that their

two-stage treatment must have been the cause of their patient’s improvement.

Other researchers have worked with pictures to enhance their patients’ story recall,

understanding, or interpretation. Baron-Cohen, Leslie, and Frith (1986) made a ground-breaking

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discovery when they observed the mechanical, behavioral, and intentional understanding of

picture stories in autistic, Down’s syndrome, and clinically normal children: against common

prejudice, they found out that the autistic children had no problems establishing the correct

sequence of picture panels when confronted with behavioral (socially interactive) tasks, but only

when they had to deal with intentional understanding: “We therefore find no support for a

general ‘social’ deficit explanation of autism. On the other hand, we have found a specific deficit

in social understanding” (Baron-Cohen, Leslie, & Frith 1986, p. 122).

Wirtz (1965) used an imagery strategy to explain form and composition as well as critical

thinking and literary judgment to college students who were learning French by “breaking down

a literary work into its component parts” (Wirtz, 1965, p. 508). Her students were reading

difficult French classics (novels, dramas, poetry), and she claims that “[a]pplied to a complex

novel…, the trick is artistically enlightening when words may fail” (Wirtz, 1965, p. 508). She

calls this imagery strategy “means of a very simple key-like illustration” (Wirtz, 1965, p. 508)

and bases her idea on pre-existing illustrations of French manuals and histories of French

literature that made a limited attempt at graphically outlining the life work of an author or even

the composition of a whole novel. Wirtz explains that it is “easy to lose one’s way in a long

novel in a foreign language,” and that “abstract illustration is particularly useful here” (Wirtz,

1965, p. 509). At first, she offers very basic illustrations, such as a squiggly line to represent the

linear development of an early descriptive novel; then, she shows crude maps to illustrate

epistolary novels, using letters standing for the various characters, and arrows to show

relationships between those characters, adding text fields for further explanations on character

development (Wirtz, 1965, p. 509). Then, she proceeds to the “more real complexities,” and

demonstrates her use of the “following diagrams” for three novels.

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Figure 3 a). Example of scene illustrations (concrete) (Wirtz, 1965, p. 510). Reprinted with

permission.

Wirtz’s first illustration (of Stendhal’s Le Rouge et le Noir) is the most concrete and

representational one. It shows the different settings of the novel in pictures (such as the

countryside versus the city (Verrières), a river (Le Doubs), houses of the main characters, the

lumber mill of a character, a seminary, a church, etc. Small text fields are inserted, containing

keywords for the events (for example, the seduction of a woman, a character’s imprisonment and

execution through the guillotine, etc.). Arrows emanate from different characters and places to

others, to denote plot development. Numbers are used to represent the chronology of the events.

42

Figure 3 b). Example of scene illustrations (abstract) (Wirtz, 1965, p. 111). Reprinted with

permission.

43

Wirtz’s second illustration (of the 1831 novel La Peau de chagrin, The Magic Skin, by

Honoré de Balzac) is more abstract. No pictures of rivers, houses, etc. are offered; instead,

circles, squares, and other shapes are chosen to represent places (house of the main character, a

whore house, a theater, an antique store, a retreat, etc.), events (a duel, an orgy, etc.), interwoven

stories (the story of Foedora), or characters (the Savants). Small text fields are inserted to explain

the plot development (a young man finds a magic piece of shagreen that fulfills his every desire,

but for every wish granted, his skin shrinks); thus, one sees several shapes titled, “peau de

chagrin” (abbreviated as “P. de ch.”) which are connected through arrows to show the chronology

of events. They differ in size, which I take to denote the extent and importance of the happenings.

One can easily discern that the plot becomes more complex with the number of chapters; chapter

I (Le Talisman) is relatively manageable and straightforward, with only five big circles, one

square, and one shape linked through arrows, whereas chapter III (L’Agonie) is more climactic

and contains a mazy assembly of interconnected shapes.

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Figure 3 c). Example of scene illustrations (panels) (Wirtz, 1965, p. 512). Reprinted with

permission.

45

Finally, Wirtz’s third illustration looks very much like paneling in graphic novels,

although her article (Wirtz, 1965) was written about a decade before the public self-declaration

of graphic novels as a literary form. She offers no images, just plain text as an overview of the

whole novel by illustrating Madame Bovary using a “technique cinématographique” (Wirtz,

1965, p. 512), delineating the content of each chapter through words in text boxes numbered in

Roman numbers of chronological order.

Wirtz explains that when her students used graphic overviews of literature as “point de

depart,” “much unnecessary talking was saved and more valuable explanations could be made”

(Wirtz, 1965, p. 515). She warns, however, against the use of over-simplification (for example,

blank shapes), “unless one describes in detail what is happening within those shapes” (Wirtz,

1965, p. 516). Regarding the outcome of her strategy and its educational value, she remarks

modestly: “[The] diagrams were used for three of the novels with quite some success. At least,

the final examination in the course was not the tragedy it sometimes turns out to be in a heavy

reading course” (Wirtz, 1965, p. 510). Her recommendation for the teaching practice and her

concluding words about her classroom experiment are that when teaching a form-conscious

literature such as the French one, it would be wasteful not to point out its formality through

visual strategies, but one would have to guard against becoming too concrete or representational

in the illustrations; otherwise, one would impose one art on another (Wirtz, 1965, p. 516). She

maintains that the creative arts are useful in assisting each other more than in the past for the

benefit of literature students (Wirtz, 1965, p. 516).

2.2.6 Enhanced Understanding of Explanatory Text through Illustrations

Previous research has established a link between imagery strategies and textual

comprehension of learners (Mayer & Anderson, 1991). The researchers found relations between

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explanative text (step-by-step descriptions of cause-and-effect actions) and explanative

illustrations (frame-by-frame pictures of cause-and effect changes) in assisting students with the

comprehension of scientific texts (Mayer & Anderson, 19914). In an experiment, students read

either scientific passages followed by explanative illustrations, or passages including explanative

illustrations with verbal labels corresponding to each step in the text. In their experimental test of

a dual coding hypothesis, the researchers found that students who had read text with integrated

explanative illustrations performed better on problem-solving transfer tests than students who

had read text before seeing pictures. Therefore, they concluded that understanding of scientific

explanations necessitates mapping between words and pictures, and that verbal and visual

explanations need to be presented simultaneously in a coordinated way to be more effective for

problem-solving (Mayer & Anderson, 1991).

Basing their research on the idea that students' scientific understanding involves building

links between words and images during the encoding process, Mayer and Anderson even went a

step further by introducing a new variable; they investigated whether animations in our age of

educational technology can elicit successful information processing. They were able to replicate

and extend studies that had shown that simultaneous presentation of verbal labels and

illustrations resulted in enhanced problem-solving transfer of students by demonstrating that

animations work even better than static illustrations (Mayer & Anderson, 1991). Further, Mayer

and Anderson (1992) created and evidenced what they call the contiguity principle: "the

effectiveness of multimedia instruction increases when words and pictures are presented

contiguously (rather than isolated from one another) in time or space" (Mayer & Anderson, 1992,

p. 444). The researchers found that retention necessitates the construction of representational

connections, and problem-solving necessitates the construction of representational and referential

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connections; thus, they recommend for the teaching practice to use pictures and words

contiguously in time or space. This knowledge of a dual response regarding text and image has

been applied to several fields of cognition, such as reading comprehension, written composition,

mathematics (Tuley & Bell, 1997), geography (Prunell & Solman, 1991), and multimedia studies

(Mayer, 1999).

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CHAPTER 3

METHODS

The research design of this study is mixed methods, which combines naturalistic

(qualitative) and post-positivistic (quantitative) data in the form of a case study (qualitative)

coupled with a single subject design (quantitative). In the following sections, I will at first

introduce the participant, the investigator (including a subjectivity statement and an explanation

of the investigator-participant relationship), and the setting. After this, I will explain the

procedures of the three-stage treatment and Berninger’s findings about the “writer’s brain” and

struggling writers as grounding of my intervention. Then, I will delineate the theoretical

perspective of my study, pragmatism, and explain how pragmatism informs both data collection

and analysis. In the "planning stage," I will define mixed research, establish the different steps of

mixed research according to Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, and Sutton (2006), explain my mixed

research design, and describe my techniques for data collection and analysis. Hereafter, I will

explain the triangulation of my qualitative and quantitative data. Finally, I will list delimitations

and limitations of my study.

3.1 Participant

The participant was Remy, an African American boy born in the U.S. in 1998, whose

parents were both born in Ghana. His family moved from Ohio to his present residence in a small

university town in the rural Midwest several years ago. His parents were separated, and he lived

with his mother, together with his sister Rula who is his junior of four years. They had three older

brothers in their twenties; one was a half-brother and was in med school in the U.S., and the

other one was a taxi driver in Africa; I never heard about the third one. Both children told me

their mother wanted them to become doctors. Their mother was working. She was very caring

49

and picked up the children from school and drove them to the tutoring place. If she was not able

to pick them up personally, she arranged for a friend to come and get the children in the parking

lot in front of my office where I was waiting with them.

From the little girl I heard her mother did not know much about computers, since she did

not have one in Africa (tutoring session from 11/02/2010). Rula, who liked to chat, also told me

that when Remy hit his head, he needed to go to the hospital immediately. She said he could

black out then. Both children went to a local school that had a very good reputation. They

showed me their reduced lunch cards. Remy had been participating in the free Reading Clinic of

the local university years before I got to know him there. Rula joined when she was in first grade,

but she did not have any reading or writing problems; she just went because of their ambitious

mother. The little girl played the piano; the boy used to, but at the time of my study did not take

any lessons. However, he loved music, was able to keep the pitch very well, and often sang or

hummed during tutoring sessions. He loved the Star Wars movie theme songs and could

recognize them from having listened to them on youtube hundreds of times.

In July 2010, the mother and children flew to Africa for vacation, and the children

brought me a souvenir that is decorating my office wall: a wooden shape with the picture of an

African woman in national dress over a basket of rice. They did not speak the native language of

their parents, but they were very proud to be able to count up to 20 in Spanish. In October 2010,

the little family moved within the same city, and the children showed me a few photos taken

randomly of the inside of the house by Remy when photographing his LEGO® Star Wars

figurines for our picture stories. They had a very nice, well-kept place, but the children

complained that their computer did not work, and that they could not find all their books and

toys, since not all boxes had been unpacked yet. They did not own a digital camera, so Remy

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borrowed mine to take photos for his picture stories. I gave him one for Christmas 2010.

Remy was a struggling writer who was in 5th grade at the beginning of the study in

January 2009, and was close to finishing 7th grade after completion of the study in May 2011. He

and his mother signed consent forms, including audio- and videotaping, and the Human Subjects

Committee approved the study involving a minor on March 5th, 2010. Remy had an IEP at his

junior high school for “executive function disorder” in writing and mathematics. His teachers had

noticed that he had trouble executing writing tasks, although he was perfectly able to dictate

content of high quality. His typing was a little faster than his handwriting, which was clumsy,

big, slow, and not in a straight line, and he was able to draw with perspective; the main problem

for him was to start and finish a writing task. He himself knew that something was wrong with

him; in one of the initial tutoring sessions in 2009, he asked me: “Can it be cured, what I have?”

His social behavior during the tutoring sessions was often characterized by inappropriateness,

such as belching, farting, hugging the tutor, teasing his little sister Rula (sometimes until she

cried), and being disrespectful toward the tutor. At other instances, Remy was extremely polite

(called me, “Miss Christina,” said “I have to say that we have to thank you for all you are doing

for us,” etc.) and wass nice to his little sister (chooses youtube sound files for her; explains things

to her). A peculiarity of his oral narration was that he repeats words several times before he

finished them and concluded a sentence, what his little sister reproached him for (“Remy, stop

repeating yourself!”; tutoring session from 11/02/2010). He was not stammering; though; he did

thoughtfully, as if he wanted to produce a perfect sentence. Sometimes, he interrupted himself

and said, “Let me start over again.” His final sentence sounded as perfect as a TV speaker’s then.

More intricate descriptions of his behavior, including writing/drawing samples (APPENDIX A)

and educational assessment rubrics (APPENDICES B and C) can be found in the APPENDIX.

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3.2 Investigator

In the course of the present study, I was a participant observer. During the case study, my

role as naturalistic investigator was that of the main instrument, while simultaneously during the

single subject study, I was using instruments, but I still remained a participant observer.

According to Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw (1995), an ethnographic fieldworker participates as fully

and humanly as possibly in another way of life, thus learning directly and forcibly what is

required to become a member of this world, so that she experiences meanings and events in ways

similar to the member’s experience, while experiencing directly and forcibly the ordinary

routines and conditions under which the participant conducts his life, and the constraints and

pressures he endures (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995, p. 2). Emerson and colleagues explain that

a field researcher subjects herself with her own body and personality, and her own social

situation to the set of contingencies of the participant, so that she can physically penetrate his

reaction to his social situation (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995, p. 2). They define “immersion in

ethnographic research” as “both being with other people to see how they respond to events as

they happen and experiencing for oneself these events and the circumstances that give rise to

them” (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995, p. 2).

I was taking part in the creation of an online graphic novel about Star Wars, helping

Remy to download photos of his LEGO® figurines from the digital camera I lent him onto the

computer, to insert the photos into his website that we created together, and to proofread and edit

his writings with him. I also selected panels from the graphic novel of Fitzgerald’s The Curious

Case of Benjamin Button and Smith's graphic novels of the Bone series, where Remy had to fill

the speech bubbles with text. I did not type for him. I did, however, offer him to take hand-

written notes, on which he can base his own typing. When he had to type, I sometimes placed

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state quarters on the backs of his hands, and if they did not fall down because he used ten fingers

to type correctly, he got to keep them. (This is how I learned to play the piano about 30 years

ago.) It has to be remarked that my involvement as participant observer had its limits:

Even with intensive resocialization, the ethnographer never becomes a member in the

same sense as those ‘naturally’ in the setting are members. The fieldworker plans on

leaving the setting after a relatively brief stay, and his experience of local life is colored

by its transience. (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995, p. 4)

Therefore, I always stayed “at least something of an outsider” and “at an extreme, a

cultural alien” (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995, p. 4).

3.3 Researcher-Participant Relationship

In order to reduce the differential in the power relationship between researcher and

participant, I am providing a non-threatening environment in my tutoring room, which is not

comparable to a stricter school setting. The participant is allowed to go to the restroom when he

pleases (I might note it down in the tutoring log as task avoidance behavior), and he can eat

snacks during the whole tutoring time, and not just at a fixed break. Sometimes, I leave the room

for a few minutes and let the participant work on his own without supervision so that he knows I

rely on him and trust him to work while I am gone. I use the fact that he is fond of my supervisor

by letting him create artifacts that I promise to show to her. I do not assign homework, but praise

him for unsolicited artifacts. We take several short breaks after he has completed a lengthier

writing task, during which he is allowed to show me Star Wars youtube videos, play with his

LEGO® figurines while telling me a story, or work on his website. Sometimes when the video

camera bothers him, he is allowed to lay it down so it records only sound, not images, or even to

switch it off.

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3.4 Setting

For pre-treatment (stage I) data collection during the Reading Clinic, the setting was a

classroom in a university building where children from the community with reading and writing

difficulties were taught by graduate students in Curriculum & Instruction during the spring

semester of 2009 (February through April). The Reading Clinic course met weekly (Mondays)

for three hours; the first hour was spent on tutor instruction, and the last two hours were spent

with the children. About a dozen children from the community and their tutors spread to different

rooms with about three pairs in the same room. The environment was unthreatening, child-

friendly, with posters on the walls, and lots of children’s books and games available.

For the year-and-a-half long private tutoring sessions during summer and fall 2009

through spring 2011, the setting is my office on the third floor of a different university building.

We are meeting every Tuesday from 3:30-5:30 p.m. The environment is more confined but

equally unthreatening. Except for his younger sister (who is present because her mother is

ambitious and wants her to learn, and, I assume, also because I am a convenient “day care”

solution for two hours per week), my case study participant is alone in the room with me. He

always makes sure that the door is closed, so that nobody on the corridor can see or hear him.

Colorful quilts and photos are hanging on the walls, as well as pictures drawn by his sister and

the gift they brought me from Africa, and the children have free access to soda and snacks on the

shelves and the three tables. The case study participant has a desktop computer with Internet

access and sound, and his little sister works on a laptop without Internet access or on paper while

her brother is being tutored. Sound is very important for Remy, and he always turns on a youtube

file of a Star Wars movie theme song as background music while he is writing. Both children

have access to a bookshelf with age-appropriate literature. Sometimes, an i-flip camera is situated

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on the bookshelf; the case study participant is aware most of the time when he is being

videotaped. When I notice that the videotaping bothers him too much to focus on his task, I take

it away completely or hide it behind his computer screen, so it only records sound, of which he is

not aware then.

3.5 Procedure: Three-Stage Treatment

In the following sub-chapters, the timeline for the three treatment stages (pre-treatment,

treatment, post-treatment) shall be established, along with an explanation of the intervention.

3.5.1 Stage I, February 2009 – January 2010: Text-only

Stage I took place in the context of the Reading Clinic from February through April 2009

and continued as private tutoring in my office from May 2009 through January 2010. The exact

procedures including assessments, goals, rationales, and activities are described in detail for each

of the nine lesson plans of the Reading Clinic in the Appendix (1.3). The following is a brief

overview of the reading clinic tutoring and the private tutoring.

3.5.1.1 Reading clinic: Nine lesson plans.

During the Reading Clinic (a graduate university course titled “Advanced Diagnostic

Teaching of Reading,” which involved hands-on practice with children with reading and writing

disabilities from the community, and met weekly for three hours in a university classroom), the

first session (02/09/2009) was spent on clinical assessment (6+1 Trait® Writing Scoring

Continuum; Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory Feature Guide). Then, nine lesson

plans were established for Remy for the following dates: (1) 02/16/2009, (2) 02/23/2009, (3)

03/03/2009, (4) 03/16/2009, (5) 03/23/2009, (6) 03/30/2009, (7) 04/06/2009, (8) 04/13/2009, and

(9) 04/20/2009. Each lesson plan stated the goals for the day and began with a reflection on the

previous tutoring session, then gave a chronological overview of the new procedures, and finally

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included a table for different rationales and activities regarding (a) reading, (b) writing, (c) word

study/miscellaneous, and (d) motivational games and hands-on material.

For the duration of the Reading Clinic tutoring, I used the strategy of “Thematic Units”

(Tierney & Readence, 2005), which means that Remy read about only one topic at a time, but

from different sources and genres. We dealt with three thematic units: (1) Helen Keller and Louis

Braille, (2) geckos, and (3) Star Wars, Boba Fett. Our overarching rationale for reading was the

“scaffolded reading experience” as explained by Tierney and Readence (2005); we took it in

turns to read aloud. Our rationale for “writing” was the “Reading Writing Workshop” (Tierney &

Readence, 2005), with Remy focusing on “Prediction and Self-Questioning Strategies Mini-

Lessons.” Our goal for spelling was to focus on low-frequency words and harder suffixes, where

Remy’s troubles lay. Remy maintained a vocabulary booklet, into which he wrote new and

difficult words (“Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy,” Tierney & Readence, 2005). He also

engaged in the oral strategy of Question-Answer Relationships (QARs) developed by Raphael

(1982), focusing on explicit, implicit, and scriptal questions (Tierney & Readence, 2005).

Sometimes, my rationale for motivational games and hands-on material consisted in providing

Remy with “Forums for Response” (Tierney & Readence, 2005), which means he had peers to

work and share with. For motivation, I used the strategy of “Self-Selected Reading” (Tierney &

Readence, 2005), where Remy was allowed to pick his favorite Star Wars books.

All in all, it can be said that it took me a few weeks to establish pragmatic rationales and

to find out “what works” with Remy, but as can be seen, we achieved a continuity of goals and

rationales working towards an improvement of Remy’s writing skills. We also worked more and

more on his website and started to integrate pictures; however, there was no dual coding yet,

since the pictures did not contain any scenes or events; they mostly figured one character (such as

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Boba Fett, Remy holding a gecko, or Remy standing in front of the star lab) and somehow dealt

with our topics. They were not in any chronological sequence but rather randomly chosen, fitting

the general content of the chapters we dealt with. Also, most of the pictures were taken or picked

and put on the website by me, in order to make his website more colorful and child-friendly. At

this point, I developed the idea to create an intervention using graphics, mainly aimed at

motivation to write through the Dual Coding Theory.

3.5.1.2 Private tutoring.

During the private tutoring beginning in May 2009, which was less rigid and did not

involve pre-formulated lesson plans but followed the premise, “we’ll go as far as we get,” Remy

was asked to compose several written pieces as text-only material (summaries and responses). He

created his own (partly typed, partly dictated) story about a boy who ages backward, a long but

unfinished essay about Fitzgerald’s The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which we had read

aloud together with his little sister, and several shorter pieces about Star Wars (Boba Fett), Louis

Braille, and Helen Keller. Some of his writings were on paper, but mostly typed, others on the

website he had built during the Reading Clinic. We continued the “Vocabulary Self-Collection

Strategy” (Tierney & Readence, 2005), but this time, Remy did not handwrite the new words into

a vocabulary booklet, but put them under a specific tab on his website. For about half the

sessions, I applied the strategy of “Self-Selected Reading” (Tierney & Readence, 2005), where

Remy dealt with Star Wars; for the other half of the sessions, I chose the reading material. More

detailed descriptions and writing and picture samples can be found in APPENDIX F, the

participant’s artifacts.

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3.5.2 Stage II, February 2010 – December 2010: Graphic Novels (Print and Online)

Stage II of the treatment used a combined composition method of imagery and words.

Remy composed different formats of text:

1. Online graphic novels where he has to insert his own photos and his own text.

2. Online summaries of classic literature in graphic novel format where the graphics are

given, and he inserts his own text into blank speech bubbles.

3. His entirely own graphic novel created with pen on paper.

4. Composition of summaries of existing text-only narratives in the form of a graphic

novel.

Remy organized and sequenced his text into different components (such as prologue,

rising action, climax, falling action, ending). He only had to write small chunks of text that fitted

in a speech bubble. He was asked to “brainstorm” (guided visualization) aloud and together with

his tutor (the investigator) and describe his mental images orally before he composed, as he

composed, and after he had composed. He was asked to put his mental images into graphic novel

format—either by inserting photos that he had to take or by drawing with a pencil.

Remy filled in speech bubbles for selected panels from the graphic novel version of

Benjamin Button by Fitzgerald, from several volumes of Bone by Smith, one page of panels from

the series Amulet, and composed several unsolicited Star Wars graphic cartoons with pencil on

paper. His masterpiece was his own website, dealing with a LEGO® Star Wars photo story of

several Star Wars movies. He watched youtube videos to be reminded of the events in those

movies, and then he created tabs about the following topics on his website: “Episode III, Revenge

of the Sith,” “Kotor 1” (Knights of the Old Republic), and “The Rebellion, book one, chapter 1.”

This was his online graphic novel; his artifacts were arranged in a table; on the left side were the

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photos of his LEGO® characters and ships, and on the right side was his text (or nothing, if

“music” was supposed to play there!). He based his website on a much inferior model (regarding

the text, not the wealth of pictures) by another young man, who had created it years ago, when

the Star Wars characters still looked different.

3.5.3 Stage III, November 2010 – March 2011: Text-only with Help of Speech Bubbles and

Panel Sequences

Remy was asked to compose another text-only version of Benjamin Button by using his

panel sequences and speech bubbles from his Benjamin Button online graphic novel. He was

allowed to copy all the text he had typed into the speech bubbles and text fields into his text-only

Word document, and to compose the action around the dialogues from the speech bubbles he had

already formed. However, he did not do it; he did look at his own panels as a scaffold for

organization, but he reinvented the text without copying.

3.5.4 Berninger’s Research as Grounding for Intervention

In “Highlights of programmatic, interdisciplinary research on writing,” Berninger (2009)

proposes a general model of working memory architecture for differential diagnosis and

treatment planning, which was based on a synthesis of her programmatic research with typically

developing, low-achieving, and learning-disabled individuals, as well as families with a history

of learning disabilities. Berninger’s model consists of storage and processing units for three word

forms, phonological, orthographic, and morphological (Berninger, Abbott et al., 2006; Berninger,

Raskind et al., 2008; Richards, Aylward, Raskind et al., 2006), two time-sensitive loops for

cross-modality code integration (Berninger, 2007; Berninger, Abbott et al., 2006; Berninger,

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Nielsen et al., 2008; Berninger, Raskind et al., 2008; Berninger, Rutberg et al., 2006), and

executive functions, such as inhibition, rapid switching attention, and self-monitoring (Berninger,

Abbott et al., 2006; Berninger, Raskind et al., 2008). According to the researchers, dysgraphia is

a result of impaired orthographic coding, dyslexia is a result of impaired orthographic and/or

phonological coding, and oral and written language learning disability (OWL LD) is a result of

impaired orthographic, phonological, and morphological/syntactic coding (Berninger, Raskind et

al., 2008). Children showing all three learning disabilities often have selective impairment in

different executive functions (Berninger, Raskind et al., 2008). Berninger and colleagues were

able to show that the brain function of dyslexic children normalized through specialized writing

instruction in phonological, orthographic, and/or morphological tasks (Richards, Aylward,

Berninger et al., 2006; Richards, Aylward, Raskind et al., 2006; Richards et al., 2005), but that

the working memory impairment did not completely normalize. Only through training of both the

eye-to-mouth-to-ear connections and the ear-to-hand-to-eye connections, those children saw a

normalization of functional connectivity in their frontal brain regions (Richards & Berninger,

2008).

Remy seemed to suffer from dysgraphia and also dyslexia, and showed deficiencies in

certain executive functions, such as handwriting, whereas other executive functions, such as self-

correction, were fully intact. His oral language ability was not afflicted. Without professional

diagnosis, and of course without access to brain scans, the only “normalization” I was able to

observe was any possible change in handwriting, spelling, and amount and pace of writing

output. Therefore, I chose pragmatism as the theoretical perspective to base my study on.

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3.6 Theoretical Perspective: Pragmatism in Data Collection and Analysis

Theory is “a unique way of perceiving reality, an expression of someone’s profound

insight into some aspect of nature, and a fresh and different perception of an aspect of the world”

(Silver, 1983, cited in Anfara & Mertz, 2006, p. xvii). In this sense, I am aiming at describing my

insight into the world of a struggling writer and the reality of his different problems with written

text, and how they might be alleviated through dual coding of text and images. I chose

pragmatism as my framework for both data collection and analysis, because pragmatism as a

philosophy denotes that the meaning of an idea lies in its observable practical consequences.

Dressman and McCarthey (2004) argue for a pragmatics of literacy research, meaning an

examination of relations among epistemology, theory, and methodology from a stance grounded

in “as full a view as possible of the actual conditions in which research is likely to be conducted”

(Dressman & McCarthey, 2004, p. 323), and not in hypothetical conditions removed from the

realities of the actual research setting (here: tutoring sessions).

Promoted by James, Peirce, Dewey, and Mead, pragmatism is an influential North

American down-to-earth philosophy rejecting the quest for fundamental truths and instead

suggesting a plurality of shifting truths grounded in concrete experiences and language, and

seeking to unify intelligent thought and logical method with practical actions and appeals to

experience (A dictionary of sociology, 1998). Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2009) call pragmatism

the “partner for mixed methods research,” and define the “pragmatic rule” as follows: the current

meaning or truth value of an expression is to be determined by the practical consequences of a

belief in the world, and is thus an outcome-oriented rule that can be applied to thinking (what

will happen if you do this) (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2009, p. 16). They quote, “[t]he pragmatic

method is primarily a method of settling metaphysical disputes that otherwise might be

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interminable. …The pragmatic method in such cases is to try to interpret each notion by tracing

its respective practical consequences” (Cited from James, 1995, in Johnson & Onwuegbuzie,

2009, p. 16). In short, they maintain that when judging ideas, their empirical and practical

consequences have to be kept in mind (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2009, p. 16). They make the

case that both qualitative and quantitative studies have their advantages and disadvantages, and

that according to the situation, the one or the other might be more appropriate; however, they say

that sometimes, insights from both paradigms can be coupled to produce “a superior product”

(Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2009, p. 17). They maintain that oftentimes, mixed methods provide a

“more workable solution,” and therefore advocate “a needs-based or contingency approach to

research method and concept selection” (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2009, p. 17).

According to the authors, the list of reasons in favor of a mixed methods approach is vast:

Thus, mixed methods research can be a “middle ground” between philosophical dogmatisms

since it (a) rejects traditional dualisms and tries to find a workable solution; (b) recognizes the

existence and importance of the natural world as well as the emergent social and psychological

one; (c) regards the reality of the inner world of human experience in action; (d) views

knowledge as constructed and reality-based; (e) replaces historical epistemic distinctions between

subject and external object with naturalistic and process-oriented organism-environment

transaction; (f) endorses fallibilism; (g) views theories instrumentally; (h) endorses eclecticism

and pluralism; (i) involves human inquiry; (j) endorses a strong and practical empiricism as the

path to determine what works; (k) views current truth as tentative and changing over time; (l)

prefers action to philosophizing; (m) takes an explicitly value-oriented approach to research,

derived from cultural values; (n) endorses practical theory; (o) views organisms as constantly

adapting to new situations and environments; (p) rejects reductionism; and (q) offers the

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“pragmatic method” for solving traditional philosophical dualisms as well as for making

methodological choices. (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2009, p. 18)

The researchers state that an investigator who understands the strengths and weaknesses

of the two paradigms, quantitative and qualitative, can combine strategies to use the

“fundamental principle of mixed research” (cited from Turner, 2003, in Johnson &

Onwuegbuzie, 2009, p. 18), and can thus collect multiple data, which likely will lead to a better

result. The superiority of the result should be the major source of justification for using a mixed

methods study. Johnson and Onwuegbuzie (2009) emphasize that although mixed method

research is not perfect yet, it should use a workable philosophy, and they suggest pragmatism in

order to fit together insights provided by both qualitative and quantitative research into “a

workable solution” (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie, 2009, p. 16). They see the use of pragmatism as

taking a balanced pluralist position in the purists’ debate between the two paradigms, qualitative

and quantitative, and believe that pragmatism shows how those different research approaches can

be mixed effectively to gain the best answers to research questions (Johnson & Onwuegbuzie,

2009, p. 16).

With regard to my study, pragmatism informs both data collection and analysis; I will

look for the practical consequences of my intervention. I am testing the practicability of my

treatment in that I want to find out whether graphic novels can be used as an effective teaching

tool for struggling writers, which might lead to a suggestion for future research to develop

corresponding teaching material. I am not theory-testing here, for I am working with “grounded

theory” (Gibbs, 2007, p. 49), which means I am inductively generating novel theoretical ideas

from the data I am collecting and analyzing. Finally, as as Dressman and McCarthey (2004)

suggest, from a pragmatist view, theoretical knowledge is to inform, not to direct, the

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development of understanding about a particular situation (i.e., the use of graphic novels to help

a struggling writer); what matters is the “conditional knowledge,” (i.e., the knowledge gained

from a situation; the treatment with graphic novels, and the participant’s reactions to it) and the

use of graphic novels in the future to achieve a better outcome in similar situations (i.e., children

with other learning disabilities in different settings) (Dressman & McCarthey, 2004, p. 330).

3.7 Planning Stage

3.7.1 Mixed Research Design

In mixed method research, the investigator decides about the components of quantitative

and qualitative research to be integrated, and also the demonstration of interrelation between

them (see Onwuegbuzie & Mallette, in press). As defined by Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, and Turner

(2007), mixed research is a synthesis based on qualitative and quantitative research, or the “third

research paradigm” that “often will provide the most informative, complete, balanced, and useful

research results” (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, & Turner, 2007, p. 129). Mixed methods research

partners with pragmatism; follows the logic of mixed methods research; relies on qualitative and

quanitative viewpoints, data collection, analysis, and inferences; and includes local and socio-

political realities (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, & Turner, 2007, p. 129). Through mixed methods, the

researcher can generate research questions and find answers to them (Johnson, Onwuegbuzie, &

Turner, 2007, p. 129).

According to Johnson et al.’s (2007) framework for mixed research studies, mixed

research is either quantitative dominant, qualitative dominant, or equal status. In the present

study, both methods are equal. As Onwuegbuzie and Mallette (Mallette & Duke, 2011) purport,

equal status designs show an approximately equal use of quantitative and qualitative

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epistemologies, approaches, concepts, techniques, methods, or language within the same mixed

research study (Mallette & Duke, 2011).

I have chosen an equal status concurrent design (QUAN + QUAL, according to Johnson

& Onwuegbuzie, 2004, p. 22) in order to fuse the qualitative case study and the quantitative

single subject study data. Therefore, data collection and analysis will occur simultaneously for

both quantitative and qualitative data throughout all three stages of the intervention. Finally, an

interpretation is attempted, based on both qualitative and quantitative data.

Figure 4. Graph of equal status concurrent design

3.7.2 Mixed Methods for Data Collection

In the following, I am going to explain why and how I mixed a quantitative and a

qualitative design, explain the importance of using single subject design and case study design,

and will then make a point for the applicability and appropriateness for a combined approach.

Mixed paradigms are sometimes met with suspicion. In the context of the paradigm

debate, which was brought about by the emergence of constructivism, the compatibility thesis

QUAN before intervention: educational assessment

QUAN pre-treatment; baseline data; 10 writing samples

QUAN treatment data; 10 writing samples

Interpretation based both on QUAN and QUAL results

QUAN post-treatment data; 10 writing samples

Case Study

Single-Subject

QUAL pre-treatment: Reading Clinic tutoring observations, informal interviews, data logs

QUAL treatment data: tutoring observations, survey, data logs

QUAL post-treatment data; tutoring observations, survey, data logs

QUAL before intervention: case history

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was developed which “stated that it was inappropriate to mix QUAL and QUAN methods due to

fundamental differences in underlying paradigms” (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009, p. 73). Kuhn

(1962, 1970, 1996) claimed that competing paradigms are “incommensurable paradigms” that

cannot be compared to one another, and do not lend to communication between each other

(Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009, p. 73). The philosophies of constructivism (qualitative) and post-

positivism (quantitative) were often depicted as “either-or dualisms” and “value-free versus

value-bound research” (Teddlie & Tashakkori, 2009, p. 73). However, Onwuegbuzie and

Johnson (2004) criticize this exclusive stance and furnish reasons why mixed paradigms can

make sense in the light of a specific study. They call mixed methods the “third paradigm” and

recommend the contingency theory for the selection of a specific research approach, which

accepts that quantitative, qualitative, and mixed research can all be superior under different

circumstances, and a combination of approaches might be useful for a holistic outcome

(Onwuegbuzie & Johnson, 2004, pp. 22-23).

For my study, the two methods that appeared suitable to furnish the most telling answers

to the research questions were the single subject and the case study designs. I am mixing those in

order to combine my “if” research question (i.e., quantitative; if the treatment works) with my

“how” and “why” research questions (i.e., qualitative; how my participant experiences the

treatment), in order to gain a holistic and comprehensive understanding of Remy’s situation.

Single-subject experimental research may be particularly helpful for the study of individuals in

remedial programs, because the personalized evaluation in single-subject studies helps to furnish

insights to refine our perceptions about learning delays of the subject (Neuman & McCormick,

1995, p. 28). The case study design is intended to provide rich and complex descriptions and

explanations to develop understanding, rather than to define a cause-effect relationship. Thus, I

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want to understand the effectiveness of graphic novels with regard to the written output of a

struggling writer. New variables might arise during the emergent process that I am not able to

anticipate in a hypothesis.

Single subject design allows me to examine the effects of an experimental treatment

(graphic novels) when it is difficult to obtain subject groups, while simultaneously, case study

design allows me to investigate a contemporary phenomenon in its real-life context, especially

when the boundaries between phenomenon and context are not clearly evident (Yin, 1994, p. 13).

3.8 Techniques for Data Collection

In the following sections, I will describe my quantitative and qualitative techniques for

data collection.

3.8.1 Quantitative

The quantitative data were collected using two different instruments: the 6+1 Trait®

Writing Scoring Continuum (Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory, early 1980s) was

employed to assess the participant’s writing performance, and the Flanders Interaction Analysis

Categories (FIAC) (Flanders, 1970) was used to note his on-task/off-task behavior and the

categories of his responses during tutoring sessions.

3.8.2 Qualitative

Qualitative data were collected using observations, field notes, data logging, and informal

interviews. The qualitative data were recorded manually or as audio and video files, and

transcribed.

3.9 Techniques for Data Analysis

Quantitative and qualitative data were collected concurrently in all three treatment phases

by assessing Remy’s written output, his on-task/off-task behavior, and describing his

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experiences. For final analysis, ten artifacts per treatment stage were selected for both the

quantitative and qualitative analyses.

3.9.1 Quantitative: Baseline with 6+1 Trait®

Quantitative data were analyzed by means of baseline graphs using the 6+1 Trait® and

the Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories, as delineated below.

According to Barlow and Hersen (1984), the initial period of observation in most

experimental single-case designs involves repeated measurement of the natural frequency of

occurrence of the target behavior under study (Barlow & Hersen, 1984, p. 71): Thus, I have

assessed Remy’s text-only writing behavior in the context of the Reading Clinic from January

2009 until the end of the pre-treatment stage during private tutoring in January 2010. As Barlow

and Hersen point out, the purpose of baseline measurement is to create a standard by which the

subsequent efficacy of a treatment can be evaluated; furthermore, the baseline period may serve

as a predictor for the level of the target behavior attained in the future (Barlow & Hersen, 1984,

p. 71). According to the researchers, the investigator faces the problem of how long to work

under baseline conditions, and they recommend to continue with baseline assessment “until its

stability is clear” (cited from Baer, Wolf, and Risley, 1968, in Barlow & Hersen, 1984, p. 71),

wherefore I have dedicated an entire year to the pre-treatment stage (writing assessment under

text-only, non-graphic conditions).

In order to rate Remy’s writing skills, I employed the baseline design across his different

writing behaviors. Ten writing samples from each of the three stages (pre-treatment, treatment,

post-treatment) were used from tutoring sessions, as well as unsolicited artifacts with different

topics. Those samples were text-only material in stage I, graphic novels and online photo stories

in stage II, and text-only material with the use of speech bubbles in stage III. The writing

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assignments were assessed according to the 6+1 Trait® Writing Scoring Continuum and plotted

in baseline graphs. The components of the 6+1 Trait® Writing Scoring Continuum describe the

6+1 traits as an analytical model for assessing and teaching writing comprised of 6+1 key

qualities defining strong writing: (a) ideas, (b) organization, (c) voice, (d) word choice, (f)

sentence fluency, (g) convention, and (h) presentation. The student can gain either 1 point, three

points, or a maximum of five points per category.

Per writing sample (i.e., 30 times), I charted each of the above-mentioned categories

separately in a baseline graph. Then, I charted the sum of the points gathered on the 6+1 Trait®

per writing sample. The graphs of all three stages were compared with each other.

For stage II, the treatment phase with graphic novels, I have adapted the last point, (h)

presentation, to denote the interaction between text and image, and not just the layout and

pleasantry to the eye of the written text. The adapted text reads as follows in the three scoring

categories (the adaptations are in italics):

Category 5: “The form and presentation of the relationship between image and text enhances

the ability for the reader to understand and connect with the message. It is

pleasing to the eye.”

Category 3: “The writer's message and the relationship between image and text are

understandable in this format.”

Category 1: The reader receives a garbled message due to problems relating to the presentation

of the text, and/or problems with the relationship between image and text.

According to Neuman and McCormick (1995), “literacy researchers can use the multiple-

baseline design as a powerful tool in certain circumstances for defining the factors that will make

students better learners” (Neuman & McCormick, 1995, p. 63). The advantage of the multiple-

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baseline design is that the effectiveness of an instructional strategy can be determined without a

withdrawal of the intervention, which is helpful when a return to baseline conditions is not

desirable: “This feature is particularly important in literacy research for analyzing such

independent variables as cognitive strategies, which, once they are learned, may not be reversed

to baseline levels” (Neuman & McCormick, 1995, p. 62). Another advantage is that the

flexibility of multiple-baseline designs allows researchers to adjust to a variety of circumstances,

e.g., for example, to address confounding variables by extending the baseline until stability is

reached (see Neuman & McCormick, 1995, p. 62). The most serious disadvantage of the

multiple-baseline design is the necessity to select dependent variables that are independent of one

another; otherwise, a change in one might cause a change in another, which makes it impossible

to evaluate the independent variable’s effect. However, the variables must share enough

similarity to be changed through one intervention; therefore, the dependent variables have to be

functionally similar without co-varying (Neuman & McCormick, 1995, p. 62).

3.9.2 Qualitative

Qualitative data were gathered throughout all three phases of the intervention through

observations, field notes, data logging, and interviews. They were based on the essential skills of

a case study researcher as delineated by Yin (1994): “question-asking,” and “listening.”

According to Yin, “[a]n inquiring mind is a major prerequisite during data collection, not just

before or after the activity” (Yin, 1994, p. 56). He explains that while the data collection follows

a formal plan, specific information relevant to a case study is not predictable, and the researcher

must ask herself constantly why events happen, and pose good questions (Yin, 1994). He

maintains that research is about asking good questions, not necessarily about answers, and that

tentative answers can lead to a host of new questions (Yin, 1994).

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3.9.2.1 Observations, field notes, data logging.

After the tutoring meetings, which took place every Tuesday from 3:30-5:30 p.m. in the

investigator’s office, I wrote down my observations and field notes of Remy’s behavior while he

was executing writing tasks (my data logging). According to Emerson and colleagues (1995), it is

important to jot down observations “while they are still fresh”: “Thus ethnographers write

hurriedly, dashing words ‘down on the page’; their notes read like an outpouring, not like

polished, publishable excerpts” (Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995, p. 46). My field notes were not

pre-determined or pre-specified; they grew gradually during the course of the treatment stages. I

am striving for rich data, including gestures, mimics, and emotional verbal utterances. As Yin

states, “[l]istening includes observing and sensing more generally and is not limited to the aural

modality” (Yin, 1994, p. 57). During some sessions, the participant was video- or audio-taped,

and I transcribed the data. Sometimes, he knew that the camera was present; on other days, it was

hidden. This was supposed to eliminate social desirability behavior (i.e., better behavior for the

sake of a camera being present).

I kept ethnographic field notes about the tutoring sessions in our natural setting (my

office). I described Remy’s physical posture when he dangled from his swivel chair, the noises he

made while humming, singing, or talking to himself, the expressions of his face when he was

avoiding writing tasks, or the pitch of his voice and its treble—whether he is excited, concerned,

frowning, grumbling, complaining, moaning, etc. Emerson, Retz, and Shaw (1995) recommend

concrete details rather than abstract generalizations, sensory imagery rather than evaluative

labels, and immediacy through details (Emerson, Retz, & Shaw, 1995, p. 69). They advise field

workers to write lushly and to make frequent use of adjectives and adverbs to present details of

color, shape, and size to create visual images; as well as details of sound, timbre, loudness, and

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volume to evoke auditory images; details describing smell or fragrance to recreate olfactory

images; and details to portray gestures, movements, posture, and facial expression to convey

kinetic images (Emerson, Retz, & Shaw, 1995, p. 69). These various kinds of images together

can create a more holistic big picture.

I kept the field notes in the form of tutoring logs on my computer, in addition to the

transcripts of video tapes about the happenings during the case study tutoring sessions.

According to Lofland and colleagues (2006), recording tasks is a crucial aspect of naturalistic

analysis of social life, and data logging is more than a memory device: the logging record

“actually constitutes the data” (J. Lofland, Snow, Anderson, & L. Lofland 2006, p. 82). Instead of

the data being the researcher’s memories and as such not systematically analyzable, they consist

of whatever is logged, and thus can be systematically analyzed (J. Lofland, Snow, Anderson, &

L. Lofland 2006, p. 82). In this regard, data logging is an ongoing feature of qualitative research

and includes careful recording and organization of data; it is not procuring of specific data for

recording, but rather registering of events and behaviors unfolding, even in trivial happenings or

utterances (J. Lofland, Snow, Anderson, & L. Lofland 2006, pp. 81-82). There are no events too

unimportant to register, and naturalistic investigators have to refrain from making two excuses:

Understandably, then, the naturalistic tradition views as either naïve or arrogant both the

complaint of the novice investigator that he or she “didn’t make any notes because

nothing important happened” and the contention of professionals that he or she did not

take any fieldnotes because they “get in the way. They interfere with what fieldwork is all

about”... (J. Lofland, Snow, Anderson, & L. Lofland 2006, pp. 81-82)

In the beginning (pre-treatment stage during Reading Clinic), I had just a wide array of

data logs, but at a later stage I was able to recognize patterns and create taxonomies. Even when

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finding a certain type or pattern, as an investigator I had to be open to different forms, variations,

and exceptions from this emerging pattern (see Emerson, Fretz, & Shaw, 1995, p. 29) without

being discouraged by them. I had to undergo a two-fold development: (a) identify significant

characteristics gleaned from my first impressions and personal reactions, and (b) become

sensitive to my participant’s own voice, and to listen how he describes an experience in his own

terms.

3.9.2.2 Constant comparative method during three-stage treatment.

According to McCall and Simmons (1969), the constant comparative method for data

collection “raises the probability of achieving a complex theory which corresponds closely to the

data, since the constant comparisons force consideration of much diversity in the data.” (McCall

& Simmons, 1969, p. 226) The researchers maintain that the constant comparisons of incidents

based on a multitude of their similarities and differences leads to the investigator’s creation of a

“developmental theory” (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 226). They define this method as

consisting of four stages: (a) comparison of incidents applicable to each category, (b) integration

of categories and their characteristics, (c) delimiting of the theory, and (d) composing of the

theory (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 220).

3.9.2.2.1 Comparison of incidents applicable to each category.

Stage (a), the comparison of incidents applicable to each category, is marked by the

investigator coding each incident in the data in as many categories of analysis as possible, and

comparing each incident coded with the previous incidents coded in the same category. (McCall

& Simmons, 1969, p. 220) In this regard, I perused the video and audio transcripts and tutoring

logs, and categorized events in the following manner:

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The categories were: 1. Off-task, 2. On-task, 3. Affective behavior, 4. Metacognitive

explanation, 5. Task variation per period, 6. Pace, quality, quantity, 7. Interpretation of social

setting, 8. Self-sufficiency, 9. Use of sophisticated literary elements, 10. Help-seeking behavior,

and 11. Extraordinary circumstances/observations.

Those 11 categories had one or more subcategories each. Category 1 (Off-task) consisted

of the following subcategories: a) other student interference, b) audio distraction, c) visual

distraction, d) questions/problems, e) social confirmation seeking, f) frustration, g) infringement

of privacy, h) play, i) boredom, j) need for physical activity.

Category 2 (On-task) consisted of the following subcategories: a) interest-driven, b)

incentive-driven, c) teacher reprimand, d) other student reprimand, e) teacher prompt, f) mocked

by other student, g) teacher or self-comparison with other student, h) offered help by other

student, i) desire to get it over with, j) camera on, k) desire to achieve, l) desire to please tutor, m)

desire to please higher instance (i.e., tutor’s academic supervisor, whom the participant knew and

liked), n) get question answered.

Category 3 (Affective behavior) included the following subcategories: a) enjoys task, b)

doesn’t enjoy task, c) task avoidance, d) tries to change task, e) complaint, f) leaving room, g)

on-topic talk, h) off-topic talk, i) singing/humming, j) making noises, k) walking around, l)

gymnastics on chair, m) switching off camera, n) misbehavior, o) ignoring teacher.

Category 4 (metacognitive explanation) has two subcategories: solicited and unsolicited.

Here, the participant’s thoughts about his own performance were noted, if he made any

comments.

Category 5 (task variation per period) reveals how the tutoring lessons were structured: a)

one task, b) two different tasks, c) three or more different tasks, d) very demanding task, e) easier

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task, f) new task for first time, g) task preceded/followed by break/play, and h) task

preceded/followed by incentive.

Category 6 (Pace, quantity, quality) consists of two subcategories, satisfactory and

unsatisfactory. Category 7 (interpretation of social setting) has the following subcategories:

outstanding, suitable, and inappropriate.

Category 8 (self-sufficiency) consists of the following subcategories: a) copies original

text, b) shortens original text, c) paraphrases in own words, d) invents appropriate new content,

e) invents inappropriate new content.

Category 9 (use of sophisticated literary elements) has the subcategories “use” and “no

use.” Category 10 (help-seeking behavior) consists of the following subcategories: a) asks for

help with ideas, b) asks for help with definitions/concepts, c) asks for help with spelling, d) asks

for help with typing, e) doesn’t ask; no mistakes, f) doesn’t ask; mistakes, but unaware of, g)

doesn’t ask; mistakes, but aware of, h) refuses help.

Category 11 (extraordinary circumstances/observations) consists of the following

categories: a) geniality, b) failure/deficits, c) unusual attendees, d) unusual environment, e)

unusual social condition, f) stylistic/semantic observations.

This list of categories was emergent; I did not go into the tutoring sessions with a pre-

formulated list of 11 categories. At first, I just wanted to look for on- and off-task behavior, but

when I saw the different reasons for that, new categories were added depending on events

observed during the tutoring sessions. According to McCall and Simmons, the constant

comparison of incidents generates theoretical properties of the category, and the researcher

begins to think “in terms of the full range of types or continua of the category, its dimensions, the

conditions under which it is pronounced or minimized, its major consequences, the relation of

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the category to other categories, and other properties of the category” (McCall & Simmons, 1969,

p. 221). As McCall and colleague put it, an analyst who has coded a category several times will

experience a conflict in emphasis of thought, muse over the theoretical notions, and determine

better ways of coding when studying the next incident (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 221). They

make it a rule to stop coding and record a memo on ideas, so that the researcher is using her

initial freshness of theoretical notions and relieving her conflict in thought by reflecting—while

staying grounded in data, not speculating—and taking her thinking to the most logical

conclusions (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 221).

3.9.2.2.2 Integration of categories and their characteristics.

The second stage of the constant comparative method, the integration of the categories

and their characteristics, means that the constant comparative units “change from comparison of

incident with incident to incident with properties of the category which resulted from initial

comparison of incidents” (McCall & Simmons, 1969, pp. 221-222). This implies that I would

have to compare each incident on a specific participant behavior to the accumulated knowledge

on this behavior, not to all other incidents of this behavior. For example, I might find through

comparison of tutoring incidents that Remy is changing his task-avoidance behavior when doing

graphic novels as opposed to when doing text-only writing assignments because he is more

motivated. Once I’ve found that motivation is the most important factor in changing task-

avoidance behavior, I may be able to discern what motivates him, such as the pride in achieving,

the joy performing the task, the relaxing part of dealing with pictures, the showing-off effect, the

sharing online, the longing for incentives, etc.

According to McCall and Simmons, the diverse properties of each category begin to

become integrated, so that a theory develops while various categories and their characteristics

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become integrated through constant comparisons, forcing the investigator to formulate

theoretically meaningful statements for each comparison (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 222). In

this regard, I might find that the participant's switching from off-task behavior to on-task

behavior when pictures are involved in writing is related to different forms of motivation of the

participant. Motivation might turn out to be related to the extent of a task: even if pictures are

present during writing, if there are too many speech bubbles to fill in for the participant, his

motivation might turn into frustration and task-avoidance.

Motivation might also show itself to be related to the time of satisfying the need for

incentives or positive feedback: as soon as the participant has received a reward or praise for

successful written output, his motivation might turn into boredom and off-task behavior, because

he thinks he "has done enough." Further, motivation might become related to the duration of a

task: even if pictures are offered during the writing process, if the process takes too long for the

participant, his motivation might turn into boredom or frustration. Another possible relation

might be the type of the task (self-selected, such as Star Wars stories, versus tutor-selected, such

as The Curious Case of Benjamin Button): if the participant gets to choose the topic according to

his hobby, he might be more motivated than when the tutor chooses a classical work for him.

In addition, different stages of frustration might be related to distinct patterns of

avoidance strategy: lower frustration might manifest itself through humming, singing, doing

gymnastics on the swivel chair, playing, running through the room, and being off-task, while

higher frustration might manifest itself through the participant's turning off the camera or leaving

the room with an excuse (to go to the restroom). Finally, it would be interesting to find a relation

between the quality of the finished written output and the grade of frustration--does his text

receive better ratings on the 6+1 Trait® Writing Scoring Continuum when he was very frustrated

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and spent a lot of time with many reprimands on it than when he did it mostly out of his own

impulse and spent less time under less tutor guidance on it? The most important finding at the

end would be whether the quality of his pre-treatment text-only output was comparable to his

post-treatment text-only output (with the help of his previously done graphic novels): will he

perform better after the treatment, or will the quality of his written output be the same? Was the

frustration lower in the post-treatment stage than in the pre-treatment stage, although both stages

involve text-only output (in the post-treatment stage, he is allowed to look at his previously done

graphic novels and use dialog from them)? Was the motivation higher in the post-treatment stage

than in the pre-treatment stage? This will answer the fundamental question: Is there a relationship

between pictures and the participant's writing? At the beginning of the study, those

interrelationships were merely speculative; they manifested themselves during the ongoing

process of data collection and the later coding process.

3.9.2.2.3 Delimiting of the theory.

As McCall and Simmons put it, the third stage is the delimiting of the theory, which

occurs at two levels, namely the theory and the original list of categories to be coded (McCall &

Simmons, 1969, p. 222). The theory will have to solidify as the modifications become fewer

through comparisons of following incidents of a category to its characteristics. Reduction will

take place when higher levels and smaller sets of concepts occur to the investigator due to found

uniformities of the original categories and their characteristics; thus, the investigator will delimit

the terminology and text of the theory to formulate (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 222).

The reduction of terminology and consequent generalization resulting from the constant

comparisons will lead to two requirements of the developing theory: (a) parsimony of variables

and formulation, and (b) scope in the applicability of the theory to a broader array of situations

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(McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 223). According to the boundaries of my theory, I will be able to

delimit my original list of categories for coding and analyze the incidents in a more selective and

focused way (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 223).

Furthermore, the categories will become "theoretically saturated" by my leaving out

incidents that add no new aspects of the category (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 223). McCall

and Simmons establish the rule that, "[i]f the category does not saturate, then it is necessary to go

back and try to saturate it, if the category is central to the theory" (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p.

224). If the category is not central to the theory, there is no need to go back and code again. For

example, if I find that the climate in my office where the tutoring takes place does not have any

impact on the quality of the participant's written output, then I will drop the remark from my data

that on certain days, it was terribly hot in my office because the air-conditioning in the building

was malfunctioning. The temperature was irrelevant to the theory. To sum up, in the constant

comparative method, the assemblage of data used is based on the reduction of the theory and

delimination and saturation of categories, which might necessitate a return to data collection to

include previously missed and uncategorized items. (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 224). If such a

new item is found, it can be added into a memo and thus be integrated into the theory (McCall &

Simmons, 1969, p. 224).

3.9.2.2.4 Composing of the theory.

The whole process of constant comparison left me at the end with coded data, a series of

memos, and a theory (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 225). The categories were the major themes

of the theory (such as "motivation," "frustration," "task-avoidance strategies," "help-seeking

behavior," etc.), and the memos are meant to provide the content behind the categories (McCall

& Simmons, 1969, p. 225). The memos had to be collated on each category (e.g., all memos on

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task-avoidance strategies were brought together for summarizing and further analyzing), and the

coded data were returned to for validation of a missed, previously unrecorded item, to "pinpoint

data behind a hypothesis or gaps in the theory" (McCall & Simmons, 1969, p. 225).

3.9.3 Mixed

The mixed data analysis answered the following research question: “In what ways (if any)

are graphic novels a useful and beneficial intervention for a struggling writer?” This question

was answered through an analysis of three components: the efficiency of the intervention

(measured through a syntactic analysis of the writing), the content-wise improvement of the

writing (measured through a content analysis of two major artifacts, the final pre-treatment essay

and the final post-treatment essay), and the feasibility of the intervention (measured through a

behavioral analysis according to the Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC)).

3.9.3.1 Syntactic analysis.

Thus, first, a syntactic analysis of the participant’s written output in all three stages will

be conducted. An intervention is efficient and beneficial when it leads to the achievement of the

set goals. The goals were to improve the quantity, quality, and pace of the struggling writer’s

output. During the syntactic analysis, the quantity and pace of the written output will be

measured through finding out how much he wrote per writing sample in each stage; i.e., the

number of sentences, the number of words per sentence, the number of exclamations, etc. The

quality will be measured through counting the mistakes per writing sample, as well as the

positive features of his writing (for example, how often he used humor or satire). Since this is not

the only way how the quality can be measured, and it is insufficient to say whether the writing of

stage I, II, or III was better due to sentence length and number of mistakes, in the following a

content analysis will be performed to compare the sound and feel of his writings.

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3.9.3.2 Content analysis of major artifacts.

Second, the participant’s writing will be examined according to five major artifacts,

which will undergo a content analysis. What did he exactly write in his major pieces across

stages? What was their feel/sound/look to the reader? Did he employ stylistic figures in any of

them? Did his fluency change? Did his style change? Did he finish them? Are they coherent

stories, suspenseful and enjoyable to read? Can one feel enthusiasm in them, or are they robotic

and do they just fulfill the basic requirements? Is there a difference in how he writes for what he

writes? The five artifacts under observation are (1) his brainstorming activity about a boy who

grows backwards (dictated to the tutor); (2) his final Benjamin Button essay from stage I; (3) his

final Benjamin Button graphic novel from stage II, (4) his LEGO® Star Wars online photo story

from stage II; and (5) his final text-only Benjamin Button essay from stage III, where he was

allowed to look at his Benjamin Button graphic novel artifact for organization.

3.9.3.3 Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC).

Third, the usefulness of the treatment will be assessed through an application of the

Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC) to the verbatim transcripts of the i-flip video

recordings of certain tutoring sessions from stages II and III, in order to assess behavioral

patterns of the participant. How does he interact with his tutor and the other student in the

tutoring sessions? Does he ask meaningful questions focused on his topic, or does he react with

pauses or noises to teacher questions? Does he ask things or talk about things that have nothing

to do with his writing task? Does his behavior improve during the treatment? What is his

behavior like when the graphic novel treatment is taken away? An intervention is only useful

when it is feasible in a realistic setting. Would the participant’s behavior suggest such an

intervention in a real classroom setting, or was his behavior so inappropriate that it would be too

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time-consuming and distracting for other students in a real classroom? There might be positive

and negative consequences in teaching a struggling writer through images. Behavioral patterns

will shed light on the pragmatism of this teaching method. This will result in recommendations

for the practice, whether or not to employ a graphic novel teaching strategy with this or similar

students.

The following is a brief description of the Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories

(FIAC) (Matthews, 1995): This quantitative instrument was originally used for student teacher

observation, so the beginning teachers could understand their interactions with their students and

shape their teaching accordingly. However, I am going to apply it in order to note down and chart

the participant’s on- and off-task behavior. The instrument measures 10 items. The first four are

teacher talk with indirect influence: the teacher (1) accepts feeling, (2) praises or encourages, (3)

accepts or uses ideas, (4) asks questions. The next three are teacher talk with direct influence: the

teacher (5) lectures, (6) gives directions, and (7) criticizes or justifies authority. The following

two items are student talk: the student (8) responds to the teacher, and (9) initiates talk. The last

category, (10), is silence or confusion. I coded the video transcripts using the Flanders categories

(8), (9), and (10), to demonstrate the participant’s responses, his self-initiated talk, and his off-

task behavior (noise, confusion, silence, talking to another student instead to the tutor, etc.).

3.10 Delimitation

The core delimitation is that I chose to conduct this study with a single African American

student through his 5th to 7th grades who was presented to me with writing problems in the

context of a Reading Clinic in spring 2009. As such, the results of the study are not generalizable

to other student populations of different race, gender, disabilities, and educational environments.

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3.11 Limitations

Regarding the limitations, it has to be noted that since I used both the single subject and

the case study approach, some of them cancelled each other out. The main limitation of both the

single subject and the case study design is that generalizability is not given due to their narrow

focus on a single unit (see Isaak & Michael, 1990, p. 48). The investigator cannot infer from one

observed individual—in this case a struggling 5th-7th grade African-American boy-writer

exhibiting difficulties executing writing tasks—to the larger population that includes girl-writers,

different age groups, different social settings, and children with different disabilities. The

sampling method is an external validity threat: I have selected this boy out of convenience, I

knew him from prior tutoring in a Reading Clinic, and he seemed interesting to me and worth of

studying more in-depth. I also wanted to help him out of personal commitment. Thus, I did not

randomly select him out of the pool of children with reading and writing problems who were

participating in that Reading Clinic in spring 2009. Not only is my sample too small to make

inferences to the general population; it is personally biased. Follow-up studies with wider

sampling methods would be needed.

Furthermore, a threat to external validity of both designs lies in the reactive nature of the

measurement. “A measurement is reactive whenever the subject is directly involved in a study

and he is reacting to the measurement process itself” (Isaac & Michael, 1990, p. 90). For

example, Remy knows that I will write my dissertation about him. Of course, since he likes me,

he wants me to get a good grade. This can influence him to do better, in order to make me shine.

Also, the thought that I might publish what he writes and draws might make him perform better,

because he wants to make a good impression. Also, the promise of monthly incentives

(children’s books and LEGO® toys) may influence my student’s performance, since he wants to

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“deserve” his awards. Further, simply by setting an alarm clock to time his work I will influence

his written output. Then, his little sister is in the same room while he is being tutored, and he

certainly does not want to be outperformed by her. Thus, as investigator I change his disposition;

I might make him unusually cooperative, or stressed out, or frustrated, or competitive, for

example. He is not “naïve” or “innocent” any longer; he is already manipulated. This has been

described as

[t]he guinea pig effect: To the extent that one feels he is a “guinea pig” and must do his

best or that the method of data collection starts trains of thought not previously

characteristic of the subject or makes him defensive, antagonistic or unusually

cooperative, the measuring process itself changes the respondent and biases the research

results. (Isaac & Michael, 1990, p. 90)

Another effect that makes respondents reply differently in an artificial environment than

they would normally have done in a natural environment is the often-cited “Hawthorne effect”: In

the 1920s, in an industrial efficiency study conducted at the Hawthorne Plant of Western

Electrics in Chicago it was found that when one singles out a group of workers for a special

research study, they tend to increase their productivity, even if the conditions are worsened. This

is because of (a) the novelty of the situation, (b) the awareness that one is a participant in an

experiment, (c) the modified environment with supervision and new patterns of social

interactions, and (d) the knowledge that feedback will be given in the form of daily productivity

figures which ordinarily would not have been given (see Isaac & Michael, 1990, p. 86). Thus, my

subject might feel “special” about being the object of a dissertation—a book!— and this might

change his behavior and productivity.

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Another limitation is the perceived expectance of performance: my student will try to be

what he thinks I would like him to be. I had multiple opportunities to observe such behavior. For

example, when I offered Remy a graphic novel and an ordinary text book and told him he could

keep one, he just needed to choose one to take home as a present, he chose the graphic novel

instantly. With child-like enthusiasm, he grabbed it, and exclaimed: “That looks interesting!” But

then, he put it back quickly, and took the real book. When I asked him why, he said he doesn’t

like comics that much, and that he likes to read books. He looked at me as if he was waiting for

confirmation, and when he wasn’t sure that this was the answer I wanted to hear, he asked, “Can

I have both?” This has been called

[r]ole selection: When approached as a respondent in a research study, an individual

tends to assume a role of “the kind of person he thinks he should be” in this situation. To

the extent that this assumed role differs from his natural behavior in situations similar to,

but outside the research setting, validity decreases. (Isaac & Michael, 1990, p. 90)

Moreover, I could observe that Remy tended to give rather positive than negative

responses during his initial reading and writing attitude surveys. When I gave him the option to

check-mark whole numbers, such as 1 or 2, he sometimes put his check-mark right in between

them, so as not to be forced to give a totally negative or totally positive answer (not black or

white, but gray). In my report to his parents after one semester of tutoring, I noted that I was

surprised he had answered so positively that he is a good writer, people see him as such, and he

himself thinks he’s one, while he clearly is not. One could attribute this surprising response to the

“acquiescence response set” and also to the “social desirability response set”:

Response sets: This is the tendency of subjects to respond to questions in certain

predictable ways. The acquiescence response set describes the phenomenon that

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respondents will more frequently endorse a positive statement than disagree with its

opposite. Respondents more often than not will prefer strong statements to moderate or

inconclusive ones. Sequences of questions presented in a similar format lead to response

patterns affecting items in the last half of a test differently than in the first half, possibly

because the respondent becomes aware of his adaptation pattern by the middle of the

instrument and shifts to a variation to avoid monotony or conformity. The social

desirability response set refers to items where one alternative is more acceptable socially

than another. (Isaac & Michael, 1990, p. 90)

A threat to internal validity which is prevalent in both my case study and single subject

study is the “practice effect.” With regard to single-subject designs, this is also called “carry-over

effect,” which means the results from the previous phase (pre-treatment to treatment, or treatment

to post-treatment) are carried over into the next phase. With regard to case study designs, it

likewise has been observed that “exercise on the pretest accounts for gains on the posttest” (Isaac

& Michael, 1990, p. 90). For example, after having read and composed several graphic novels,

my subject might have gained practice that has a positive impact on his writing of post-treatment

text-only assignments.

Furthermore, my single-subject design might suffer from the “order effect,” which means

that the ordering or sequence of my three stages (pre-treatment with text-only material, treatment

with graphic novels, post-treatment with text-only material plus speech bubbles) has an influence

on the results. Also, the three-stage single-subject design might be prone to irreversibility,

meaning that in the withdrawal stage (stage three when the graphic novels are withdrawn, and

Remy has to produce text-only material), once a change in the independent variable has occurred

(the graphic novels have been withdrawn), the dependent variables are affected (the quality,

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quantity, and pace of his written output). This effect cannot be made undone by removing the

independent variable.

The maturation process of the subject is a threat to internal validity: Remy was a fifth-

grader when I met him first. At the end of my study, he will be a seventh-grader. He has not been

medically/neurologically diagnosed, but if his writing problems are developmental, this would

mean that they might vanish on their own as he ages and matures. Likewise, his spelling

problems might disappear or lessen because of additional exposure to reading and writing during

the longitudinal study he is under. Even if his reluctance to write should have been emotionally

caused, his emotional burden might be overcome at a later stage of the study. Thus, the self-

healing process might obscure the actual effect of my graphic treatment. It will be difficult for me

to rule out “chance” and to claim that all changes in Remy’s behavior and written output are due

to my treatment, and not to maturation or other confounding variables.

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CHAPTER 4

FINDINGS

In this chapter, 35 quantitative artifacts (ten 6+1 Trait® analyses of writing samples per

stage, an overall assessment of the three final artifacts (one per stage), and two Flanders analyses,

one of Stage II, and one of Stage III) will be discussed. All student-created artifacts are attached

as Appendix D. Furthermore, an overall of 34 qualitative artifacts will be discussed: 10 for each

of the three treatment stages (in the form of teacher logs, verbatim video transcripts, email

reports, reflections, surveys, and interviews), in addition to a qualitative content analysis of four

student artifacts (1. the brainstorming activity (invented fantasy story of a man growing

backwards, without prior reading of Benjamin Button), 2. the final essay from stage I, 3. the final

graphic novel from stage II, and 4. the final essay from stage III). The table below (Table 1)

shows the dates of the qualitative and quantitative analyses of teacher- and student-created

artifacts. As to the qualitative data, the logs and observations were randomly chosen from a vast

number of data files on the researcher’s computer. The files were all coded by date, and the

researcher picked random dates from 2009-2011. As to the quantitative data, the writing samples

are randomly chosen in stages I and II, but they are successive in date, so that continuous

progress, if existent, could be noted. In stage III, tutor and tutee met exactly 11 times, so the 10

writing samples are from the 10 consecutive tutoring lessons. The participant finished his task in

the 10th lesson. During the 11th tutoring class, the participant did an exit survey online about his

experiences (see APPENDIX E).

The big gap in time during stage I (no data between May and August) is a result of no

tutoring classes taking place during the summer break. In stage III, there is a big gap in time,

since there was no tutoring during the whole month of April 2011: the instructor had to cancel

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the first class of the month, and then the mother of the children went to Africa for vacation, and

there was nobody there who could have taken them to tutoring class. They made no excuses and

had not informed the researcher prior to this, and all calls to the mother’s phone were

automatically answered with the message that her mailbox was full. The researcher became

worried, but found out through the school the children attended that they were there. Only in

early May did the researcher get a phone call from the mother, saying that she was back from

Africa, and the children would come to tutoring class again.

Table 1

Dates of Qualitative and Quantitative Artifacts

QUALITATIVE QUANTITATIVE # Logs, observations,

surveys: constant comparative method

Baseline diagrams with 6+1 Trait ®

Stage I (text only)

1 4/20/2009, reflection on final Reading Clinic presentation and future plan for private tutoring

4/20/2009, writing sample (Boba Fett)

2 8/10/2009, email report 08/10/2009, writing sample 3 8/17/2009, teacher log 8/17/2009, writing sample 4 8/24/2009, teacher log 8/24/2009, writing sample:

brainstorming about BB 5 8/31/2009, teacher log 9/21/2009, start first BB

essay 6 9/15/2009, email report 9/21/2009, three interview

questions, writing sample 7 9/21/2009, reflection 09/28/2009, continuing BB

essay, writing sample 8 9/21/2009, verbatim

video transcript (creating interview questions for third-party observer)

11/03/2009, continuing BB essay, writing sample

9 10/5/2009-10/11/2009, email exchange regarding third-party observer

11/10/2009, continuing BB essay, writing sample

10 11/23/2009, teacher log 11/23/2009, writing sample (last entry on BB essay 1; unfinished)

table 1 continues

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table 1 continued

Stage II (graphic novels)

1 11/30/2009, teacher log 11/30/2009, writing sample (first entry, BB graphic novel)

2 12/07/2009, teacher log 12/10/2009, writing sample (Revenge of the Sith)

3 02/09/2010, teacher log 04/22/2010, BB test 1, writing sample

4 4/30/2010, teacher log 04/27/2010, BB test 2, writing sample

5 6/28/2010, teacher log 06/15/2010, BB test 3, writing sample

6 8/17/2010, teacher log 09/07/2010, Bone writing sample

7 9/14/2010, teacher log 09/21/2010, Bone writing sample

8 10/12/2010, teacher log 10/05/2010, Bone writing sample

9 11/9/2011, teacher log 10/12/2010, Bone writing sample

10 12/14/2010, written interview

11/16/2010, Bone writing sample

Stage III (text only with use of graphic novel)

1 1/18/2011, teacher log and verbatim

01/18/2011, writing sample

2 1/25/2011, teacher log 02/15/2011, writing sample 3 2/15/2011, verbatim 02/22/2011, writing sample 4 2/1/2011, verbatim 03/01/2011, writing sample 5 03/15/2011, verbatim

video transcript 03/08/2011, writing sample

6 03/22/2011, verbatim video transcript

03/15/2011, writing sample

7 03/29/2011, verbatim video transcript

03/22/2011, writing sample

8 05/04/2011, verbatim and handwriting sample

03/29/2011, writing sample

9 05/10/2011, verbatim 05/10/2011, writing sample 10 05/17/2011, teacher log

and exit survey 05/17/2011, writing sample

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4.1 Quantitative analysis: Output Differences among 3 Stages

This study tries to answer two quantitative research questions: (1) What is the baseline

quality level of the participant’s written output, and (2) What is the quality level of the

participant’s written output during and after the intervention? “Baseline” here means that the

initial writing quality of the participant regarding certain traits/behaviors was assessed in stage

one, and from then on, the participant functioned as his own control observation over time, so

that his writing quality of stages two (introduction of new variable, the treatment) and three

(introduction of new variable, lack of the treatment) could be compared to his initial output. The

traits/behaviors I used were those of the 6+1® Trait writing scale.

In the multiple-baseline technique, a number of responses are identified and measured

over time to provide baselines against which changes can be evaluated. With these

baselines established, the experimenter then applies an experimental variable to one of

the behaviors, produces a change in it, and perhaps notes little or no change in the other

baselines. (Baer, Wolf, & Risley, 1968, p. 94)

Consequently, the quantitative analysis consists of three parts: (1) A baseline analysis

using the 6+1® Trait writing scale on all 30 writing samples (10 per stage); (2) A baseline

analysis of the average scores of each stage; and (3) A baseline analysis of the three final artifacts

(the first Benjamin Button essay; the Benjamin Button graphic novel; the second Benjamin

Button essay under the use of the graphic novel). Researchers of single-case experimental

designs have pointed out with regard to the within-subject multiple baseline design that “a major

advantage of this strategy is that it fosters the simultaneous measurement of several concurrent

target behaviors” (Barlow & Hersen, 1984, p. 212).

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4.1.1 Baseline with 6+1® Trait of 10 Writing Samples of Three Stages

On August 1st and 2nd, 2011, the researcher met with her auditor, an engineering professor

from the same university, to find a consensus on rating the 30 writing samples. For each artifact,

previously rated by the researcher, the 6+1® Trait rubric was printed out, filled in the auditor,

and then compared to the researcher’s ratings under discussion of the differences, until a

consensus was found, and attached to the artifact. In the end, the numbers were typed into an xls

table to create a three-dimensional line diagram. The following table (Fig. 8a) chronologically

shows the quality of the 10 writing samples in all three stages as measured by the 6+1 Trait®

writing scale. The following features of the written artifacts were rated: ideas, organization,

voice, word choice, sentence fluency, conventions, and presentation. The grades assigned were 1

for the lowest, 3 for the intermediate, and 5 for the highest accomplishment. It can be noted that

when accomplishment falls, it generally happens across the categories on the same day of

observation, which might indicate that the participant had a bad day with lots of off-task

behavior, so he neither had many words and thus not many ideas, nor focused on organization or

voice, nor paid attention to conventions. The qualitative artifacts, for example the video

observations and teacher logs, will shed more light on the events during some of those tutoring

lessons. In Stage I, on 08/31/2009, there are missing data (MD) under “conventions,” since the

participant dictated this writing sample, and the researcher typed it. Therefore, grammar and

mechanics were not graded in this artifact. For the same reason, the participant received a 1 for

“presentation” on that day, because he did not present anything in writing, but had the researcher

do it. He received the highest ratings in all other categories for this artifact. This supports the

general observations that the participant is very good at oral summaries, but leaves out facts

when having to write by himself.

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Table 2

Baseline Data for All Three Stages

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Fig. 5 shows a graphic baseline rendering of above table. At first glance, it is not easy to

discern from the graph which of the three stages was the most successful regarding the quality of

the participant’s writing. He started off with the highest scores in some sub-categories, but had

severe drops in others. Stage I was the most difficult, and the researcher had expected very low

numbers. However, the early writings in Stage I had a wonderful, personable voice that

immediately grabbed the reader’s attention; he used humor and sarcasm as rhetorical figures.

Voice got lost in Stage II, because in the speech bubbles of a graphic novel, there is not much

opportunity for prose creations; mostly, there are callouts with noises, exclamations, and a few

short phrases to explain the content along with the pictures. Thus, the nature of Stage II already

predestined the lower ratings on the 6+1® Trait writing scale. On the other hand, the easier tasks

in Stage II also should have encouraged more on-task behavior, which was not the case; the

student had several days of rebellious behavior, non-compliance with tutor admonishments, and

boredom, which influenced the number of his ideas and his carefulness about mechanics. It is

interesting to note that several of his speech bubbles just say, “bored” and “bored again” –

ironically, while he wanted to express that the character in the graphic novel was bored, it also

sounds very much like he himself was bored to death! However, at Stage III, which was more

challenging than stage II but much easier than Stage I, the participant could have been expected

to achieve higher scores; his extreme off-task and task avoidance behavior on certain days

prevented him from reaching this goal, although on the last day, he gave all he had and achieved

highest scores, making his final artifact the best of all stages. This, however, might also have

been strongly influenced by it being the last tutoring session before the exit interview the

following week, so he wanted to get over with it to receive his final incentive and start something

new, less troublesome. Also, in the three years of tutoring, he had matured and acquired a vast

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new vocabulary, which was expected to make the final essay of a 7th grader much better than that

of a 5th grader.

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Figure 5. Baseline Diagram of Stages I, II, and III

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4.1.2 Comparison of Average Scores of All Three Stages

Since Fig. 5 showed a very uneven distribution of peaks in all three stages, the average

per stage has been plotted (Fig. 6), so an improvement from Stage I to Stage III becomes evident.

Stage II, the graphic novel treatment, shows the lowest achievement; however, it was to be

expected that some categories, such as fluency, would be lower in a graphic novel than in a text-

only writing sample. A graphic novel consists of pictures, speech bubbles, and a few captions,

and, sometimes, the speech bubbles only contain exclamations, sounds, and noises, which do not

create text flow. Out of 35 possible points (100%), the participant achieved 30.2 (86.29%) in the

first stage, 29.2 (83.43%) in the second stage, and 32.8 (93.71%) in the third stage.

Table 3

Total Score Average of All Three Stages

stage I stage II stage III

ideas 3.4 3.6 4.0

organization 4.2 4.8 5.0

voice 5.0 4.6 4.8

word choice 4.8 4.6 4.8

sentence fluency 4.6 4.4 5.0

conventions 3.6 3.4 4.2

presentation 4.6 3.8 5.0

total 30.2 29.2 32.8

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Figure 6. Comparison of the Average Score of all Three Stages

4.1.3 Baseline with 6+1® Trait of Final Artifact Per Stage

Fig. 7 below illustrates the 6+1 Trait® analyses of the final products of each stage (stage

1: Benjamin Button text-only essay; stage 2: Benjamin Button graphic novel; stage 2: Benjamin

Button text-only essay with the use of the graphic novel). The averages for each final essay were

calculated by building the totals of all ratings for the different in-class assignments, and dividing

those by the number of in-class assignments when the participant had worked on the artifacts

making up the final essays. In addition to the seven traits, it has to be said that the artifact for

stages II (the graphic novel) and III (text-only version with help of graphic novel) were finished,

but the artifact for stage I (essay pre-exposure to graphic novels) was only half finished (it ended

with Benjamin returning from the war). The results show that the final artifact of Stage III has a

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significantly higher score than the artifact of Stage I. The final artifact from Stage II has the

lowest ratings, which, however, was also caused by the nature of the graphic novel genre.

Table 4

Average Scores of Three Final Artifacts

stage I stage II stage III

ideas 3 2.3 4.0 organization 4.5 5 5.0 voice 5 5 4.8 word choice 4.5 4.3 4.8 sentence fluency 4.5 4.3 5.0 conventions 3.5 3 4.2 presentation 5 4.3 5.0 total 30 28.3 32.8

Figure 7. Comparison of Final Product of Each Stage

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4.2 Qualitative Analysis: Experiences

This study posed the following qualitative research question: How does the participant

experience the tutoring program using graphic novels to support his writing skills? In order to

demonstrate the participant’s experiences, 10 teacher logs per stage were analyzed by comparing

recurring patterns (a few of them pre-defined, most of them developing during this process) and

by furnishing evidence through authentic quotes. Furthermore, the participant’s experiences are

investigated through a content analysis of his five major artifacts. The effort put in those artifacts,

their degree of completion, their degree of mastery, as well as their layout and arrangement speak

for the participant’s involvement, boredom, or enthusiasm regarding the respective tasks.

Thus, the qualitative analysis consists of two parts: (1) a constant comparative analysis of

behavioral patterns recorded in 30 teacher logs, email reports, reflections, surveys, and interviews

(10 per stage); and (2) a content analysis of five major student artifacts (brainstorming activity

about Benjamin Button; final Benjamin Button essay of Stage I; final Benjamin Button graphic

novel of Stage II; final Benjamin Button essay of Stage III, his LEGO® Star Wars photo

website).

4.2.1 Constant Comparative Method: 30 Observations

The tutor did not go into the sessions with a pre-made rubric, scanning for certain

behaviors. Emergent categories, trends, and patterns began to show when screening the recorded

data; therefore, the data can still be conceived as being of qualitative nature. Per stage, 10 written

observations were examined with regard to the frequency of certain behavioral traits, for which

11 categories were established. The xls rubric below shows which categories had evolved, and

how certain sub-categories could be added. Qualitative tutee/tutor quotes will give evidence as to

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how the participant experienced the tutoring sessions, and how this was transmitted through his

behavior.

Table 5

Categories of Observations for Stages I-III

category sub-category 1. off-task other student interference audio distraction visual distraction questions/problems social confirmation seeking frustration infringement of privacy play boredom need for physical activity 2. on-task interest-driven incentive-driven teacher reprimand other student reprimand teacher prompt mocked by other student

teacher or self-comparison with other student

offered help by other student desire to get it over with camera on desire to achieve desire to please tutor desire to please higher instance get question answered 3. affective behavior enjoys task doesn't enjoy task task avoidance tries to change task complaint playing leaving room on-topic talk off-topic talk singing/humming making noises walking around gymnastics on chair switching off camera misbehavior table 5 continues

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table 5 continued ignoring teacher 4. metacognitive explanation unsolicited solicited 5. task variation per period one task two different tasks three or more different tasks very demanding task easier task new task for first time task preceded/followed by break/play task preceded/followed by incentive 6. pace, quality, quantity satisfactory unsatisfactory 7. interpretation of social setting outstanding suitable inappropriate 8. self-sufficiency copies original text shortens original text paraphrases in own words invents appropriate new content invents inappropriate new content 9. use of sophisticated literary

elements use no use 10. help-seeking behavior asks for help with ideas asks for help with definitions/concepts asks for help with spelling asks for help with typing doesn't ask; no mistakes doesn't ask; mistakes, but unaware of doesn't ask; mistakes, and aware of refuses help 11. extraordinary

circumstances/observations geniality

failure/deficits unusual attendees unusual environment unusual social condition stylistic/semantic observations

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4.2.1.1 Candidate’s experience of stage I.

Category 1 (Off-task):

In Stage I, there were overall six off-task behaviors reported. In one instance, the

participant, who was supposed to handwrite on paper, was noted to be visually distracted by

looking at his website: “I also had to shut down his website on the monitor before him, because

he was getting off task again, changing words on his homepage about Star Wars..." (08/17/2009)

In the same tutoring lesson, the participant became off-task due to too many problems with

spelling, so that he despaired, stopped, and asked the tutor for help: "He did not use upper case

letters at all; not even at the beginning of a sentence or for names. He made lots of spelling

errors, some of which he was not aware of, and some of which he caught, erased, and repaired; in

the middle of it, he said, "You will have to edit that," and I agreed to do it later and asked him to

focus on content." (08/17/2009)

Three instances of social confirmation-seeking occurred, two of them on 08/17/2009,

when he embraced the teacher and longed for praise, and one on 04/20/2009, when he needed

bribes and convincing to continue with his task: “He put his left arm around me and scribbled

with his right hand, the paper always sliding away. I told him, ‘You cannot write like this,’ but he

said, ‘I'll show you I can write like this.’ ” After some time, he gave up and took his left arm off

me." (08/17/2009) "He needed lots of positive feedback and encouragement." “It took a lot of

convincing and bribing to make him write this” (04/20/2009).

One instance of frustration was recorded on 08/17/2009: “When he had handwritten about

two sentences, he complained, ‘I don't want to write under such pressure!’”

Category 2 (On-task):

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There were altogether 15 on-task behaviors noted. None was interest driven. Three were

incentive driven: on 04/20/2009, the participant received “bribes,” on 08/17/2009, he was

promised to receive his previously ordered present after one page of handwriting, and on

09/21/2009, he finished his task and then wanted more LEGO: “Can I get both of these?

Pleeeeeease? And then, can I get something else?” (09/21/2009)

Today, Remi and Rula were promised their presents they had ordered last time from

Amazon.com if they handwrote a 1-page story each. Rula could choose her topic, while

Remi was supposed to write about chapter 15 of Boba Fett (the episode where his father

dies); instead, he chose to write about chapter 12 which dealt with the fight in the arena

on the planet Geonosis. The incentive was that they could play with their toys as soon as

they had finished their story. They also had the option of finishing the story in the next

session, if necessary. (Output: 6 sentences with lots of mistakes, and lots of task

avoidance. 08/17/2009)

The following (Fig. 8) is a scan of his handwritten output on that day. The sample reveals

that Remy makes more spelling mistakes when handwriting than when typing; first, because he

cannot rely on a spell checker, and second, because handwriting frustrates him more, so that he

does not care about his output as much. Also, when his writing is visible to everyone on a

website, he pays great attention to mechanics and asks for help with editing. Note that he left 2-4

lines blank after each sentence, to waste space and fill his page quicker:

One on-task behavior was reported to have occurred after teacher reprimand; on

08/24/2009, the participant had to be admonished to work earnestly. However, this turned out to

be a mistake on part of the tutor; this time, the participant was really not making fun, but

intended the garbled message he had been writing. He had typed what looked like random

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numbers, but which were actually supposed to be a log number from a captain’s diary entry in the

future: “At first, it looked to me as if he were just randomly putting numbers on the page to tease

me (he had typed random letters shortly before, just to fill a large space with gibberish, until his

little sister and I protested and asked him to work earnestly).”

Two instances of “other student reprimands” were recorded; they came from his little

sister, who on 09/21/2009 tells him to finish his task quickly to earn money as an incentive to

buy a snack, which he would be allowed to have after completion of his work, and who on

09/24/2009 asks him to work “earnestly,” because she also thought he had typed random

numbers: “Just earn some money and then go down to the vending machine."—"Rula!"—"She

said until you're done!" (09/21/2009) As can be seen, Remy was a little appalled by his little

wise-crack sister’s impertinence.

Three occurrences of explicit teacher prompts were recorded on 08/17/2009, which were

aimed at keeping the participant on topic:

He did not begin writing on his own, so I prompted him by letting him tell his summary

orally first." – "I told him to write this introductory part first, and then to fill in the blanks,

but although the book was right before him and he could have simply copied the names,

he was reluctant, stared into the air and just repeated, "blank, blank, blank."" – "Before he

put each sentence on paper, I had to prompt him and remind him to talk about 1)

character, 2) setting, and 3) plot.

One occurrence of the other student mocking the participant to keep him on task was

recorded on 09/21/2009, which caused the tutor to wonder whether having both children in the

same room doing the same task was detrimental: “If that continues, I should maybe give Rula

different tasks, so there's no competition anymore, because she starts mocking him a little bit and

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constantly reminds him to be ‘attentive.’ She's like a little mother to him.” In the same context,

four cases of teacher comparison of both children were noted: on 09/23/2009, the tutor observed

that the little sister got more done in the same time; on 08/17/2009, Rula again has a higher

writing output than her brother: “He was terribly off-task--exactly for one hour and 40 minutes,

so to say, but he worked hard for the last 10 minutes and managed to type seven sentences on his

own. His sister had finished two pages (typed) and one big poster (hand-written and drawn) in

the whole time" (09/23/2009).

Rula had already finished her half-page story about a fish and was beginning to work

ahead for another incentive on a story about the High School Musical when her brother

had not even begun yet." – "In the meantime, Rula had finished a half-page story, a two-

page story, and a picture, had ordered a new doll online and played with her incentives.

(08/17/2009)

On 09/21/2009, the tutor reflects about the disadvantages of tutoring both children:

I'm not sure if it's good for him to see his little sister do more (and, sometimes, equally

good) things in the same time. This cannot be good for his ego, and sometimes he tells his

sister politely to be quiet. Next time, Rula wants to do a picture book about Lewis' The

Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, and Remy will continue to work on his Benjamin

Button essay, so we hopefully won't have any competition. (09/21/2009)

One instance of help offered by the other student was noted on 08/17/2009, when his little

sister Rula interrupts the participant with suggestions: “Finally, his sister made proposals for his

blanks, and he reproached her and asked her not to interrupt him.” Then, one instance of “desire

to please the tutor” was observed on 09/23/2009, when Remy with utter politeness expresses his

thanks for being allowed to do the tutoring program. This came across in a strange, adult voice;

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rather unexpected from a little boy in this wording: “When we were done, he said, ‘thank you for

doing this program with us,’ and it was really cute.”

Category 3 (Affective Behavior)

Overall, there were nine instances of affective behavior noted in Stage I. The first

occurrence falls under the subgroup “task avoidance”: on 04/20/2009, the tutor log says that

Remy did not perform orally in front of the audience, did not draw with colored pencils, and

needed bribes to write. It was the last day of the Reading Clinic, and all students performed at a

farewell-party in front of their parents by showing off some of the artifacts they had written

during the semester. Interestingly, this incident showed Remy’s psychological power over his

mother, who did everything to please him:

Remy only hand-wrote one single sentence for our chapter 10 reading summary last time,

because he was not motivated as soon as he had seen all the food (and he was terribly

hungry!). It is scanned and pasted below. It took a lot of convincing and bribing to make

him write this. He did not get to draw anything with the colored pencils I had brought

him, either. Furthermore, he obviously felt embarrassed by the presence of his mother,

who wanted to make sure that he sat straight and was engaged in his work (which he

wasn't) -- he urged her to sit all in the back of the classroom, very far away (and she

obeyed!). (04/20/2009)

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Figure 8. Handwriting Sample (04/20/2009). The first two sentences were dictated to the tutor.

.

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Figure 9. Handwriting sample with lots of mistakes (08/17/2009)

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Two events were recorded where Remy tried to change his task: on 08/17/2009, he wants

to type instead of to handwrite, and on 08/31/2009, he dictates instead of typing: “He

complained: ‘Why can't I type?’" – “He finished up the story on August 31st, 2009, by dictating

it to me. He claimed he ‘had the ideas.’”

Under the subcategory “complaint,” two events from the same tutoring session were

recorded. On 08/17/2009, Remy does not want to handwrite, and feels pressured by the tutor: "He

complained, "Why can't I type?" I promised him that for the next session, we would do a typing

task." – "When he had handwritten about two sentences, he complained, ‘I don't want to write

under such pressure!’ ”

Two cases of task avoidance fall under the category of “leaving room.” Many times when

Remy leaves the tutoring office to go to the restroom, he takes a book from the public library,

which he carries to tutoring classes with him, along. This already indicates that he is planning on

a prolonged absence, not necessitated by physical needs alone. Such an off-time was noted on

08/17/2009 and 09/21/2009: “After finishing his first sentence, he needed to go to the restroom

and took quite long for that. Upon returning to his work place, it took him several minutes to

focus again and start writing.” (08/17/2009) “Remy knocks on the office door. He has been to the

restroom.” (09/21/2009)

Only one incident of explicit on-topic talk was recorded in the tutoring log from

09/21/2009, when Remy asked for the definition of “maximum” while he was creating three

interview questions for a third-party visitor. Equally, one instance of off-topic talk was noted on

09/23/2009 in an email to the tutor’s supervisor: “I have my first taped clinical supervision,

which I'm going to share with you tomorrow. He was terribly off-task – exactly for one hour and

40 minutes, so to say, but he worked hard for the last 10 minutes and managed to type seven

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sentences on his own.” (09/23/2009) A verbatim transcript and Flanders analysis of this tutoring

session will be discussed later.

Interestingly, there was no instance of singing/humming, but there were two observations

of “making noises,” namely on 08/17/2009, when Remy made “funny noises,” and on

09/21/2009, when lots of screaming was recorded during the very first i-flip video: “He made

funny noises, and repeated several times, ‘I wish I knew how to start.’ ”

There were no events from the selected artifacts noted under category 4, “Metacognitive

Explanation.” These will occur in Stages II and III, when Remy was interviewed in written form

about what he thought about his various performances, and he had to give explanations of his

thinking about his thought processes.

Category 5 (Task variation per period)

Under the category of “Task variation per period,” we have seven entries. There were two

instances recorded where Remy had only one task to fulfill. These occurred on 08/17/2009, when

Remy was writing a Boba Fett summary, and on 09/23/2009, when Remy was writing his

introduction of the first Benjamin Button essay. There was one tutoring session noted where

Remy had to fulfill three or more tasks: On 09/23/2009, under observation by a third party

visitor, the children performed an interview, read, wrote an essay, and staged a movie scene with

their LEGO figurines. Under the sub-category “very demanding task,” there was one entry from

08/17/2009, when the participant had to write a Boba Fett summary. Under the subcategory,

“task preceded/followed by break/play,” there were two occurrences: On 08/17/2009, the

children were promised to be allowed to play with their ordered presents after one page of

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handwriting, and on 09/21/2009, they would be allowed to play a computer game after finishing

their interview questions.

Today, Remi and Rula were promised their presents they had ordered last time from

Amazon.com if they handwrote a 1-page story each. Rula could choose her topic, while

Remi was supposed to write about chapter 15 of Boba Fett (the episode where his father

dies); instead, he chose to write about chapter 12 which dealt with the fight in the arena

on the planet Geonosis. The incentive was that they could play with their toys as soon as

they had finished their story. They also had the option of finishing the story in the next

session, if necessary. (Output: six sentences with lots of mistakes, and lots of task

avoidance.)

Under the subcategory, “task preceded/followed by incentive,” two cases were recorded.

On 08/17/2009 (see above), when Remy was promised play time with his present after

handwriting one page, and on 08/31/2009, when he was promised to be allowed to assemble his

LEGO blocks after dictating a story to his tutor: “After finishing it in a rather short time, he was

allowed to begin assembling his LEGO starship. Inspired by this activity, he first babbled an

invented fight story to himself, and then dictated "LEGO Star Wars, Episode 3 1/2" to me, which

excels through its astounding vocabulary.”

Category 6 (Pace, quality, quantity)

Under category 6, there are seven entries; three satisfactory, and four unsatisfactory. The

ones that were satisfactory occurred on 09/21/2009, when the participant’s word choice was

excellent; on 08/24/2009, when his introductory paragraph was good; and on 08/31/2009, when

his dictation was good. Regarding Remy’s first paragraph from his Benjamin Button essay, the

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tutor comment reads as follows: "I must say, his word choice is excellent, and his style is

promising. As to the content, there is none yet--it is merely an introductory paragraph.” The

tutoring log from 08/24/2009, when Remy had to invent a story about a man growing backwards,

without having read Benjamin Button yet, contains the following remark: "His outcome was not

at all what I had expected (a fantasy story about a failed experiment for a snack food dip!!), but it

proved to be very interesting and thoughtful, especially the ending, which, in a circular fashion,

leads back to the beginning." On 08/31/2009, Remy began to type something that looked like

hotchpotch, but to the surprise of his tutor and his little sister, his further dictation developed into

a well thought-through story line after he had

typed the title: LOG S7668876788976 2012 JAN.12. At first, it looked to me as if he

were just randomly putting numbers on the page to tease me (he had typed random letters

shortly before, just to fill a large space with gibberish, until his little sister and I protested

and asked him to work earnestly). However, it turned out that it was the beginning of a

good story, and his real intention.

The four events categorized as “unsatisfactory” under the subcategory “Pace, quality,

quantity” all occurred on the same day, 08/24/2009. The tutoring log begins with, "Today,

August 24th, 2009, the session was not very productive. (…) He took a long time go get settled

down, and unwillingly typed the title.” Then, there was a remark about the big waste of time on

that day: “He finished at 6:40 p.m., having started at about 5:00 p.m., and had 20 minutes left to

order his new incentives (books) from Amazon.com online and to assemble his LEGO star

fighter which he almost finished before the session was over.” The following remark refers to

Fig. 12 further above: “Below is a transcription in correct English of what Remi had intended to

write, and a scan of his actual output for comparison. It has to be noted that the third sentence

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about the Archduke is almost literally from the book, and still he made spelling mistakes.”

Finally, the tutoring log contained dismay about the low quantitative output of the participant on

that day: “He only covered page 71 and the first lines of page 72 of chapter 12, which ranged

from pp. 71-77.”

There were no events recorded for category 7, “interpretation of social setting.”

Category 8 (Self-sufficiency)

In category 8, “self-sufficiency,” only one case is mentioned in the subcategory, “copies

original text”: on 09/24/2009, Remy almost literally copied a sentence, and the frustrated tutor

note read that he was still managing to make spelling mistakes (see quote in the paragraph

above). No events were recorded under category 9 (Use of sophisticated literary elements).

Category 10 (Help-seeking behavior)

In category 10, four observations have been recorded. The first incident occurred in the

category, “asks for help with definitions/concepts,” when Remy asked on 09/21/2009 what

“maximum” meant. The second occurrence was under the category, “asks for help with typing,”

when on 08/17/2009, Remy begged the tutor to edit his writing. The third case was recorded in

the subcategory, “doesn’t ask; mistakes, but unaware of,” and happened on 08/17/2009, when

Remy changed a correct word into a wrong word and changed it back to its original after teacher

input. The fourth case was noted in the subcategory “refuses help,” when on 09/21/2009, Remy

had the option to look at the original text for writing his Benjamin Button summary: "He declined

to use the book for help and stated that he wanted to write it from memory."

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Category 11 (Extraordinary circumstances/observations)

Under category 11, there are twelve entries; four for “geniality,” two for “failure/deficit,”

one for “unusual attendees,” one for “unusual environment,” three for “unusual social condition,”

and one for “stylistic/semantic observations.” The four cases of “geniality” were observed on the

following days: On 10/05/2009, Remy was reported to be really good at staging LEGO movie

scenes: “I'll also take my i-flip with me, because they want to stage and film a scene with their

LEGO figurines, making up the dialogue spontaneously. Remy is really good at this, as you will

see!” On 08/10/2009, Remy was described as having great spatial perception when assembling

LEGO starships; he was even able to skip steps in the manual:

I've observed something interesting: Remy got a little "Slave I" from LEGO (that's Boba

Fett's star fighter). I gave him the written instructions to assemble it, and he got it together

faster than I would, but he did not follow the instructions chronologically – he looked at

one of the later stages and assembled everything correctly, while I would have followed

step by step to get there!!! Amazing. He only made one slight mistake and corrected

himself. This makes scaffolded teaching with graphic novels even more interesting –

what if he "skips" images and text bubbles to get to the ending faster? What if he reads

the ending first? Does he still get the whole picture? (08/10/2009)

The quote above shook my original assumption that Remy might have spatial perception

problems. While Remy gets lost in a building and does not know how to find the office after

returning from the restroom, although he had walked this way several times before, he can

assemble intricate LEGO constructs with his hands. His handwriting, on the other hand, does not

look neat and well-arranged. A similar observation was recorded on 08/17/2009, when I noted

that his hands were not clumsy when assembling LEGO: “It is a riddle to me how his

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graphomotor skills can be so impaired concerning handwriting when his hands are able to

assemble tiny LEGO pieces correctly within a short time."

The tutoring observations also revealed Remy’s excellence at oral narration. On

09/15/2009, Remy did amazingly well at orally narrating a whole long movie. An email about the

tutoring report read:

By the way, I observed something astonishing: Before we started yesterday, Remy wanted

to show me something. He clicked on a youtube video of Star Wars (an animated cartoon

story). My office PC has no sound, but he wanted me to hear the sound. I looked at the

time indicated on youtube -- this video was 9:44 long, and Remy spoke while the movie

was running (silently) and narrated the WHOLE story very fast and fluently!!!! It was

absolutely amazing, like Mozart writing a long symphony down after having heard it one

time ;-) I would like to write this down if he is willing to tell me that story again. I don't

know if it is just parroting since he really might have watched it a 100 times (many kids

do it), but he was really special. I could compare my transcription to the actual text to

check memory... (09/15/2009)

The two cases of “failure/deficit” occurred on 04/20/2009, when Remy was unable to

perform orally at the final presentation of the Reading Clinic in front of the parents, and on

08/10/2009, when it became obvious that in contrast to his sister, Remy had no sense of

orientation in the building. About his inability to perform publically, I noted in my log:

Although Remy had had time to prepare his oral presentation about his Star Wars reading

summaries, he was not able to show off his website in front of the audience. It was

astonishing that children with an evident disability (especially with speech) were able to

overcome their stage fright and read to the class, but he who is such a good reader and

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had written good summaries was not able to select one (or simply take the one we had

preselected) to read it aloud. Later when he was asked to play a spontaneous role in front

of the class (catch a basketball and say a line), he was able to do that. (04/20/2009)

The tutoring log from 08/10/2009 read, “"On the other hand, he has less sense of

orientation than I and never finds my office after having gone to the restroom… his sister always

finds her way around. Today, we got lost in the building and had to ask a service person for the

way."

Under the subcategory “unusual attendees,” there was only one entry from 10/12/2009,

which dealt with a third-party observer who works with children with disabilities (trisomy 18),

who visited us to witness a tutoring session. She was interviewed by the children. Under the

subcategory “unusual environment,” there was one entry from 10/11/2009, when I had water

damage in office due to a roof leak caused earlier that year by an inland hurricane; both children

lost hand-drawn and hand-written artifacts and a few books I had bought them:

I'm glad we're not tutoring in my office, because I had a leak on Friday and everything

including books and paper was swept away, and there's a big "diaper" hanging from my

ceiling now ;-)) One segment of my ceiling came crashing down on me and covered me in

white, wet chalk ten minutes before teaching!!

However, there is no entry that these extraordinary circumstances (which lasted for

several weeks) impaired the participant’s output or behavior. He and is his sister were not thrilled

to have lost some material, but they basically worked on as if nothing had happened, and

disregarded the diaper, the hose, and the five water buckets standing on their desk to collect

dripping water from the ceiling.

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Under the subcategory “unusual social condition,” there are two entries: On 08/10/2009,

it was the first day after the long summer break, and not much was going on; and on 09/21/2009,

I asked Remy’s mother for permission to videotape her son, and she agreed and then signed on

the wrong side of the form where it said, “I don’t allow it,” which she fixed after I had alerted

her. This was the first incident that made me suspect that she is illiterate.

Finally, under the last rubric entry, the subcategory “stylistic/semantic observations,”

there is one observation dating from 09/23/2009, where I noted: "He tends to write in sentence

fragments now, but I'm sure it's for stylistic purposes, and not out of laziness."

4.2.1.2 Candidate’s experience of stage II.

The most obvious differences between stages I and II are that in stage II, the graphic

novel creation treatment, Remy for the first time did something that was interest driven, and

actually worked on tasks he enjoyed (creating his own Star Wars photo story website). However,

when he had to work on the Benjamin Button graphic novel or on the Bone or Amulet graphic

novels, he still showed off-task and task-avoidance behavior, leaving the room to go to the

restroom, misbehaving, etc. Incidents of bribes and incentives are noted to keep him focused.

Several times, his work is unsatisfactory, and he makes lots of spelling mistakes. He even says he

is bored during the treatment. Four different “semantic observations” give an impression of what

is special about his writing.

Category 1 (Off-task behavior)

There were only three off-task behaviors noted in stage II, compared to six in stage I. The

first one occurred on 06/28/2010 and was a visual distraction; I had to blacken the monitor (and

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lie about why it didn’t work), so that he would focus on his handwriting instead of listening to

youtube videos all the time:

Remy was very unfocused today. I had left the monitor black on purpose and hadn't

signed into the computer with my password, so he wouldn't watch youtube videos all the

time as he did during our last tutoring session (he says he does it to "get ideas how the

story goes on," and sometimes, he wants a Star Wars theme as background music while

he writes his online graphic novel with his own LEGO Star Wars photos, but most of the

time he just wants to avoid writing). When he inquired anxiously what was wrong with

my computer, I said I forgot the password and needed to get a new one for next time.

Astonishingly, there were no further complaints.

A second instance of off-task behavior was “play,” when on 04/30/2010, Remy took his

LEGO® figurines out of his plastic bag and began to play, instead of starting to fill in the speech

bubbles of his first Benjamin Button graphic novel test. The third off-task behavior fell into the

subcategory “boredom” and occurred on the same day (06/28/2010), when I noted in my log,

“‘He exclaimed several times, ‘I'm bored.’ “

Category 2 (on-task behavior)

There were altogether eleven occurrences of on-task behavior noted for the ten

observations selected from stage II, compared to 16 in stage I. Three instances of interest-driven

on-task behavior were recorded, compared to zero in stage I. The first instance occurred on

11/30/2009, the very first day of the treatment, when the participant expressed excitement about a

website LEGO Star Wars photo story he wanted to imitate:

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On Nov. 30th, we started the treatment: A week before, Remy had taken several photos

with my digital camera of LEGO Star Wars figurines he had brought. His model was a

website created by someone using his LEGO Star Wars ships and figurines. Remy is

excited about this website and can tell the picture story by heart. He insisted on reading it

to me several times, and even invents a few sentences that are not written there. So I

promised him he would be allowed to create a story like this himself after finishing the

Benjamin Button essay.

The second interest-driven, on-task behavior occurred on 09/02/2010, when Remy had to

work with technological literacy. Again, it dealt with his self-selected topic, and, instead of

having to write, he just had to download LEGO photos from a camera and save them on the

computer, for later use in his website photo story:

When the children came in, Remy had brought my digital camera back, but asked whether

he could borrow it for another week. I agreed. He downloaded the photos he had taken at

home of his LEGO figurines and ships onto my office computer, using the image program

IrfanView. I showed him a couple of times how to save a picture into a folder on the

desktop, and he soon got the idea and did it on his own. He was very selective and chose

only the clearest, least shaky pictures (lots of them had become blurry, since he had held

the camera too close to the object). He likes the dark pictures (the ones without flash I

would have discarded!); apparently, because they create more suspense and mimic night

time and secrecy.

The third interest-driven on-task behavior was recorded on 10/12/2010, when Remy

begged to be allowed to continue with his photo story. The observation revealed that he had

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plenty of ideas how to create new tabs for his self-selected website topic, and hurried over his

actual task in order to get to where he wanted:

Before getting started on his new task, he asked, "Why can't we do the picture stories we

used to do," referring to his Star Wars online photo stories. (…) In one hour, he had

finished the whole page. Then, he created a new tab for his online photo story. He will

not continue with Kotor 1, but will begin "The Rebellion, book 1." I promised to bring

my camera next time, so he can take new photos.

Four incentive-driven, on-task behaviors were recorded in the observations. The first one

was noted on 11/23/2009, where the tutoring log read: "His biggest incentive was that if he

finished this story, he would be allowed to start a LEGO® Star Wars picture story with his own

photos next time." The second one occurred on 06/28/2010, when I had to make a “deal” with

him to bribe him to do his work. He did perform, although not quite as I had intended:

Finally, I made a "deal" with him: if he filled in three panels with graphics and/or words,

he would get the Star Wars book to start reading, and he would also be allowed to show

me the LEGO figurines and ships he had brought in his plastic bag. He said with a

satisfied grin, "It's a deal!" and set to work. I lured him on with this tactic, and by the end

of the second hour, he had created 8 new panels. However, he didn't deal with the new

Bone story--he had made a graphic novel from memory about the Amulet book, which he

had at home.

Below (Fig. 10) is a scan of his output. The first panel was created in the tutoring session

before; it shows the accident of a family, with the father in the car falling down a cliff, and the

mother and daughter standing on the cliff.

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Figure 10. Hand-drawing Sample of Graphic Novel Creation from 06/28/2010 (Amulet)

The third incentive-driven, on-task behavior happened on 09/14/2010. Here for the first

time, it was observed that he played first, and then voluntarily set to work, recognizing that this

was “the deal”:

When he was done with his oral reciting, he said, "I guess I have some work to do now,"

and began to type into the prepared speech bubbles. He did not once look at the book, but

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wrote everything from memory, although he has read other Bone volumes in the

meantime.

The fourth and last incentive-driven, on-task behavior was recorded on 10/12/2010, when

it became clear that he was looking through me: "Today, Remy worked very diligently for the

first hour, because I had told him his incentive for October had arrived and was on top of my

shelf, and that he could have it in the second hour if he did a good job. He asked, ’Are you trying

to bribe me?’"

There was one case of being “mocked by other student”: on 04/30/2010, Rula teased

Remy, admonishing him to write, while she showed him how far she had already gotten. Three

incidents of “teacher comparison with the other student” were noted, the first of which occurred

on 04/30/2010. It dealt with the first Benjamin Button test: I had brought four pages of panels

scanned from the Benjamin Button graphic novel and arranged in a Word document table. The

children had read the text-only version the year before, and saw for the first time what it was like

when rendered in pictures and speech bubbles.

The requirement was to write "at least one sentence for each blank text box." Rula was

interested in it immediately and inquired, "Oh, you have a picture book about this? Did

you bring it? This is not the whole story; do you have the rest?" I assured her she would

get the rest next time, when we would continue the quiz, and that those four pages would

be all they could do in one hour. Remy was not enthusiastic at all. They both got one hour

to write, plus five minutes, since it was five to four when we started. I set an alarm clock

and told them we would stop exactly when it rang, no matter how far they got. Rula went

diligently about her task and finished in 35 minutes, handing over her sheet to me at 4:30

p.m. She asked several questions about content and spelling, which was allowed. Remy

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did not ask a single question. He did not do anything for the first ten minutes besides

eating, making sounds, taking out a LEGO® ship from his plastic bag and playing with it,

and being rude to his sister, who teased him from time to time, admonishing him to start

writing, and telling him how far she had gotten already. He started throwing food at her,

and a Twix hit her head, so she started to cry. I had to pet her black braided hair and to

calm her down. She didn't cry because it hurt, but because her brother had been nasty to

her, and she exaggerated, "he's always mean to me!" I made him say "I'm sorry" to her,

which he did in all honesty, but it took a little while until she could focus on her work

again. He repeated over and over to himself: "I'm a failure! I'm a failure as a brother!!" I

assured him he wasn't a failure as a brother, and that all kids have fights sometimes...

On 06/28/2010, the teacher log reveals that I tried to give Remy ideas how to start by

showing him his little sister’s graphic novel beginning. Needless to say, it had no impact on his

performance:

When this didn't help, I showed him how his little sister had begun her graphic novel

about the Tiny Titans: she had introduced her characters in the first few panels, so the

reader knew who would be in her story. I told both children that I would give their stories

to other children (or to each other), and they would have to be able to understand the

whole story from their drawings and words, without previously having read the book.

However, this strategy didn't suit him, either.

On 11/30/2010, I made another comparison with Remy’s little sister, who achieved much

more in the same amount of time, but I kept it to myself and did not play her out in front of him; I

just wrote the following remark into the tutoring log:

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We finally got one tab done (…). In her hour, Rula had written four pages with four

panels of both photos she had gotten from the Internet, and text she had made up. She had

typed two big text fields, and dictated the other two to me. Plus, she had done the work

on the laptop first, and later retyped it on the PC from memory.

Category 3 (Affective behavior)

There are 19 entries under category 3 in stage II. The first subgroup is “enjoys tasks,” and

has four entries compared to zero in the pre-treatment stage I. This means that no instance was

recorded that Remy liked to write a text-only essay; whether handwritten or typed. However, the

observations also revealed (quite disappointingly) that Remy did not enjoy the task of creating a

graphic novel more than the task of writing an essay; he enjoyed creating his own Star Wars

LEGO® photo website! There is no recording that he enjoyed the task of creating his Benjamin

Button graphic novel, or the Bone or Amulet graphic novels. He did not like hand-drawing a

graphic novel, because he thought he was bad at drawing, and his sister mocked him for

producing nothing but “stick figures,” as shall be seen later. Likewise, he did not get excited

about cutting and pasting scanned cartoon images from Bone into a Word document table and

inserting and filling in his own speech bubbles. He performed those tasks, and sometimes

satisfactorily, mainly for incentives (namely, new LEGO® pieces to include in his online Star

Wars photo story). His interest and joy were solely reserved for his hobby. The first instance of

task enjoyment was recorded on 11/23/2009, before we even started the treatment phase of stage

II. On that day, he got to pick his activity for the future months: he was going to create a Star

Wars online photo story (a kind of a web graphic novel) along a sample website that he presented

to me with great enthusiasm:

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He showed me such a story on the Internet, and is very excited about it. He is able to read

the text with the characters' original voices (including the beeps of the clones) in a very

convincing story-telling manner. He seems to know this text almost by heart. He even

adds his own meaningful content to the existing text. His motivation is very high.

The second evidence that Remy enjoyed his task was noted a week later, on 11/30/2009,

where he displayed focus, concentration, and joy when starting his own LEGO® photo story. For

now, it was on paper, not on a website yet. He was very self-sufficient; he selected his own

model, and he had plenty of ideas how to proceed, since he already knew the content of the story

he wanted to write from the Star Wars movie. He did not need to invent anything new.

Today, Remy got the computer with Internet access from 5-6 p.m., and Rula from 6-7

p.m., so he knew he had exactly one hour to look at a sample LEGO® Star Wars picture

story on the Internet, and to start creating one himself. He had found a self-made Star

Wars photo story by someone (not animated) that was set up in a table: on the left side

were the photos of LEGO® Star Wars figurines and ships/scenes, and on the right side

was the text. Remy created a logo in the first field of the blank table I set up for him. It

was in white letters on a black background, and read, “Star Wars lightsaber duel episode

III.” I had brought my digital camera, and he spent the rest of the hour taking photos of

several LEGO® Star Wars figurines he had brought from home. He was very on-task.

On 12/07/2009, the teacher log showed that by mistake, I had not saved Remy’s latest

written version on the laptop, so a whole day’s work from the previous week was lost. Of course,

I could not let him make that up, so I retyped what he used to have, and he continued from there.

This observation revealed that Remy has his own head, and when he thinks nothing happens in a

panel, he does not want any words in there, because the picture says it all. This was one of many

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instances where he justified blank text field not by laziness, but by purpose; even if not recorded

here, because the statements were not among the randomly selected 10 artifacts, Remy stated

quite often during the treatment stage II that some panels have to remain empty because “here,

we have music,” and he also showed me evidence on his sample website: “See, he doesn’t have

any text here, either.”

He worked very concentrated and diligently on his task. I typed only a few sentences for

him—those that I had deleted last time by mistake. He typed all the rest by himself, and

faster than I would have thought (…). Alas, he wants more LEGO® figurines, in order to

have more pictures to write about!! He also claimed the first three text fields would have

to remain empty, because "nothing happens there."

The fourth observation stems from 02/09/2010 and shows that Remy did not write a lot,

but had fun planning for his character creation and explaining his heroes’ features to me:

Today, Remy worked very diligently and on-task, albeit not writing a whole lot—he told

me excitedly, "I have an idea: I'm going to make my own characters!", and he ordered

stickers online, which he can stick on blank LEGO figurines to give them different

uniforms. (Previously, in our tutoring session on Monday, February 1st, he had created a

"Star Wars Character" page on his website for me, so that I was informed of the "breed of

alien," "skills," and "space vehicle" belonging to each character in his online photo

stories.) He rewrote the last entry of his graphic novel, "LEGO Star Wars Episode III,

Revenge of the Sith": "Your swords please. Wouldn't want to make a mess infront of the

chancelor. you aren't getting away this time Dooku." Interestingly, he typed this without

prompt from me; totally on his own. I did not proofread it for errors, since I did not want

to interfere with his enthusiasm, or steal his sense of authorship.

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Category 3 (affective behavior) also contains two entries that Remy did not enjoy the task

he was working on. The first instance was recorded on 11/30/2009; the second day of the

treatment stage II, where he worked diligently during the first hour, during which he got to look

at youtube Star Wars movies and take photos of his LEGO® figurines. However, when his time

was up and his sister got the computer, he lost all interest in his story and refused to type.

When his hour was over and he had to go to the laptop without Internet access to fill in

the side with the text, he was very off-task. He went to the bathroom right away; then, he

continued to take photos until I took the camera and the LEGO® figurines away. Finally,

I could convince him to dictate to me what he wanted to have in one of the blank text

spaces. Remy insisted that the first three tabs remain blank: "There is no text that goes

here! Nothing happens here." Then, he claimed he could not do the story; he needed to

buy more LEGO sets first. I told him he could also get existing pictures from the Internet.

He handwrote a “Note to self” for me: “remember to help remy [sic] buy Star Wars sets.”

He taped the note on my wall over the desk. We finally got one tab done.

The second entry dated from 04/30/2010 and shows that Remy would rather work on his

story another day and order incentives from amazon.com instead: “He protested several times,

asking things like, ‘Can't we do that next time?’, ‘Can I order things now?’ I told him that we

would write the test first, and that we would order our rewards for April at the beginning of

April, which would be the following week.”

The subcategory of “task avoidance” contains one entry from 04/30/2010, where Remy

was supposed to fill in the bank text fields of his first Benjamin Button graphic novel test.

Instead, he was eating, making sounds, playing with LEGO®, and throwing food around, which

hit his sister, who started to cry. This incident has already been quoted further above.

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The subcategory “tries to change tasks” has four entries in stage II, compared to only two

in stage I. This behavior was observed for the first time on 02/09/2010, when Remy gets side-

tracked from his writing project by showing me animated online LEGO® Star Wars stories and

synchronizing them for me:

He repeatedly complained that my office PC does not have sound, and showed me an

animated online LEGO® Star Wars photo story, speaking the text to it rapidly while the

events unfolded. He must have heard it several times, in order to remember it that well.

He is a great story-teller. He even makes the sounds and noises of the droids and battles.

(...) Remy is wasting a lot of our tutoring time by clicking on existing stories to "get

ideas" (supposedly; or just to enjoy them and be off-task), but if I let him have this "time

off," he then willingly creates his own stories.

The second incident occurred on 06/28/2010, when Remy told me he wanted to do

something else than his beloved Star Wars online photo story. I was astonished, because this had

been his self-selected topic he was so enthusiastic about, but I fulfilled his wish: "Last tutoring

session, Remy had requested some time off Star Wars: ‘I need a break from Kotor.’ Thus, we had

started with a printed graphic novel (…)." The third incident occurred on the same day: I wanted

him to write, and he was only supposed to read the first chapter, but he just wanted to read on in

his Bone book. I ended up snitching it away from him:

… he interestedly began to read the first chapter at once. I had put a post-it note where

chapter II starts, but when he reached it, he asked for permission to read on. I allowed him

to read up to the beginning of chapter III. Then, he would get to create his own graphic

novel. He had a printed out template with 12 panels lying on his desk before him.

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However, when finished reading, he begged to read on until I took the book away from

him.

For a fourth time, the task-changing tactic was observed on 10/12/2010, when I wanted

him to handwrite, and he would have rather done his website: “Before getting started on his new

task, he asked, ‘Why can't we do the picture stories we used to do,’ referring to his Star Wars

online photo stories. I promised him that if he finished this task, he could start a new sequel of

his online story.” (10/12/2010) In sum, it can be seen that Remy tries to get away from difficult

tasks (handwriting, typing in Word) by asking to be allowed to watch youtube LEGO® Star

Wars videos and explain the stories, by putting photos up on his website, typing text on his

website, or just by reading.

The subgroup “complaint” in stage II has no entries, as opposed to two in stage I.

However, the subgroup “leaving the room” has two entries, just as in stage I. The first incident

occurred on 12/07/2009: “At first, he went to the restroom and started to procrastinate again, but

then he got all involved.” The second occurrence was recorded on 11/30/2010, when the tutoring

log revealed he went to the restroom to avoid typing, after having taken photos for his website

and being done with the easy things that interested him.

The next sub-group is “making noises.” In stage I, there was one entry, and in stage II, we

have two. The initial case happened on 04/30/2010, when Remy was supposed to write his first

Benjamin Button graphic novel test and made funny noises instead. The second incident was

recorded on 06/28/2010 and provoked a statement from his little sister:

I encouraged him to write the title, Eyes of the Storm, on top of the page, and the subtitle,

“The Watch,” maybe in the first panel, but nothing happened. Remy wrote one word on

top of the page with the 12 empty panels: “the.” Then, he erased it and wasted the rest of

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the whole first hour with misbehaving, stealing my book, reading on in Bone, and making

strange noises. His little sister commented, “You make sounds like a madman.”

The following subgroup, “gymnastics on chair,” has one entry from 06/28/2010. This

behavior was actually observed quite often during the three years of observation, but does not

happen to be in any of the other randomly selected transcripts and logs. Often, I had to admonish

Remy to sit orderly on his swivel chair, and not to kneel or stand or balance himself. Then,

finally, the accident happened:

Several times, he tried to snitch the book away from me, and since he was kneeling on his

swiveling chair, he fell down when he made a too hefty movement and landed under my

desk, throwing over the computer and banging his head on the table. He sat stupefied and

then explained, “I hurt myself!” I told him that happened because he wasn't sitting right

on his chair, and he protested: “I wasn't even sitting!” (Yeah, that's the point!) He climbed

back to his feet, and I tried to gain his attention several times and direct his focus to the

Bone story by asking him about the characters, the setting, etc.

Another incident that was equally annoying was that Remy oftentimes interfered with the

videotaping. He did not like to be videotaped, and tried to lay the camera on its side, turn it off,

take it away and videotape the inside of his mouth, and things like that. One case of this

disruptive behavior occurred on 04/30/2010: “When he noticed later that I was videotaping the

session, he stood up, walked over to the shelf, and turned over the camera. I stood up, too, and

erected it again, and told him to leave it like this.”

Under the subcategory “misbehavior,” there are two entries, namely the already cited

incidents on 04/30/2010 (where he threw around with food and made his sister cry) and on

06/28/2010 (where he stole my book and made noises like a madman).

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4.3.1.3 Candidate’s experience of stage III.

In the third stage, the participant spent all 11 days writing his text-only essay about

Benjamin Button. A striking fact was learned by the investigator close to the end of the study (it

falls under Category 11, unusual social condition): on 05/17/2011, I finally received the

confirmation from the little girl that their mother was illiterate:

I told the children that this exit survey marked the end of our tutoring time, my contract

with Remy was over, and they wouldn’t get monthly rewards any more, but they still

could come to my private tutoring sessions if they wanted to. Rula exclaimed excitedly,

“We’ll probably come until we graduate!” while her brother kept quiet. From his face I

could tell a burning question was working in him. And then it came out: “Can we make a

new contract, so I can order more LEGO?” He explained to me that he wanted to work on

a new sequel to his online photo story about Star Wars. “The camera is ready, but I’m

really short on blocks.” I told him we could think about that, but that I would talk to his

mother first, and that I was astonished that she had signed the contract in the first place,

because it said he would get LEGO as incentives, and later she had asked me not to buy

him LEGO anymore, because “it is everywhere; even in the bathroom!” Rula blurted out:

“That’s because mom never read the contract! He read it to her, but he left out the LEGO

part!” When I stared at her in surprise, she became really embarrassed and said in a little

voice: “Em, mom can’t read that well. Where our mom grew up, when she was little, she

didn’t get a good education.” (05/17/2011)

I had already suspected as much, but had been too embarrassed and too shy to ask the single

parent; my suspicion had arisen early in the study when she had signed the video-taping consent

form in the wrong place. She would also never open a letter I gave her, but take it with her. For a

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while, I considered offering the mother reading lessons, but again, I did not dare to offend her,

and had no idea how to bring up that topic, so I let it go. Since the little girl, Rula, showed no

issues with writing and was well ahead for her age group, I felt confident that their mother’s

illiteracy had had no negative impact on the boy’s writing problems; if at all, it might have had

an enticing effect on the children, encouraging them to use the chances of a good education given

to them. However, again, due to the sensitivity of the information I did not question the children

any further, since this was obviously a taboo topic for them, judging from the girl’s voice and

facial expression.

The third stage was the most productive of all stages regarding the quantity of the written

output. Especially on the last two days, the output was astonishing high, which might have been

due to the impending end of the study, the final reward, and the promise of a new task (Category

2, on-task behavior, incentive driven). Every tutoring session, it was observed that the tutee did

not use his printed-out graphic novel he had created about Benjamin Button, in order to compose

his final text-only essay, although he was reminded several times that he was allowed to look at it

and use the wording from his speech bubbles. Instead, he insisted on re-creating the essay from

scratch, and found an entirely new vocabulary. He did flip through the many pages of his graphic

novel to look at the sequence of events, but he did not copy any text at all. He showed his usual

behavior of switching off the i-flip video camera, walking around, making noises, etc., but he

also had longer periods of focused, silent, on-task computer work. What is more, he even

reflected a bit about his situation.

For January 25th, 2011, I made an entry in Category 4 (Metacognitive explanation),

because in a rather touching scene, Remy explained his writing troubles. It occurred in minute

19:09 of a video that took 1:03:31 hrs. I had promised him he would be allowed to hear the Star

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Wars theme music on youtube if he finished a given number of sentences within half an hour. I

gave him the reason for his slowness, but instead of acknowledging it, he went over it jokingly.

Tutor: Write at least five sentences, okay?

Remy: I will.

Tutor: And you need to do it a bit faster; otherwise, the music will be in the last

minute, and you won’t hear very much anymore, right?

Remy: One. I already have one sentence.

Tutor: That’s good!

Remy: I know that, I know that I have the ability to do this, but the problem is I

am a slow writer. And I am a poor typer.

Tutor: It’s perfect! Very good! You have a perfect word there. Yeah, it is nice!

Remy: I don’t like to brag, but some people also say that I have a good, that I also

have a good, err, you know.

Tutor: You have a very good vocabulary!

Remy: Yeah, right!

Tutor: Like “optimistic”; that’s a very difficult word. Nobody your age knows

that. That’s awesome! So yeah. You just make too many long breaks in

between. You are a fast typer. Like the first sentence was done so fast – I

turned around, and it was there! So, if you wouldn’t take so many breaks

and eat and walk around and come back and talk to Rula, you would be

done already with five sentences.

Remy: Hi, Rula!!

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Not only was I talking to the wall when admonishing him not to walk around so much, he

also disregarded my authority on January 25th, 2011. According to the tutor log, I was sitting next

to him, herding him on by saying, “So, are we done now?” when he slammed his hand in the

direction of my face and exclaimed: “Hand attack!!!” I pushed his hand away and said indignant:

“I’m your teacher! No attack.”

The tutoring session on February 1st, 2011, proved to be a real disaster. Remy had lost the

text he had typed the previous time! The whole two hours, he could not talk about anything else.

Remy: I still, I still can’t believe you forgot to save this.

Tutor: You said you saved it. I just exited out. It is your responsibility.

Remy: I, well, yeah, well, ahhh…

Tutor: I asked you before I closed it, “Did you save it?” – “Uhum.” Now it’s gone. But

you’ll remember it… besides, here is the story. You can use it. Maybe we can

recreate it from memory. You said something with, “In the bed sat…”

Remy: Miss Christina. Miss Christina?

Tutor: Okay. So, let’s try. Try to recreate. I can take notes, if you want me to. Can you

remember what you said? I can write it down first, and then you copy? We’ve

done it before. So, this is what he saw. And then you said something with, “In the

bed sat an old man with a white beard,” or something. Remember? What did he

say?

Remy: I’m angry at you.

Tutor: I asked, “Did you save?”

Remy: Well, you should have reminded me.

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Tutor: I did! Before you left, I asked, “Did you save it? I’m closing it down,” and you

said, “yes,” and walked out.

Remy: Yeah, well, you could have made sure…

Tutor: I trust you! So this time, we’re really careful and save every sentence. Every

sentence.

Remy: You can’t look!

Tutor: I can look; I’m the teacher. Don’t make it dirty.

Remy: You can’t look!

Tutor: I can; I’m the teacher.

Remy: Yeah, but you’re making me feel uncomfortable.

Tutor: Really? Okay, then I’ll look at what she’s ordering. That should be easy for you;

you’ve done it already. So, let’s try…

Since he had refused my offer of note-taking, and I was not allowed to look at what he typed, I

helped the girl order her incentives on amazon.com instead, and promised him he could order his

as soon as he had retyped two sentences. But the working climate in our office that day was

destroyed.

A different picture provides a later tutoring session: On February 15th, 2011, I recorded

strong on-task behavior and satisfactory pace and quantity of his output; I praised him for his

accomplishment and rewarded him with having the computer to listen to music videos (which

banned his little sister to the laptop without Internet access). It occurred in minute 10:58 of that

day’s video. Remy had just announced proudly that he had typed the content of three panels

(which he calls “boxes”) into his text-only Benjamin Button essay. Those were the panels where

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the father of Benjamin Button (who is supposed to look like a baby) cuts his long beard and hair,

and makes him wear strange-looking children’s clothes:

Remy: Yes, I did it; I did three boxes!!!

Tutor: Really?

Remy: Uhum!

Rula: Three boxes? What do you mean, three boxes?

Tutor: Let’s see!

Remy: I already did where he wears strange clothes…

Tutor: Yes, you did it! Good job! I’m proud of you! This is great! Long hair and beard;

yeah! So that’s when you get to the next thing, when he cuts his beard and his

hair… Okay!

Remy: Alright. Technically, technically, I think it sums it up. Technically, I think it sums

up both of these, both of these in one!

Tutor: Uhum, you can combine them.

Remy: Yeah.

Tutor: This way, you have four pictures already.

Remy: Three and a half. Yeah, high five! I get the computer! (beams up happily and claps

both hands with tutor’s hands)

Tutor: High five! You get the computer! (turns to girl) So, you have to save everything…

Remy: Sorry, Rula!

He was not sorry at all! On March 29th, I was not satisfied with the pace of his work

(Category 6). This session was marked by lots of off-task behavior. He spent a long time painting

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LEGO figurines with a Sharpie and listening to youtube videos on the computer. The plastic wall

clock showed 4:20 p.m. when the video started, and 4:55 p.m. by the time he finally began to

type for about a minute, followed by getting up and walking around again. When he typed, I saw

him typing with his left hand, his right hand clutching a LEGO® figurine.

May 4th, 2011, was a very unsatisfactory tutoring session insofar as I had planned an

informal interview, but it did not work. I recorded this under Category 3 (affective behavior;

ignoring teacher). The following verbatim transcript excerpt shows my futile attempts to get

Remy to answer my question. He was sitting at the computer, searching something on

amazon.com. I thought this was a laid-back and relaxed situation, and perfectly suited to ask

some inconspicuous questions.

Tutor: So which story is better, the story you wrote like a whole year ago, without any

pictures, about Benjamin Button, after we read it, or the picture story, or this one,

that we are doing now?

Rula: I like the one he’s doing now. I mean, it’s better than the other…

Tutor: What do you think, which one is better? One of the three. Like, which one would

get the A? And the other one an A- or a B. Which one would be the best? You get

to pick. Remy, what do you think? The very first one you wrote? The long one?

Or the one with pictures? Or the one you’re doing now? Make a guess. We wanna

see if you can guess right. What do you think?

Remy: (after 42 seconds) Wait!

Tutor: What do you think? Which one is best?

Remy: It’s Darth Vader from the Force Unleashed!!!

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Needless to say, from then on, the conversation drifted off to Star Wars. However, the

main focus of Stage III did end up being Category 4 (Metacognitive explanation); after several

vain attempts of an informal oral interview, which proved impossible due to the uncooperative

behavior and refusal to answer by the tutee, the investigator used an online survey created with

surveymonkey.com to gain understanding of the participant’s feeling about the three treatment

stages.

At first, I had attempted informal, non-structured interviews, integrated in the weekly

tutoring, using some types of interview questions as delineated by Kvale (1996): introducing

questions, follow-up questions, probing questions, specifying questions, direct questions, indirect

questions, structuring questions, silence, and interpreting questions (Kvale, 1996, pp. 133-135).

However, at the beginning of Stage II, this strategy had already failed; whenever I asked Remy

apparently random questions, such as “which book do you want to read next,” letting him choose

between a graphic novel and a text-only book, he could not make up his mind and took both. I

noticed that due to the nature and character of the participant, an unstructured or nonstandardized

interview in the sense of Kvale and Brinkmann (2009) was not possible:

[t]he qualitative interview is sometimes called an unstructured or a nonstandardized

interview. Because there are few prestructured or standardized procedures for conducting

these forms of interviews, many of the methodical decisions have to be made on the spot,

during the interview. (Kvale & Brinkmann, 2009, p. 16)

The goal of the interviewer, according to Kvale (1996), has to be to elicit spontaneous

descriptions from the participant, and not his own speculative explanation of why something

happened (Kvale, 1996, p. 131); the foremost task of an interviewer is to figure out the reasons

and explanations for events in a given situation in the participant’s life (Kvale, 1996, p. 131). As

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a successful interviewing technique, Kvale (1996) recommends to ask the “why” and “what”

questions and have them answered before any “how” questions; the main questions should be

descriptive (e.g., “What happened, and how did it happen?” “How did you feel/what did you

experience?”) (Kvale, 1996, p. 130-131).

In the phenomenological and hermeneutical approaches to interviewing, listening is very

important, especially the ideal of listening without prejudice and interruptions of the participant

from the interviewer, so that the participant’s descriptions can unfold without presuppositions

from the part of the interviewer (Kvale, 1996, p. 135). Therefore, I tried to be careful not to elicit

any answers “I wanted to hear” by coaxing Remy in a certain direction, and not to make him feel

I expect a certain answer from him. Finally, Kvale and Brinkman maintain that the interviewer

cannot be “stonily impersonal” but has to give something of herself in order to build up a

relationship with the interviewee; however, they also warn not to offend the interviewee by

crossing the line of privacy that only friends can cross (cited from Sennett, 2004, in Kvale &

Brinkmann, 2009, p. 16). In this regard, I tried not to ask too personal or embarrassing things of

Remy, and to give him friendly and personal examples from my life, so as to make him feel more

at ease.

On Tuesday, May 24th, 2011, the exit survey was performed. As per recommendations

from Kvale and Brinkmann, I asked several “why”- questions. The survey contained bubbles to

check-mark, and a few open-ended answer fields; the participant was told he could ask the

investigator to type for him, if he planned on a longer answer. This option was selected so that

the tutee’s aversion to writing would not enter in conflict with a meaningful completion of the

survey. Remy sat right down and began to answer it; he typed the short answers all by himself

and just dictated the longer ones. The first question on the survey asked him to rate on a scale

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from 1-3, one being “easy,” 2 “in the middle,” and 3 “difficult,” how difficult he found it to write

each of the three assignments, 1. the first text-only essay about Benjamin Button, 2. the graphic

novel about this book, and 3. the last essay, with the help of the graphic novel. The participant

assigned a 2 to the first essay, and a 1 to both the “graphic novel” and the last essay. This was

astonishing for the investigator insofar as according to the problems the tutee had shown when

composing the first essay (which remained unfinished), a 3 (meaning difficult) could have been

expected as an answer.

The second question asked the participant which version he thought had been the most

fun to do. His options were 1. writing the first essay, 2. writing the graphic novel, 3. writing the

last essay, using his graphic novel, 4. all were fun to do, and 5. none were fun to do. Remy chose

the third option. This result also came surprising to the researcher, who had anticipated “none

were fun to do,” or at least “writing the graphic novel” – since it was impossible for the

investigator to interview the participant orally and obtain any meaningful explanations for his

answer choices (I suspected autistic behavior, but the participant had never been clinically

examined), I could just take this as a sign that the boy did not “hate writing per se,” and that

filling in speech bubbles was not seen as fulfilling by him as writing a coherent essay, albeit with

the help of imagery. The third question asked the participant which version of the essay he

thought was the best, either the first text-only essay or the second one, or whether they were both

equally good. This is what the participant dictated:

The second essay is the best because it definitely has a lot more words in it than the other

two put together. The first essay, although it had more pages, the font was larger and it

had less words. The graphic novel had less words than both essays, and it wasn’t very

descriptive.

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The participant clearly associated a “bad essay” with having fewer words, but he did not

talk at all about its style. Personally, the investigator enjoyed reading the first essay, albeit

unfinished, more, since it showed more creativity and eloquence, despite focusing too much on

the introductory paragraph. The participant also judged the graphic novel inferior, since the

speech bubble texts were not as descriptive, which shows his appreciation for detailed textual

information.

The fourth question asked the participant to highlight in green the sentences in both

essays that he found very good and was proud of. Then, he was asked to highlight in red the

sentences in both essays that he thought were bad or did not like. What he highlighted has been

discussed in 4.3.2 Content Analysis. To the question which of the essays had the most green

highlighting, he replied, “essay 2.”

Question five was about which grade the participant would give himself for each of the

two essays. He assigned himself a D for the first essay and an A for the second essay. Question

six asked the participant why the first essay was unfinished, and he typed the answer, “I forget.”

Question seven asked him why the second essay was finished, and he typed by himself, “Because

it was requiered [sic] by Miss Christina.” Question eight asked whether he thought that pictures

can help students write, and why, or why not. He was allowed to dictate the answer to the

investigator. However, he just typed in, “Prehaps [sic].” Question nine asked whether the

participant thought he would write better in his English classes if he had pictures with his texts,

and he answered, “maybe.” For this question, he also did not feel like dictating a longer answer.

Question ten asked the participant whether his English teacher in his school gave him more time

than other students to finish tasks, or the same amount of time, and he check-marked “the same

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time.” I had asked this question to see whether his IEP in reading and mathematics for “executive

function disorder” included extra time for writing assignments, and apparently, it did not.

Question eleven asked Remy whether he thought he got better in his English class

because he had participated in the Reading Clinic (with which I referred to our two-and-a-half

years of tutoring, not just the official Reading Clinic offered by graduate students in the context

of a course at our university). He check-marked, “yes, a little.” Question twelve was about what

the participant wanted to do when the study was over, and what he did not want to do. He check-

marked the following things he wanted to do: 1. Write with pictures on paper, 2. write using

sound and movie clips, 3. write together with his sister, 4. write together with other students, 5.

invent our own fantasy world and characters, and put them on the Internet, and 6. learn about

“vooks” (video books). He check-marked the following things he did not want to do: 1. Write

only text in handwriting, 2. write only text on the computer, and 3. write totally alone. I had

asked the last question to find out whether the constant competition with his little sister made

him feel bad, but obviously, he enjoyed having her around during the writing activities.

For question 13, I asked Remy whether he had learned anything during the three years of

Reading Clinic (2009-2011) with me. He check-marked, “yes, I improved my computer skills

(for example, website)” and “yes, I improved my writing.” He did not check “no, not really,”

“yes, I improved my concentration and focus,” or “yes, I read lots of new books.” I wondered

why he did not check the last item, since he evidently did read lots of new books (all the

incentives he won for his work, and the Boba Fett books and Bone graphic novels, just to

mention a few).

Question 14 asked the participant what grades he had received in his past and current

English classes. He check-marked that he had received a B in spring 2009, a B in fall 2009, and

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an A in spring 2010, fall 2010, and spring 2011. I did not verify these answers with his teachers,

but would be pleasantly surprised if he had gotten such good grades despite his failure of

finishing assignments. At the same time, I wondered if those answers had been honest, whether

he would need an “intervention,” such as an imagery strategy, at all.

Question 15 asked Remy how much effort, rated on a scale from 1-10 (one meaning very

little, and 10 meaning a lot), he had put into his work in the Reading Clinic, and he assigned

himself a number 8. Question 16 asked why he had done so much work in the Reading Clinic. He

check-marked the answers, 1. “because I got LEGO stuff,” 2. “because I wanted to become a

better writer,” and 3. “because my mother wants me to become a better writer.” He did not

check-mark the answer options, “I had to do it, because I had a contract,” and “other reasons (you

can dictate this to me).” Here, I could see his intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, as well as his

goal-orientation: one the one hand, he wanted to improve himself, and on the other hand, he

wanted to please his parent; he also liked receiving incentives.

Question 17 was opinion based and asked what made the best online story. Remy

checked, “text with pictures and animation and sound,” and did not check “text only,” “text with

pictures,” or “text with pictures and animation.” That showed me that he would have preferred a

movie-like version of his Star Wars website (as he had also explained several times during our

work on his site), since he was a very musical child and loved sound, not just images. He also

preferred animation to static images. The final question, number 18, asked Remy if Miss

Christina had learned anything during the three years of Reading Clinic, and he checked, “yes,

she learned something about Star Wars, but she still has a lot to learn!” I had integrated this

question according to Kvale and Brinkmann’s suggestion that the interviewer has to give

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something of herself, and it showed me that Remy appreciated what little progress I had made

when delving into his favorite topic, and that I still was not at his level.

Overall, this survey showed that Remy thought his final product, a text-only essay with

the help of a graphic novel, was his best writing when compared to his first essay and his graphic

novel, because it was longer and more descriptive; that he thought writing graphic novels or with

the help of those was easy; that he thought he had put quite a lot of effort in his work during the

Reading Clinic; that he received very good to excellent grades in his English classes; that he

thought he had learned and improved a little bit during our study; that he enjoyed working

alongside his sister; that he wanted to become a better writer for himself and his mother; and that

he had little opinion about whether graphic novels could help struggling writers to write.

4.3 Mixed Analysis: Effectiveness and Feasibility of the Intervention

This study posed the following mixed methods research question: In what ways (if any)

are graphic novels a useful and beneficial intervention for a struggling writer? In order to answer

this, a syntactic analysis of the writing samples of all three stages was performed to determine

whether the intervention produced any remarkable improvement in the participant’s writing style.

Further, verbatim video transcripts and Flanders Interaction Analyses shed light on how this

interaction might play out in a real classroom, and whether it is an effective remediation or

causes more trouble than benefits. Finally, the numbers gained through the quantitative analysis

as well as observed behavioral patterns from the qualitative analysis will be woven together to

show whether overall, this graphic novel treatment had a positive impact on the quantity and

quality of the participant’s writing skills, his self-perception about his writing skills, and his

motivation to perform writing skills.

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Thus, the mixed analysis consists of three parts: (1) A syntactic analysis of the writing

samples of all stages to assess quality and pace; (2) An analysis of verbatim video transcripts

compared with a Flanders Interaction Analysis; and (3) An explanation of the quantitative data

through the qualitative data gained from observations.

4.3.1 Quality and Pace of Writing Samples: Syntactic Analysis

The 6+1 Trait® Writing Scale assesses the quality of the writing samples only partly. It

focuses mainly on content and ideas; however, a syntactic analysis can bring more insight into

the writing style. Syntax is the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed

sentences. The goal of the intervention was to elevate the participant’s writing quality, amount,

and pace. A good measure of evaluating the writing quality is to count how many complete

clauses (containing at least a subject and a predicate) versus sentences (statements, questions,

exclamations, or commands), phrases (small group of words standing together as conceptual unit,

typically forming a component of a clause), and sentence fragments the participant uses in each

artifact from each stage, and to calculate the average. It could be observed during the Reading

Clinic tutorials prior to Stage I that the participant liked short sentences and used fragments quite

frequently. It can be assumed that in Stage II, the participant will use lots of fragments due to the

nature of text-limiting speech bubbles; furthermore, the use of callouts (exclamations) can be

expected to rise. The amount of writing can be demonstrated by a word count per artifact, which

will also show the pace of writing. One tutoring session lasted two hours, so the amount of words

written per artifact shows the pace of writing per 120 minutes.

Table 6 shows the semantic analysis of each of the ten chosen artifacts per stage: the

number of words, the number of clauses, the average number of words per clause, the number of

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sentences, phrases, and fragments, the number of spelling/grammar mistakes, the number of

punctuation mistakes, and the total number of mistakes. The results for Stage I and Stage III were

astonishingly similar, which would indicate little improvement of writing quality over the three

years of tutoring, including one year of treatment. However, the number of words to number of

total mistakes ratio has greatly improved. The participant had an average of 68.1 words per

writing sample in Stage I, and an average of 3.8 mistakes, which gives him a words/mistakes

ratio of 17.9; that means, every 18th word or punctuation mark was wrong. The participant had an

average of 91.2 words per writing sample in Stage II, and an average of 15.6 mistakes, which

gives him a words/mistakes ratio of 5.8; that means, every sixth word or punctuation mark in his

graphic novels was wrong! Lastly, the participant had an average of 93.3 words per writing

sample in Stage III, and an average of only 1.9 mistakes, which gives him a words/mistakes ratio

of 49.1; that means, in his final stage, only every 50th word or punctuation mark was wrong.

Fig. 11a is a line diagram about the average number of complete clauses the participant

used per stage, and the number of phrases and fragmented sentences. As expected, Stage II, due

to the graphic novel format with callouts and speech bubbles, received the highest scores.

Astonishingly, the participant did not improve his words per clause very much from Stage I to

Stage III (5.3 in Stage I vs. 7.3 in Stage III).

Fig. 11b shows the graphic rendering of the average number of words per artifact and

clause, the average number of total mistakes per stage, and the words/mistakes ratio per stage. At

least here, the participant has made progress. He writes more words overall, and he makes fewer

grammar, spelling, and punctuation mistakes. Again, the maturity process of the participant has

to be taken into consideration when regarding this evolution of his writing capabilities.

Furthermore, Stage I contained one handwritten sample (from 08/17/2009), which had 28 total

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mistakes. This brings the overall statistics down, and it was mainly a result of no computer spell-

check being present. To weaken this argument, it can be said that the participant was allowed to

ask the tutor at any time about correct mechanics, but sometimes, he did not bother.

Sadly, the participant’s sentences become shorter (an average of 12.7 words per clause in

Stage I vs. an average of 11.6 words per clause in Stage III), although a maturity process can be

assumed! This may be because the participant was so focused on creating limited speech-bubble

sentences to images in Stage II that he kept this form of organization during Stage III, and made

his sentences shorter and less verbose. This is a great loss, considering the admirable tone and

voice of the participant in Stage I. Although he used to get off-topic and paraphrase his

statements in a rather unusual way in Stage I, as the qualitative analysis has shown, he had this

very personable, lovable voice, which diminished in Stage III in favor of a better chronological

organization, more content, and a finished artifact. In short, the participant got away from

rambling and focused more on the actual events in the story, but lost his narrator’s voice in favor

of a more automated, robotic narration style.

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Table 6

Semantic Analysis of Stage Averages

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Figure 11a). Average Number of Clauses vs. Sentences/Phrases/Fragments per Stage

Figure 11b). Average Words per Artifact and Clause, Average Total Mistakes, and

Words/Mistakes Ratio per Stage

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4.3.2 Quality (Content): Content Analysis of 2 Major Artifacts

In this chapter, I will compare Remy’s two major artifacts, the pre-treatment Benjamin

Button essay, and the post-treatment Benjamin Button essay. Both final artifacts have already

been analyzed with regard to the 6+1 Trait Writing categories and their semantic features.

However, an English teacher with all inherent subjectivity would also grade the “author’s voice,”

the creativity, the intuitiveness, the “feel,” and the overall effect of the essay. Astonishingly, as

an English teacher, I would have to say that the first essay is more “charming” and has a greater

effect on the reader. The second essay, albeit longer and complete, seems more factual, whereas

the first one was written in the fresh voice of a young writer who establishes a familiarity with

his audience (by addressing the reader as “you” and telling him/her a story).

This already becomes evident in the introduction. The beginning of the first essay reads:

“Benjamin Button. Someone who starts of [sic] with the face of an old man and dies a baby boy.

It was indeed a peculiar set up for one so old to die so young. Practically a baby, small and frail.

Now you are probably wondering what I mean. Well I’ll tell you then.” Despite the participant

wrote in fragments and already took the moral of the story away (Remy called this “spoiler”), this

is a heart-warming introduction, which makes the reader curious to read on. In comparison, the

introduction of the second essay is cold and dry, and starts media in res: “The story begins on the

day after Ben’s birth. His dad was racing to the hospital, and was just outside the doors into the

hospital when he ran into his family’s doctor. Ben’s dad asked the doctor how the baby was

doing.” This beginning does not evoke as much suspense, and the reader is left dangling with

regard to his/her relationship to the author.

The second distinction of the first essay is the willingness of the author to explain content

to the reader, like a father would read a story to a small child. This makes the essay come to life;

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it provides the reader with a form of interactivity, which is completely lost in the second essay

version. For example, the participant wrote:

Now try this, think of your life resembling a clock. 12 o’clock is your starting point, but

you also start out as an adult. As the hours drag on, you keep getting younger and

younger, that is until your final hour, when you die. In the time before your demise your

life is being slowly drained away, and you yourself are powerless to do anything about it.

Now how would you like that?

This amazing paragraph puts the reader directly into the desperate situation of Benjamin

Button and makes him/her relive Benjamin’s experience. The rhetorical question is a great choice

for a stylistic figure. The image of the clock is a wonderful visual help for the young reader to

imagine how this is going to work – to age backwards. In opposition to this stands a cool,

distanced observation in the second essay; the colloquialism employed does not help the reader to

establish a relationship with Benjamin Button at all: “One day, however, Ben would make a mind

blowing discovery. Ben discovered that slowly, but at a steady rate his age was decreeing [sic].

That’s right people! Ben was growing younger, physically and mentally.” Although the

participant used higher-order vocabulary in this version, the better sounding of the words does

not make up for the intimacy of the first version, written with a lower readability level.

Admittedly, the introduction of the first essay is too long when compared to the body of

the story. But had the body been more developed and completed, the introduction would have

been perfect. By the end of it, the reader has developed compassion for Benjamin Button: “But

unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to our poor, poor Benjamin. Events that took place in

his life were very odd, as were his growth patterns as he got older. This is his story.” Even more

amazing is how Remy managed to describe the amazement of Benjamin’s father when he comes

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to take the “baby boy” home from the hospital. This is very well done in both essays. The second

essay, this time, is the one that addresses the reader and employs a rhetorical question. The first

essay reads: “At first he thinks it’s some sort of joke. But it turns out that what was supposed to

be a small cute and happy baby turned out to be a wrinkled old man. And so with no choice

whatsoever, he brought this new (and wrinkled) life home with him.” The second essay is rather

humorous (and this is the only “fun part” in this version):

In one of the beds was an old man (not Santa Clause) with a long white beard. The young

Benjamin Button! Wrinkly, and in desperate need of moisturizer. As you can imagine this

raised some concern for Ben’s father. What would happen if he was seen in public with a

geezer?

In the second essay, Remy then tells the events in chronological order, step by step, as he

had learned to do in the speech bubbles when he created his graphic novel version of Benjamin

Button. In a factual way, he describes incident after incident. The first essay has only one more

paragraph, which is absolutely amazing, and then remains an opus unfinished. The last paragraph

explains Benjamin’s fate (he gets younger, his pretty wife gets older, and he loses interest in her)

to the reader with an analogy to an every-day life situation. This way, the reader is immersed

immediately and can connect to the story:

For the following paragraph, it could help if you thought about things this way: you

finally receive a long awaited toy from a friend. At first it seems pretty great. But, as time

wears on, you find it less appealing. After a while, you forget all about it. But

unfortunately, that’s exactly the case with our Benjamin. After the birth of his son, Roger

Button, Ben was finding his wife less and less….. attractive.

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While English teachers might argue that the comparison is a little off-topic, I think it was a great

way to show that when the newness wears off, things become less enjoyable. The word choice

“as time wears on” is an excellent metaphor of aging – which Benjamin does not do. The use of

the dots raises suspense in the reader and functions as another stylistic element.

Overall, as an English teacher, I find essay 1 better than essay 2. And now let us see what

the author himself thinks about his two essays. In the exit interview after the treatment stage, I

asked Remy to highlight in green what he liked about both essays, and to mark in red what he

disliked. In the first essay, he marked the following components in green:

This is his story.

… where destiny is born, and where things took a turn…….. for the worst.

Only to find when time passes, things can change.

Those were excellent choices. Remy knows what the sentences are that connect the reader with

the story, and the author with the reader. What he disliked about this essay was his use of

conventions; he marked what he perceived as a colloquialism (“I mean”), two sentences that

began with an “and,” and three sentences that began with a “but.” A conventional English teacher

would say that this was also an excellent choice, because “one should not start a sentence with

“and” or “but” – which is precisely what he remembered from class. However, those little flaws

only add to his personal voice as an author and do not harm essay 1 at all.

In the second essay, Remy marked the following in green:

(not Santa Clause)

Wrinkly, and in desperate need of moisturizer

Ah irony.

The end?

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I am very proud of these markings; they are exactly the same I would have marked in green, for

they constitute the humorous parts, the relationship with the reader, and the building of suspense.

What he disliked and marked in read was again nothing but conventions: He highlighted one

“but” that started off a sentence. There was nothing else he disliked about this essay. He

perceived it as his highest accomplishment, as can be gained from the exit interview.

So, all in all, the boy perceives the completed second essay as better than the first,

because it is longer and uses better conventions. He is aware of the good stylistic parts in it –

which, however, are fewer than in his first essay. As an English teacher (and as a reader waiting

for an interesting story), I enjoyed the first essay, the pre-treatment version, more, because it was

genuine, written in a true child’s voice for a child, and “unspoiled” by the rigidity caused through

speech bubble scaffolding of content.

4.3.3 Feasibility: Behavioral Analysis (Flanders)

The mixed research question asked in what ways (if any) graphic novels were a useful

and beneficial intervention for a struggling writer. In order to assess how the participant

experienced the tutoring sessions, one needs to look at the actual happenings during those

lessons. As the previous qualitative and quantitative discussions have shown, the participant’s

behavior was a key factor in having few ideas (resulting from task-avoidance and off-task

behavior), and consequently poor organization (how can the tutor expect organization from a

tutee who writes only one sentence?). Therefore, in the following, an overview will be given over

the participant’s behavior as recorded with an i-flip camera during sample tutoring sessions. The

Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories (FIAC) are employed to document on- and off-task

behavior of different categories, and original tutee quotes will be used to exemplify what went on

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during the treatment and post-treatment tutoring sessions that kept the boy from writing, or

motivated him to write. A conclusion will be drawn from this behavioral study if such a

treatment was meaningful for the participant, and would maybe be feasible for this boy in a

realistic classroom setting.

Two video recordings were chosen to demonstrate what a typical tutoring situation was

like in Stages II and III, respectively: (1) a graphic novel writing sample from August 9th, 2010

(topic: Bone) during stage II, and (2) a text-only writing sample (about Benjamin Button) from

May 10th, 2011, in stage III. Only the tutor’s and the boy’s answers will be coded in Flanders, not

the girl’s, since she was not part of the study.

The teacher talk is coded as 1 (accepts feeling), 2 (praises or encourages), 3 (accepts or

uses ideas), 4 (asks questions) as indirect influence, and as 5 (lectures), 6 (gives directions), and

7 (criticizes or justifies authority) as direct influence. The student talk is coded as 8 (responds), 9

(initiates), and 10 (silence or confusion; this includes noises made).

While the Flanders categories constitute the quantitative part of this analysis, the content

of the verbatim transcription constitutes the qualitative part; the quotes from the participant will

show what he actually enjoyed, disliked, or had problems with. Woven together, the mixed

results will show how the participant experienced the tutoring sessions, and if they were

meaningful to him. A final remark about the coding methods: under normal circumstances, the

boy’s talking about LEGO Star Wars while occupied with a writing task about Bone or Benjamin

Button would be considered “off-task” behavior; however, as soon as the tutor “accepted the

ideas of the student” (Flanders category 3), I counted those reactions as “on-task,” since he

reacted to my prompts, and I was able to entice him, even though it did not directly deal with his

academic task – it motivated him to carry on, at least.

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1) Graphic novel writing sample (about the series Bone by Jeff Smith) in stage II

The complete verbatim transcript of this recording can be found in APPENDIX C. It was

a hot summer day on August 9th, 2010, and the university was not in session; there was no air-

conditioning in the office. Remy wore a short-sleeved gray t-shirt. Both children and the tutor

were sweating. There were brownies, candy, and lots of soda cans for the children. Remy sat at

the desktop computer, on which the tutor had glued a little red origami space shuttle he had built

for her, and was supposed to fill in speech bubbles for a graphic novel from the Bone series. He

loved those books, and by the end of Stage II was the proud owner of all that had been published

by that time. His little sister Rula sat at the laptop, but was not using it, since she was drawing

her own graphic novel dealing with a surprise birthday party. Although the climate might have

accounted for slower performance, the girl was working very well, whereas the boy constantly

left his seat, left the room, turned the camera around once, and started a fight with his sister. He

managed to finish half his task in the allotted time.

Below is a depiction of the artifact that Remy created on that day. It was a custom-made

medley from one of the Bone books, consisting of two pages with six panels each, which have

altogether 14 speech bubbles. The custom-made speech bubbles covered the original ones of the

graphic novel, so the participant could fill them with his own text. He could not copy the original

text literally, since the panels were carefully chosen and pasted together, with content left out in

between, so that the participant had to summarize the missing parts, either from memory, or by

looking them up in the source. Strictly speaking, the participant’s task had been to fill in the

speech bubbles on the left, and to type in the narrator’s sentences and the stage directions on the

right. He never did fill in the right column. In a tutoring session occurring much later in the stage,

he suggested to the tutor that the right column be left out entirely, since it was “not necessary,”

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and the tutor agreed, provided that the participant give all the information necessary for the

reader in the speech bubbles themselves (or in square fields inserted into the panels in lieu of

speech bubbles).

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Figure 12. Speech Bubble Sample. Reprinted with permission from Jeff Smith’s Bone

series.

The creation of this artifact was a “difficult birth.” My initial enthusiasm about his word choice (I

praised him for not using “the word” in his speech bubble that started with “What the --!”) wore

off when I encountered his resistance to my prompts. He started speaking in his “invented

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language” (a frequent occurrence in our tutoring sessions, whenever he did not want to

communicate with me and was tired of playing the “answering machine” game, where I had to

leave my message after his “beep” to be dealt with later)! Here is a short excerpt from the

verbatim transcript:

Tutor: Okay. Let’s talk about what you’re going to write first, and then put it in here,

okay? Maybe that’s easier. What is your sentence?

Remy (still reads in his book): yebbede yebbede yebbede…. Yeahde yeahde yeahde…

Tutor: In English, please! (laughs)

Remy: Not gibberish?

Tutor: Not gibberish.

Remy: Okay. (finally leans over and looks at screen)

In order to make it easier for the participant to start his writing task, I allowed him to

brainstorm orally first and tell me his thoughts, so we could write them down afterwards.

However, this strategy failed. The following verbatim transcript shows how I desperately try to

get him to cooperate and use this writing strategy; he, instead, replies in an invented language.

Tutor: What would you say? This guy is talking, so in that dialogue box, what would you

say? You can look again, or do it from memory… and just say the sentence, what

you would say. And then, we’re going to type it.

Remy: You skipped some pictures.

Tutor: I know; that’s why you have to do a summary. That’s why you need to put more

than one picture in there. Or leave it out, and put just what’s in that picture in

there. Put the summary in the next one. If we took every picture, we’d never

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finish; it would be a whole book, as big as this one (touches his graphic novel). Or

do you want me to do every picture, and make you write so much?

Remy: Meh.

Tutor: Meh?

Remy: I said meh!

The triumph was ultimately his, because when he finally caved in and told me what the original

speech bubble had said, it was just a useless word that he could not use for a “summary” of any

kind, and he knew that; on the video, one sees him grinning at me with delight (the German term

“Schadenfreude” fits well here; rejoicing at somebody’s expenses). He held the evidence directly

under my nose:

Tutor: (after several seconds of silence) Okay, what does it say in the same picture in the

book? (boy looks up the page)

Remy: It said, it says: “Well!” That’s pretty much it. (shows her the book with a grin)

Table 7

Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories for Stage II Verbatim Sample

Observation from August 9th, 2010; stage II. Remy filled in six panels of a Bone series graphic novel. Teacher/Student/Other Behaviors Observed Number

of Occurrence

Teac

her T

alk

In

dire

ct In

fluen

ce

1. Accepts Feeling: Accepting and clarifying the feeling tone of students in a nonthreatening manner. Feelings may be positive or negative. Predicting or recalling feelings is included.

5

The only feelings I accepted were when the boy said it was too hot.

2. Praises or Encourages: Praising or encouraging student action or behavior. Jokes that release tension, but not at the expense of another individual; nodding head, saying “um hm?” or “go on” are included.

107

I feel like I spent the whole time saying, “come on, let’s go on, focus, let’s go ahead”! I needed lots of encouragement (“okay, come on, wow, great, nice,” etc.) to persuade him to go on. The numbers here are not very often “praises” for good work.

table 7 continues

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table 7 continued 3. Accepts or Uses Ideas: Clarifying,

building, or developing ideas suggested by a student. As more of the teacher’s own ideas come into play, shift to Category 5.

94

If I had not accepted all his (and his sister’s) off-topic ideas and developed a conversation about them, he might have produced more on-task output. We discussed God, glass bone disease, a dropped ping-pong table…

4. Asks Questions: Asking a question about content or procedure with the intent that a student answer.

70

I asked a lot of questions, but he hardly ever answered, so it feels as if they were all rhetorical questions.

Dire

ct In

fluen

ce

5. Lectures: Giving facts or opinions about content or procedures; expressing the teacher’s own ideas, asking rhetorical questions.

159

I talked too much. However, I managed to explain grammatical concepts (e.g., homophones).

6. Gives Directions: Giving directions, commands, or orders with which a student is expected to comply.

59

I had to give lots of directions to keep Remy on task. Most of the time, they were not followed.

7. Criticizes or Justifies Authority: Making statements intended to change student behavior from unacceptable pattern; bawling out someone; stating why the teacher is doing what he/she is doing; extreme self-reference.

32

I am generally anti-autoritarian and do not criticize much, but this was an extremely bad session with lots of misbehavior and even a little fight between the children. He behaved like a rowdy towards me, too. I criticized his behavior more than the mistakes he made.

Stud

ent T

alk

8. Responds: Talk by students in response to teacher. Teacher initiates the contact or solicits student statement.

24

He did not respond enough. His responses dealt more with our off-topic talk than with his writing task.

9. Initiates: Talk by students, which they initiate. If “calling on” students is only to indicate who may talk next, observer must decide whether student wanted to talk. If so, use this category. On-task self-initiated talk

112

Most of his talk was off-topic, but since I had previously accepted it (3), it was counted as on topic, since he continued our conversation. He is quite talkative when it doesn’t deal with writing tasks.

Off-task self-initiated talk 50

This was extremely bad today. Although he loved reading the Bone books, he was not focused at all.

Sile

nce

10. Silence or Confusion: Pauses, short periods of silence, and periods of confusion in which communication cannot be understood by the observer.

44

He produced lots of strange noises and ran out into the corridor several times.

2) Text-only writing sample (about Benjamin Button) in stage III

The complete verbatim transcript of this recording can be found in APPENDIX C. This

recording dates May 10, 2011. The following tutor remark was written on the stored digital

video: “Great work!” The first part of the video is 13:05 min. long. Then, the participant detected

the camera and switched it off. Shortly after, the tutor switched it back on. The length of the

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second recording is 52:14 min. It was the second-to-last day of tutoring with work on the final

Benjamin Button essay. It was warm; Remy wore a short-sleeved, white t-shirt with a black and a

red bar over his chest. Rula, his little sister, is not visible on the video; her voice is audible. She

sat at the computer desk closer to the window. On the desk next to Remy’s monitor stood a full

bottle of apple juice, an almost full bottle of cranberry juice (his favorite), and a bag of potato

chips. On a big role of paper towels sat the plastic wall clock, which had fallen off, since the nail

had previously disappeared in the hole in the wall. It was 3:36 p.m. on the wall clock. The

children had just come in. Rula grinned and brought her face close to the camera, checking

whether it was on. Satisfied, she retreated to her desk. Remy did not notice it; he was busy

getting something out of his backpack. He wanted to give his tutor something to read while he

typed, so she would not look at his work in progress. He typed 18 sentences that day; more than

ever before in one session! During the first 13 minutes, Remy sat at his desk; typing; he had the

print-out of his own graphic novel version of Benjamin Button lying next to him, so he could

look at the sequence of the panels to compose his essay. He constantly refused to copy his own

words, but rather wanted to invent new sentences. During the second recording, he was walking

around more and leaving his seat constantly.

I recorded two interesting incidents where he corrected me as his tutor. The first

occurrence was when I asked him what he had had for lunch, and while his sister said

“spaghetti,” he answered: “I had food for lunch.” The second occurrence was when I said Jango

Fett was “smart,” and he adjusted, “intelligent.” This child has a peculiar way of expressing the

“truth.” He is right, but in an almost philosophical way; “no child would speak like that.” In this

way, he distinguished himself very much from his little sister.

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One time during the process, the participant gave me “permission” to look at his work

(usually, he was very private about his writing; this is why he occupied me by making me read a

book):

Remy: You, you can look at these.

Tutor: Okay! (leans over to see the sentences on his screen; there’s half a page written on;

single spaced)

This showed me that he himself was satisfied with his work and perceived it as good

enough to be seen by me. The verbatim transcript in APPENDIX C shows that our talk mostly

dealt with lunch, dangling modifiers, and Star Wars, but I was also able to get him to focus on

his writing task again:

Tutor: (motions to computer) Story?

Remy: (With acceptance in his voice) Story.

Tutor: Story.

At other times, in the middle of his typing, Remy called out apparently meaningless

things we had talked about half an hour earlier: “Crapple. Eh. Crapple. Crap-ple. Cranberry and

an apple. Crapple.” This child never forgets an event and comes back to it in the most unlikely

circumstances. I suppose this is a sign of ADHD. On the other hand, I lavishly praised him for

his accomplishments on this day, and he expressed pure joy over this. Admittedly, he was very

incentive driven at that point, too:

Tutor: (looks at boy’s screen; lots of text is on there now) Hm, Very good! Maybe we get

to order the fighter today… It looks good!

Remy: Yes!!

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Tutor: But you can only take it home when you’ve finished the essay. But you can look at

it already.

Remy: So you’re saying if I do a good job I can order…

Tutor: We’ll order already, and it will stand here.

Remy: So you’re saying….

Tutor: You can order it.

Remy: Wow, really? Thank you! I appreciate it.

Tutor: Uhum. You did a good job today.

Remy: Yeah, high five!

Tutor: (laughs) High five! (they clap hands together) Aaaah!!! (he squeezed her hand)

Remy: Oh, sorry, sorry, did I hurt your hand?

Tutor: No! (squeezes back)

Remy: Aaaarghhhh!!! No, I’m okay.

Finally, the following is an example to show how I accepted his ideas (Flanders category

3), to build a relationship with the participant. It did not help him to stay on track with his

writing, but at least it showed him my interest in him and his feelings. Below, I am “playing the

game” with him when he has one of his frequent “my arm does what it wants” attacks:

Tutor: Fifteen more minutes, come on! And then, you’ll get to unpack. (Clock says 4:20

p.m.)

Remy: (beats around with his arm) Aaahhh! (his one hand beats his other hand) I don’t

know how this happened. It’s like this arm has a mind of its own. Uahh, uahh,

ehh, ehh, ooohhh, doohooo, ehmmm, ehmmm, ehmmmmmm, ohhh…

Tutor: Hypnotize it! (holds her hand over his arm like a healer) Don’t move anymore!

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Remy: Ahh, ahh, ahh… my hand… ahhh… um, um, ohhh…

Tutor: Stare at it; hypnotize it! Don’t move, don’t move, fall asleep! Get paralyzed.

The following table shows the Flanders interaction categories of this session.

Table 8 Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories for Stage III Verbatim Sample

Observation from May 10th, 2011; stage III; Benjamin Button text only essay, under usage of Benjamin Button graphic novel previously created by student Teacher/Student/Other Behaviors Observed Number

of Occurrence

Anecdotal Notes

Teac

her T

alk

Indi

rect

Influ

ence

1. Accepts Feeling: Accepting and clarifying the feeling tone of students in a nonthreatening manner. Feelings may be positive or negative. Predicting or recalling feelings is included.

0

I never seem to accept feelings; I’m feeling indignant when I encounter bad behavior, but instead of criticizing, I try to alleviate bad feelings towards writing by distracting the participant with new statements (5), complimenting him (2), or bribing him with incentives. Remy never voiced his feelings literally; he made noises or went off-task when he was frustrated, and made noises and jumped/walked around when happy.

2. Praises or Encourages: Praising or encouraging student action or behavior. Jokes that release tension, but not at the expense of another individual; nodding head, saying “um hm?” or “go on” are included.

36

I think I praised enough, whenever appropriate; too much when compared to my criticism. I also counted as praise when I told Remy to keep a graphic novel, or to take it home (which could have been interpreted as an order, 6), because this was meant as incentive and encouragement to continue his good work and behavior.

3. Accepts or Uses Ideas: Clarifying, building, or developing ideas suggested by a student. As more of the teacher’s own ideas come into play, shift to Category 5.

48

I did this way too much; every time Remy went off-task, I tried to accept his new idea and involved him in conversation about it to keep him interested, so all his following self-initiated off-task comments (9 off) became on-task (9 on), because now he reacted to my questions, which had nothing to do with his writing task. I should learn to say “no” sometimes.

4. Asks Questions: Asking a question about content or procedure with the intent that a student answer.

45

I could have asked more questions; in relation to my own ideas and statements, I did not do this enough. It might have kept Remy more on task.

table 8 continues

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table 8 continued

Dire

ct In

fluen

ce

5. Lectures: Giving facts or opinions about content or procedures; expressing the teacher’s own ideas, asking rhetorical questions.

126

I talked way too much, and distracted Remy with my stories.

6. Gives Directions: Giving directions, commands, or orders with which a student is expected to comply.

26

I did not do this enough; same as criticism. I do not have an authoritative teacher’s voice.

7. Criticizes or Justifies Authority: Making statements intended to change student behavior from unacceptable pattern; bawling out someone; stating why the teacher is doing what he/she is doing; extreme self-reference.

2

Not enough!! My anti-autoritarian educational style led to not giving more determined prompts, which triggered off-task behavior. The only two occurrences were when I corrected Remy (1): “No, it’s just half an hour. Not even… you didn’t come at 30, you came at 37,” and (2) when I bawled him out: “Don’t step on that thing! Don’t break it!” Not a single time in this session did I say, “sit down and write.”

Stud

ent T

alk

8. Responds: Talk by students in response to teacher. Teacher initiates the contact or solicits student statement.

64 Most of his direct answers were “yes” and “yeah.” He only elaborated when he could initiate the talk, and that was mostly about his favorite topic, Star Wars. I found him extremely hard to interview, since he hardly ever gave a longer answer.

9. Initiates: Talk by students, which they initiate. If “calling on” students is only to indicate who may talk next, observer must decide whether student wanted to talk. If so, use this category. On-task self-initiated talk

106

He had so many on-task tallies, because I accepted his ideas (3) so often! Otherwise, most of his self-initiated talk would have been off task, since it mostly dealt with Star Wars.

Off-task self-initiated talk 30

See above; Remy would have had many more tallies here, had I not accepted his off-topic remarks to involve him in a conversation that often.

Sile

nce

10. Silence or Confusion: Pauses, short periods of silence, and periods of confusion in which communication cannot be understood by the observer.

38

All his 10’s were noises that reminded me of noises that children with Tourette’s syndrome or autism make. He produced sounds like “arghh, woah woah woah,” etc. He also had a very interesting speech pattern: he repeated some of his words all the time. I did not count these as “confusion/silence,” though; if they were intended answers, I counted them as answers.

The following graph shows a pictorial comparison of the Flanders Interaction Analysis

Categories for the two verbatim transcript samples of Stages II and III. The biggest differences

occur in the categories of tutor praises and encouragement, tutor questions, tutor directions, tutor

criticism, and tutee responses.

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Figure 13. Flanders Interaction Analysis Categories in stages II and III

To sum up, it can be said that both the tutee’s and the tutor’s behavior were very different

in Stages II and III. The two chosen sample video transcripts, which are typical for the respective

stages, give a good overview of how both tutee and tutor experienced the sessions: in Stage II,

during the graphic novel treatment, the tutor generally needed much more praise and

encouragement to keep the participant going, and said numerous times, “Come on; let’s go on;

let’s go ahead; you can do this; you are a smart boy,” etc. Also, the tutor asked many more

questions, in order to keep the participant focused, accepted more off-task talk and developed a

conversation out of it, and needed to criticize him much more than in Stage III. In Stage II, there

were also fewer responses from the participant, and if he answered, it was mostly monosyllabic

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(“yes,” “yeah,” etc.). Off-task behavior and confusion (including strange noises made by the

participant; his switching off the camera; his leaving the room; his fighting with his sister, etc.)

stayed about the same in both treatment stage and post-treatment stage. The whole experience

came as a big surprise to me as the tutor, since I had expected the boy to enjoy creating graphic

novels, especially due to the fact that he loved some of the literature so much that they dealt with

(e.g., the Bone series, and Star Wars). It seemed as if he was under-challenged by the task of

filling in speech bubbles; he would rather read on and go ahead with the story. He tried to

minimize his writing tasks by minimizing the speech bubbles, and actually came up with a good

idea, namely to leave out the stage directions and narrations that the tutor had planned for, since

those proved unnecessary if he could include the content directly into the speech bubbles.

However, the higher academic performance during the final stage might also in part be a result of

the boy’s “endgame euphoria” – he knew that the study would soon be over, that he would

receive his final incentive (a LEGO X-wing fighter), and that he and his sister could begin a new

task, a Wikipedia about their own fantasy land.

The treatment stage offered many more opportunities for off-task behavior: while Remy

was creating graphic novels about the Bone series, he had those books available and was

constantly reading in them, so that oftentimes, the tutor had to wrestle the books away from him.

While he was creating his website story about Star Wars, he constantly looked up music videos

about Star Wars on youtube. However, in Stage III, there were no such opportunities; he was

creating his text-only essay and had nothing more than his own, previously created Benjamin

Button graphic novel available as a source. It turned out that the participant was most productive

when such distractions could be avoided. His sister and the tutor herself also were a great

distraction to the participant. Many of the off-topic conversations were initiated by one of them.

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Overall, the way the tutoring sessions were run, the treatment would not have been feasible in a

real classroom setting, rather as outside-of-class tutoring or resource room activity.

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CHAPTER 5—DISCUSSION

The quantitative research questions were, “How does the participant’s written output

differ from pre- to post-treatment?” and “What are the individual features of his written output in

the pre-treatment, treatment, and post-treatment stages?” Regarding the quantitative assessment

of the participant’s writing quality, it can be noted that ideas and conventions

(grammar/spelling/punctuation) were the participant’s weakest fields across all stages. The

paucity of ideas resulted from off-task, frustrated, and avoidance behavior, so that the low word

count did not allow for very many ideas. Conventions improved towards the end, after having

significantly worsened in Stage II (from an average of 3.8 total mistakes in Stage I, to an average

of 15.6 total mistakes in Stage II, to an average of 1.9 mistakes in Stage III); however, the

participant had also matured during the course of the study, so the proficiency raise in grammar

and mechanics might be a result of the learning and growing-up process. As already noted during

the pre-stages tutoring time, it could be supported that the participant wrote much better when

typing than when handwriting. A handwritten sample from Stage I (08/17/2009) contained 28

mistakes, whereas the typed writing samples in Stages I and III only contained 0-8 mistakes. In

Stage II, the participant committed lots of mistakes (3-34), mainly because he hardly used any

capitalizations (perhaps he did not know that even in speech bubbles, he has to capitalize the first

word of a sentence) and did not proofread or follow the spell-check.

It has to be noted that Stage II is not a good indicator for the measurement of quality gain;

rather, it was a stage that introduced a new genre (graphic novels) to help the student organize his

text around pictures, which were supposed to guide him along and be a scaffold to his

consecutive writings, so he could remember content better and avoid a writer’s block for “not

knowing what to write.” It fulfilled this purpose, but it also dictated the rather low ratings on the

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6+1® Trait writing scale, because the nature of graphic novels entails low performance in sub-

categories such as ideas (since they are already expressed in the pictures), voice (callouts do not

contain many stylistic elements), fluency (speech bubbles are abrupt, spontaneous, and staccato-

like), organization (the participant was forced to make a text entry for almost every picture, so of

course his overall work was very well organized, no content was forgotten this time, and the

events were chronological). Thus, quality gain should only be noted from Stage I to Stage III.

With ratings of 30.2 on the 6+1® Trait writing scale in Stage I and 32.8 in Stage III out of

a total possible points of 35, there is a significant gain if the alpha level is set at 0.5 of 2.6.

However, after three years of tutoring, a raise of 2.6 points, which equals a gain of 7.43%, does

not seem very high, especially when calculating in the maturing process. The qualitative analysis

shows that the participant’s off-task behavior was very strong in Stage III, and while his pure

writing capacity had augmented, his misbehavior made him lose a lot of points. Furthermore, the

quality of his writings on the 6+1® Trait writing scale was quite high to begin with: 86.29% in

Stage I, and 93.71% in Stage III. It would have been much better had the participant exhibited

good social behavior.

The researcher concludes that the participant could write if he wanted to and had a

wonderful personable voice to catch the reader’s attention when he was left on his own in Stage

I; much got lost in the graphic novel format of Stage II, and the strict order of the Stage III essay

worked its way along pre-formatted graphic novel pictures to assure organization. Teacher

intervention here demolished his good ideas and voice; was this worthwhile, just to achieve a

very slightly better organization (from 4.6 to 5.0, which equals 8%)? Also, albeit the overall

word output grew from Stage I (average of 68.1 words per 120 minutes) to Stage III (average of

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93.3 words per 120 minutes), the length of his sentences decreased from an average of 12.7

words per clause in Stage I to an average of 11.6 words per clause in Stage III.

The most crucial gain was that the participant did not leave out content any more in the

Stage III essay, because he was “forced” to create text entries to pictures in chronological order,

while in Stage I, he had worked from memory, encountered the “writer’s block,” and left his

essay unfinished after over half a year of work on it, due to frustration and boredom. The

participant finished his high-quality essay of Stage III in ten two-hour tutoring sessions. An

“ordinary” child of comparable age can write such an essay in one, maximum two, tutoring

sessions and does not need months for it. When asked in his online exit interview why he

completed the final essay of stage III, he answered, “because it was required.” What made him

think it was not required to finish all the other tasks?

The qualitative research question was: “How does the participant experience the tutoring

program using graphic novels to support his writing skills?” Overall, the participant enjoyed

coming to the tutoring sessions, and did not want to miss one. He liked the tutor, which he

expressed by hugging her often, or trying to sit on her lap (not a good idea, considering his

weight!). He enjoyed reading all the books made available to him, and especially the incentives

and the snacks during tutoring. He did not seem to care too much about filling in speech bubbles,

but in an interview he perceived it as an “easy” task; further, he took great pride and joy in

creating his own website about Star Wars. He said of himself that he has improved “a little”

during the tutoring time, so the instruction has not been in vain. The qualitative data support the

quantitative findings: the participant had a wonderful author’s voice to begin with, and when his

final essays from the pre- and post-treatment stages are compared, it becomes clear that it is not

the content or expression that needed amelioration, but merely the format (shorter introduction,

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finishing up and adding a conclusion) and chronology of events. The boy himself liked his Stage

III essay most, because it was longer; he did not seem to notice that it had lost some of the

creativity of his earlier writings.

The mixed research question was, “In what ways (if any) are graphic novels a useful and

beneficial intervention for a struggling writer?” Video observation added to what was already

expressed in tutor logs, namely that the scaffolding through graphic novels was beneficial, but

that the genre led to too many distractions and was too time-consuming to be an effective

intervention in a real classroom setting. The Flanders analysis revealed that the participant

needed more praise and encouragement to keep going during the graphic novel creation than

during the text-only essay writing stage, which put a great strain on the teacher. He was very

susceptible to outside influences, such as heat, things that were “out of order” (even if it was just

a digital clock, or a missing volume in a series he already had), interruptions from his sister or

tutor, etc., and the treatment stage included more distractions than the post-treatment stage. In

both stages, the participant responded very seldom to tutor questions, and if he did so, it was

monosyllabic. In opposition to this, he initiated almost as much talk as the tutor herself; mostly

off-task, but if accepted by the tutor, he was able to continue conversations.

Re-evaluating the research questions at the end of the study, the researcher would like to

propose to add auditory and animation aspects for further study: the participant had expressed the

wish of creating a website with his own photos including animated movie clips with sound.

Images alone “did not do the trick” to motivate the participant. The researcher would recommend

for this special child to let him use a voice recorder in class, to record his good ideas orally and

retype them at home or, for exams, in a special room at school, under supervision. The

participant needs a scaffold of some sort, but an aural one or a written outline might work just as

174

well as a pictorial one and require less classroom time and teacher preparation. The researcher

would not recommend using graphic novels abundantly with this child, because it might take

away from his original, very creative, personable author’s voice, which is perhaps a bigger loss

than the gain, better organization and finishing a task. Mental images seem to work just as well

as actual images for this child. He was able to retype events after seeing Star Wars movies on

youtube, so he is able to keep consecutive images in his head, accompanied with sound. He

showed a very good memory during those tasks. To improve the participant’s off-task behavior

and make him finish tasks, the researcher would recommend a more severe learning

environment, preferably one-on-one, to avoid constant comparison with better achieving

classmates (obviously, the researcher’s laissez-faire and anti-authoritarian tutoring lessons in

presence of the higher-achieving younger sister of the participant were not suitable to entice him

to good behavior). This learning environment needs to include several short breaks, where the

boy can let off steam and frustration and regain strength and focus. Otherwise, he will take those

breaks at random. It should also include self-selected tasks, because, as could be seen in the

observations, the boy worked more diligently on tasks he liked (Star Wars) than on tasks he was

made to do (graphic novel Benjamin Button). Contradictory to this observation, although he did

enjoy reading the Bone adventure series, he had a hard time creating graphic novels about the

volumes. It became obvious that working with his own photos (of his LEGO® Star Wars

figurines) and creating the panels of his graphic novel himself worked much better than the tutor

providing him with pre-made Bone panels to fill in speech bubbles.

Also, the participant would strongly benefit from behavioral modification, be it through

medication or psychological counseling. A previously not discussed point is the abnormal speech

pattern of the boy – he should be checked for an autism spectrum disorder or Tourette’s

175

syndrome, since he not only produces noises, but also repeats the beginning of his sentences over

and over again. The Flanders analysis shows lots of instances in the verbatim transcriptions. His

sister did not show this speech pattern.

This boy had high expectations of himself, and his mother instilled in him and his little

sister the notion to become a “doctor,” which put him under pressure. His older brother was a

medical student in Chicago. The participant brought the necessary intelligence with him, but was

lacking endurance, perseverance, focus, and concentration, and possibly self-worth to fulfill and

finish academic tasks. Since this child cannot not rely on academic support from home, having an

illiterate mother and no father available, all help with school work will have to come from the

school system and the community. There are multiple possibilities to enhance this boy’s and

similar students’ writing skills within and without the school system; an important means could

be writing workshops. If conducted in an after-school tutoring setting, they would not take away

valuable classroom teaching time, and would also offer multiple occasions to interact with the

community. Future research needs to be done with regard to how effective writing workshops

using imagery can be in the classroom. Thompson (2008), a literacy coach, conducted in-class

writing workshops using graphics with elementary students to improve their comprehension,

vocabulary, and fluency. He gives the following recommendation to teachers:

If students want to write and illustrate comics, consider incorporating this activity into

your writing workshop, content area learning activities, reading response journals, and

various other educational situations. One easy way to take advantage of your students’

desire to create their own comics is to offer time to do so as a reward. (Thompson, 2008,

p. 124)

176

Future studies should carry it one step further and also investigate the potential of digital

story-telling, similar to Remy’s online graphic novels about Star Wars, as a motivational factor

and to integrate technological literacy, within a writing workshop in or outside of school. In this

realm, Burke and Kafai (2012) conducted a study with middle school children who created their

own digital stories within the context of an in-class writing workshop. They performed writing as

a process, namely drafting, revising, and publishing, while using an introductory programming

language called Scratch. The researchers summarized their experience as follows:

… it is clear that the writing workshop setting alongside the school’s existing language

arts standards proved to be not only an effective framework for facilitating middle school

children’s digital composition within Scratch, but also underscored the wider connection

between coding and writing as interrelated processes of composition. Digital storytelling

in Scratch—particularly in terms of the workshop’s focus on characterization and plot

analysis—offers a new medium through which children can exercise the composition

skills they learned within traditional literacy classrooms while also offering the mutual

benefit of introducing coding at earlier ages. (Burke & Kafai, 2012, n.p.)

In addition, more research needs to be done with children displaying autistic or ADHD

behaviors and their writing of graphic novels; an artistic approach might not always be feasible in

children with special needs, since certain skills, such as spatial perception, are required. Research

in this domain already exists with regard to reading comprehension, such as Hill’s Master’s

thesis, “The Effects of Graphic Novels on the Reading Comprehension Scores of Students with

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)” from 2011. Finally, since Remy was obviously reluctant to

fill in the “narrative part” of his graphic novel panels and preferred instead the dialog part, future

177

studies should investigate whether play writing could help struggling writers to express

themselves.

178

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APPENDICES

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APPENDIX A– Case History

1.1 LIST OF FIGURES

FIGURE PAGE

Figure 1: Remy’s handwriting .................................................................................... 200

Figure 2: Remy’s drawing .......................................................................................... 201

Figure 3: Remy’s graphic novel .................................................................................. 202

Figure 4: Sample of online Star Wars photo stories ................................................... 212

1.2 Reading Clinic Report

As pre-treatment data from one semester of official tutoring in a Reading Clinic and an

additional semester of private tutoring in my office revealed, Remy evidenced extreme starting

and finishing problems, and displayed unwillingness and task avoidance (such as having to go to

the restroom). Often, I hear him moan, “I wish I knew how to start.” (e.g., tutoring session from

Monday, August 17th, 2009, 5:00-7:00 p.m.). Here is an excerpt from my tutoring log from that

day:

It took him one hour and forty minutes to fill one letter-sized page with very big

handwriting, always leaving two blank lines after each paragraph. After finishing his first

sentence, he needed to go to the restroom and took quite long for that. Upon returning to

his work place, it took him several minutes to focus again and start writing. Before he put

each sentence on paper, I had to prompt him and remind him to talk about 1) character, 2)

setting, and 3) plot. He only covered the first page and the first lines of the second page

of chapter 12 which ranged from pp. 71-77. He made lots of spelling errors, some of

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which he was not aware of, and some of which he caught, erased, and repaired; in the

middle of it, he said, “You will have to edit that,” and I agreed to do it later. When he had

written about two sentences, he complained, “I don’t want to write under such pressure!”

(tutoring session from 08/17/2009, writing about chapter 12 of Boba Fett)

His starting problem is documented in the same tutoring log; at first, I had thought it is

something like a “writer’s block,” but he is not lacking good ideas; he has them all in his head.

His hand just cannot execute them—especially not in handwriting, and only extremely slowly

when typing; and he loses his willingness to follow through with a task quickly. The following

quote contains another example of his mechanical repetitions; here, of the desperate word,

“blank.”

Remy's first sentence introduced the main character. His second sentence describes the

setting. He was supposed to talk about the plot (action) in the third sentence, and began,

"he is sitting with the...," and then he said, "blank, blank, blank." I told him to write this

introductory part first, and then to fill in the blanks, but although the book was right

before him and he could have simply copied the names, he was reluctant, stared into the

air and just repeated, "blank, blank, blank." Finally, his sister made proposals for his

blanks, and he reproached her and asked her not to interrupt him. (tutoring session from

08/17/2009, writing about chapter 12 of Boba Fett)

It is inexplicable to me why he did not copy the difficult words from the book, as other

children probably would have. Neither did he ask me for help. I did not ask him for the reason.

His written output on 08/17/2009 looks as follows:

the main character is a altered boy clone named - boba fett.

he is presently on the planet Geonses at the arena.

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he is sitting with the archduke and outher afishials. venders past trouht the auditince

sellin waht they have to offer.

the prisoners hung in chains on theepost one was a jedi aprentic one was the knight

obiwan and the last was a beutiful woaman.

(tutoring session from 08/17/2009, writing about chapter 12 of Boba Fett)

Transcription into Standard Written English:

The main character is an altered boy clone named Boba Fett. He is presently on the planet

Geonosis at the arena. He is sitting with the Archduke and other officials. Vendors pass

through the audience selling what they have to offer. The prisoners hung in chains on the

post. One was a Jedi apprentice, one was the knight Obi-Wan, and the last one was a

beautiful woman.

What is even more interesting is how he justifies his avoidance of writing tasks; some of

his statements are quite reasonable. For example, under treatment stage two, he is presently

working on an online graphic novel about Star Wars (in two panels; the left side contains a photo

he took of LEGO® Star Wars figures, the right side his text). If he leaves a field next to a photo

blank and I ask him to fill it with text, he comments: “There’s nothing happening here,” or

“Everyone knows what is happening here,” or “There’s nothing to be written in this text field—

here, we would have sound!” Once, he even showed me an online graphic novel created by

another person that also contained blank fields, and said, “See? He doesn’t have text, either.”

Below is the first teacher log from stage two, documenting Remy’s initial attempt in creating

online graphic novels. He shows on-task behavior when he can take the photos (create the

graphics), and off-task behavior when he has to write:

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Today, Remy got the computer with Internet access from 5-6 p.m., and Rula from 6-7

p.m., so he knew he had exactly one hour to look at a sample LEGO® Star Wars picture

story on the Internet, and to start creating one himself. This is the first day we started

with image stories. He had found a self-made Star Wars photo story by someone (not

animated) that was set up in a table: on the left side were the photos of LEGO® Star

Wars figurines and ships / scenes, and on the right side was the text. Remy created a logo

in the first field of the blank table I set up for him. It was in white letters on a black

background, and said, “Star Wars lightsaber duel episode III.” I had brought my digital

camera, and he spent the rest of the hour taking photos of several LEGO® Star Wars

figurines he had brought from home. He was very on-task. When his hour was over and

he had to go to the laptop without Internet access to fill in the side with the text, he was

very off-task. He went to the bathroom right away; then, he continued taking photos until

I took the camera and the LEGO® figurines away. Finally, I could convince him to

dictate to me what he wanted to have in one of the blank text spaces. Remy insisted that

the first three tabs remain blank: “There is no text that goes here! Nothing happens here.”

Then, he claimed he could not do the story; he needed to buy more LEGO® sets first. I

told him he could also get existing pictures from the Internet. He handwrote a “Note to

self” for me: “remember to help remy buy Star Wars sets.” He taped the note on my wall

over the desk. We finally got one tab done. (teacher log from Monday, Nov. 30th, 2009)

His handwriting generally is painfully slow, uneven, and sometimes hard to read; his

typing is a little faster, but not executed with all ten fingers on the keyboard (unless when

“forced to” by having put quarters on the backs of his hands, which he was allowed to keep if

they didn’t fall down). In clear opposition to this stands the observation that Remy has an

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astonishingly advanced vocabulary; when talking to him, one thinks he is much older and more

mature, and very polite and well-behaved, as in the following examples: In the beginning of his

tutoring sessions in spring 2009, I asked Remy, "What makes a person a good reader?" He

answered, "1. learn, 2. practice." When I wanted to know whether he also likes poetry, he said:

"Can you put that on hold? I need to know more first." This impression fades when one tutors

him and he exhibits unsuppressed, child-like behavior like farting and belching. He also kneels

on or dangles from his swivel chair instead of sitting on it, gets up frequently, and takes things

into his hands to play with when he is asked to write. Here is an incident from my tutoring log

from 08/17/2009:

He complained, "Why can't I type?" I promised him that for the next session, we would

do a typing task. He put his left arm around me and scribbled with his right hand, the

paper always sliding away. I told him, "You cannot write like this," but he said, “I'll show

you I can write like this.” (tutoring log from 08/17/2009)

I planned to let him type often, but I did not want to neglect fostering Remy’s

handwriting skills, either. It has been shown by Berninger, V., Abbott, R., Augsburger, A., and

Garcia, N. (2009) that children with and without disabilities “may write text better by pen than

by keyboard. Accommodations in the form of using keyboards are not a substitute for explicit

instruction in transcription for students with LD-TD” (138). The researchers emphasize that such

students need instruction in both handwriting and typing, and accommodations may or may not

be in the form of keyboards (138).

Remy consumes masses of candy and more soda than his mother allows; he forms

mathematical, three-dimensional castles and even bar diagrams with his Starburst pieces and

gummy bears; he wants a “hug” from me frequently; he is mostly unfocused and off-task, and

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grabs his LEGO® figures instead of doing his writing task; he throws candy at his sister, and

when she cries exclaims that he is a bad brother; he farts and belches without embarrassment; he

repeats strange, sometimes Star Wars-influenced statements over and over (e.g., “It’s right here,

clear and purple cream,” “Use the force, Rula,” “Trust your feelings, Rula!”; tutoring session

from 09/21/2009); he makes strange melodic noises (e.g., “Star Wars! Babadang, babadaba….

nananana”; tutoring session from 09/21/2009); he types with one finger, although I taught him

how to do it with both hands; his typing is very slow and contains many spelling errors; his

handwriting is huge, slow, and erratic; he hums and sings while writing; he goes to the restroom

when I announce a writing task.

My preliminary data analysis has shown that if he writes a text-only essay (such as a

summary of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button by Fitzgerald), he hardly has any plot or

setting; instead, he has a long tedious introduction and strange philosophical statements that do

not belong in the story (such as: “Imagine a friend gives you a long wanted present,” or, “Now

you are probably wondering what I mean. Well i'll tell you then.” Tutoring log from 09/21/2009)

He also never manages to finish an essay, and it takes him very long to write (Benjamin Button

took half a year; spread out to weekly tutoring sessions, 2 hours in a row). During my treatment

stage, I want to see whether Remy is able to create dialogue and a coherent story with the help of

graphic novels.

Remy expresses an additional particularity: he likes to add the suffix “ness” to words,

even to words that cannot be thus expanded grammatically. For example, when I say “salty,” he

says, “saltiness.” His little sister and I drew his attention to this fact during our tutoring session

on June 7th, 2010, and all three of us had lots of fun inventing words with the ending –ness,

which went as far as “Remyness.”

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After one semester of tutoring in the Reading Clinic, I sent a report home to Remy's

parents to inform them about his achievements. The report contained the results of several

informal tests of reading, spelling, writing, and attitude that I had administered to Remy. The

following is a summary of the original report. According to this initial diagnostic testing, Remy

(at that time, a fifth grader) had an independent reading level of 9th grade. Remy's reading level

was determined by the use of the Comprehensive Reading Inventory (CRI). The independent

level is the level at which Remy was able to read on his own while comprehending most of what

he read.

Children undergo the following developmental stages of learning to spell as delineated by

Lerner and Kline (2006): Stage 1: developing prephonetic writing (ages 1-7); Stage 2: using

letter names and beginning phonetic stages (ages 5-9); Stage 3: using written word patterns (ages

6-12); Stage 4: using syllable junctures and multisyllabic words (ages 8-18); Stage 5: developing

a mature spelling perspective (ages 10-adult). (see Lerner & Kline, 2006, pp. 449-450) My single

case study participant is currently at stage 4; he still has difficulties spelling words with

unpronounced final syllables. This stage has been described as follows:

Students display errors in multisyllabic words. Invented spelling errors occur at syllable

juncture and schwa positions and follow deviational rules (e.g., useage for usage; the

term schwa refers to unaccented syllables and reflects common spelling errors, such as

cottin for cotton). Multisyllabic sight words may or may not be transferred to spelling

performance. (Lerner & Kline, 2006, p. 450)

After an assessment with a Developmental Spelling Inventory, Remy's awareness of

word patterns placed him at the late Syllables and Affixes stadium (unaccented final syllables).

On the Words Their Way Elementary Spelling Inventory Feature Guide, he spelled 16 out of 25

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words right and received 45/62 feature points, a total of 61/87 points. He made zero points in the

columns for harder suffixes and bases or roots. This means that Remy understood inflected

endings and syllable junctures, but still had trouble with unaccented final syllables, where

hearing does not help spelling ("plesure" for "pleasure"; "fortonet" for "fortunate"; "cofident" for

"confident"; "civelize" for "civilize"; "oposition" for "opposition"). This stage was good for a

fifth grader, but could be improved.

While Remy was reading a passage to determine his comprehension levels, a check was

made as to his rate of reading. He was able to read about 133 words per minute on an eighth

grade passage. This rate of reading was very good for a fifth grader; it was fast but adequate, and

did not interfere with his comprehension. He managed to keep a good intonation at that speed.

Remy's composition abilities were assessed in an informal manner, by requesting that he write a

short piece about anything he wished. This type of writing allows an examination of a student's

use of language, the student's understanding of writing conventions, of word knowledge, as well

as the student's attitude toward writing in general. This is a first draft writing that does not

include time for revisions.

Remy was very hesitant with the writing task, and clearly uncomfortable with the

situation. He struggled with how to begin, and never came up with a coherent topic. He needed

lots of prompts and think-alouds to get started. When he finally wrote, his letters were very big

(although neat and readable), and his fine motor skills seemed to be very slow and painful. In ten

minutes, all he wrote was “I wish I could have an easier time coming up with somthing [sic] to

write. When are we going to read this book? may [sic] I have a drink [sic] please?” The

assessment showed that Remy’s biggest deficit was writing. However, it is not the quality of his

writing (his spelling and punctuation were not too bad for a fifth grader) but the quantity – he

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simply had a hard time getting started, and putting anything coherent down on paper. This first

seemed like a classic “writing block” to me – when I audio-taped his reiteration of a short story

he had read, he could narrate it perfectly fine and in great detail, without any delay or

embarrassment, but when asked to write about anything, his mind went blank. Even when asked

to write questions about an interesting topic he did not know much about, he could not produce

any. He had trouble transferring the ideas in his brain into his hand and onto paper, and his

handwriting was unnaturally slow, big, and troublesome, combined with demotivation,

distraction, and almost refusal.

On the 6+1 Trait® Condensed Scoring Guide, Remy received 1/5 for “Ideas,” 1/5 for

“Organization,” 1/5 for “Voice,” 3/5 for “Word Choice,” 3/5 for “Sentence Fluency,” and 3/5

for “Conventions.” This was far below age- and grade-level, and did not take into account his

excellent comprehension.

Remy’s affective domain of reading was also assessed at the beginning of spring 2009, in

order to understand how he viewed himself as a reader and felt about reading. The Elementary

Reading Attitude Survey (ERAS) was applied, which is a nationally normed instrument

measuring attitude toward both academic and recreational reading. Remy answered questions

about how he would feel about things like reading at school, getting a book for a present, and

reading at home. He responded to each questions by choosing one of the following pictorial

representations of Garfield: happy, slightly smiling, mildly upset, or very upset. His scores on the

Reading Attitude Survey were a percentile rank 65th for recreational reading, 77th for academic

reading, and 73rd for full scale reading. The results of the Elementary Reading Attitude Survey

indicated that Remy’s attitude is slightly more positive toward academic reading than

recreational reading. Combining his attitudes toward recreational and academic reading, he

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would be placed into the 73rd percentile on his overall attitude. This indicates that his attitude

toward reading is more positive than that of other children his age. This is not surprising as he is

a very good and fluent reader.

Remy was further assessed with the Elementary Writing Attitude Survey (EWAS), a

nationally normed instrument measuring attitude toward both academic and recreational writing.

Remy answered questions about how he would feel about things like reading at school, getting a

book for a present, and reading at home. He responded to each questions by choosing one of the

following pictorial representations of Garfield: happy, slightly smiling, mildly upset, or very

upset. His scores on the Elementary Writing Attitude Survey were 86 as full scale raw score, and

a percentile rank of 82nd. The results of the Elementary Writing Attitude Survey indicated that

Remy has a positive attitude towards writing, likes challenges, and is satisfied with his situation

at school and how others see him. This was an astonishing finding concerning the slowness of

his handwriting, and his frequent exhibition of task avoidance.

Then, Remy underwent assessment by means of the Reader Self-Perception Scale, an

instrument which consists of four scales to measure (a) how much progress the child feels he is

making, (b) how the child feels he compares with classmates, (c) how the child believes parents,

teachers, and classmates view him as a reader, and (d) how reading makes the child feel. The

instrument is intended for use with children in grades 4 through 6; however, insights about the

client’s self-perceptions can be derived informally for other age and grade levels. Remy’s raw

scores on the Reader Self-Perception Scale were as follows: Progress: 45 of a possible 45;

Observational Comparison: 24 of a possible 30; Social Feedback: 32 of a possible 45; and

Psychological States: 37 of a possible 40. According to the results of this instrument, Remy feels

that he is making excellent reading progress. When comparing himself to other classmates,

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Remy indicates that he feels he is an average reader with a tendency to a better reader than other

children. In the area of social feedback he scored only average, with a tendency to low. Finally,

in reporting how reading made him feel, Remy scored high. This test indicates that, overall,

Remy has an above average perception of himself as a reader, which is totally justified. He

seems unsure whether his family conceives him as excelling, though (his social feedback was

just at the low average).

Finally, the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies (MARSI) was applied, which is a

new self-report instrument designed by Mokhtari and Reichard (2002) that evaluates the global reading

strategies, the problem-solving strategies, and the support reading strategies of a reader. Global reading

strategies represent reading strategies oriented towards a global analysis of a text, for example, “I decide

what to read closely and what to ignore,” or “I have a purpose in mind when I read.” Problem-solving

strategies are strategies for solving problems when the text becomes difficult to read, for example, “I

adjust my reading speed according to what I read,” and “When the text becomes difficult, I reread to

increase my understanding.” Support reading strategies are strategies involving the use of outside material

like note-taking, dictionaries, and other practical help-tools, for example, “I underline or circle

information in the text to help me remember it,” or “I summarize what I read to reflect on important

information in the text.” (cf. Mokhtari & Reichard 2002, 252-253)

Regarding the global reading strategies, Remy scored 44 with a mean of 3.69; with regard

to the support reading strategies, he scored a 27 with a mean of 3.38; and with regard to the

support reading strategies, he scored 19 with a mean of 2.1. According to the legend, averages of

3.5 or higher mean “high,” averages of 2.5-3.4 mean “medium,” and averages of 2.4 and lower

mean “low.” Thus, Remy scored “high” for global reading strategies, “high” for problem-solving

strategies, and “low” for support reading strategies. His overall mean of 3.06 was “high.”

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By the way, sometimes Remy could not decide between a one or a two, or a two or a

three when rating the questions, so he assigned halves and quarters. I took only the discrete

numbers here. For him, it was very important that I write down 1 ¼ and 2 ½, though.

I am not worried at all about his reading strategies. One can work a little on his support

reading strategies, where he rated 1 and 2 (at the most, 3) all the time. The rest of his ratings

were mostly fives. He surprised me a bit by stating that he never takes notes (1) when reading, he

never reads slowly to make sure he understands (1; he likes to read fast), he never underlines or

circles information (1; because he does not want to soil books, especially those belonging to the

library of his school), he never decides what to read closely and what to ignore (1; no selective

reading; he reads all), he never guesses what the material is about when he reads (1), he never

checks to see if his guesses were right (1; of course, since he does not guess!), and he never tries

to guess the meaning of unknown words or phrases (1). As later tutoring sessions revealed, he

does guess, and thus uses this support strategy subconsciously.

For remediation of Remy’s writing skills during this semester of Reading Clinic tutoring,

I applied the technique of the Reading-Writing Workshop, a comprehensive approach to reading

and writing which develops students’ strategies and engages them in meaningful literacy

activities is the “Reading-Writing Workshop” (Tierney & Readence 2005, 87). Remy and I

focused on the part “Prediction and Self-Questioning Strategies Mini-Lesson” to get him actively

involved in the story of Helen Keller, our unit about “cool animals” (geckos), and later of Boba

Fett. The following is a quote from my case report, the entry about progress in writing, sent to his

parents after the semester of tutoring:

Remy proved very good at predicting, and soon looked through me and found out that

when my prompts started with, “Is it possible that...?”, the answer was always, “Yes, it is

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possible.” For example, I had him explore in short quickwrites such questions as whether

it was possible for blind children to “read” picture books (they can “read” feel-books),

etc. He also engaged actively in a whole-group activity about guessing what kind of

animal was in the box. Generally, when given time to first voice his predictions before

writing them down, Remy came up with more ideas that were considerably shortened

when actually written. We did several quickwrite activities involving “observations” and

“inferences,” where, for example, Remy had to describe photos of Helen Keller and her

teacher, Ann Sullivan, and later make inferences he could draw from the mere

observations. (case report from 04/24/2009)

My report shows that Remy can process auditory information very well, is able to make

predictions, and likes to tell stories orally; however, when writing them down he “runs out of

ideas.” I had to note in my case report that, “Remy’s written output did not become longer or

faster during the tutoring semester. Neither grew his willingness to produce written output.” (case

report from 04/24/2009) I was, however, able to report that we had managed to get half through a

chapter book by creating meaningful and enticing reading summaries of each chapter. Creating

summaries is a support strategy which he indicated to use “only occasionally” (rating: 2 out of 5)

in the MARSI assessment. We used it here, and it worked fine to enhance comprehension and

“getting the whole picture.” Even good readers like Remy benefit from short summaries,

especially when the tutoring sessions lie a week apart, and content previously dealt with becomes

forgotten in the meantime. (case report from 04/24/2009)

Below are three artifacts to illustrate Remy’s graphomotor skills: a writing sample, a

drawing sample, and a combination of both (the beginning of a graphic novel).

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Figure 1. Remy’s handwriting

As Remy’s handwriting suggests, he does not write in straight lines, but rather wavy. His

strokes neither lean to the left or to the right; they are more directed upward. He further does not

always distinguish between upper- and lower-case letters, although he knows that “Millions” and

“Assembled” at the beginning of a sentence have to be capitalized. He just makes the lower-case

letters a little bit bigger. His lower-case “f” looks like a “b.” He had spelling issues with the

words “Assembled” (his rendering: “asembleled”) and “employer” (his rendering: “emploier”).

These mistakes are typical of the Syllables and Affixes stadium (unaccented final syllables) he is

in; hearing does not help him to deduct the correct spelling. He also likes to write in fragments,

staccato-like, which is a stylistic element and makes for an exciting text, but which is not wished

for by middle school teachers who aim at complete sentences. The cursive handwriting is my

own; every few sentences, Remy got tired of handwriting and asked to be allowed to dictate to

me. Then, he would write a few sentences on his own again, and we would take it in turns. All in

all, his writing looks more like that of a first grader, but a first grader would be faster.

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Figure 2. Remy’s drawing

Contrary to his handwriting, his drawing shows advanced skills not only in love for

detail, but also in perspective. Here, he drew a droid, R2-D2 from Star Wars. Remy was

motivated when drawing this picture, and worked fast and engaged.

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Figure 3. Remy’s graphic novel (from tutoring session on June 7th, 2010)

When given the task of summarizing a chapter from The Stonekeeper from the Amulet series

which he had read and worked on the week before in a self-created graphic novel, Remy was

reluctant and finally asked to be allowed to create his own story. He was admonished to include

text in his panels in the form of speech bubbles or explanatory notes. Although the topic was

student-initiated (Star Wars), Remy grumbled several times, “I’m bored,” or, “I’m not good at

drawing people.” I wonder whether his inability to draw faces showing emotions has to do with

his difficulty relating socially to people around him. His little second-grade sister asked him

during our tutoring session on June 7th, 2010: “Remy, why are all the persons in your story stick

figures?” She, on the other hand, had no problem drawing smiling faces of her characters. Remy

used text rather sparsely. When asked to explain at least who his characters were by including

names, such as “Luke Skywalker,” in the speech bubbles, he exclaimed: “It is just a random

dude.” When I admonished Remy to include “real” words in his speech bubbles, he exclaimed

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defensively: “’Woosh’ is a word!” His creation was still slow and painful, and he used up both

tutoring hours, with lots of interruptions and off-task behavior. When I asked him if it was only

the promised Star Wars comic book that he could take home after finishing this task that made

him work diligently all of a sudden, he replied, “No. I also want to do a good job!” However, I

doubt that with depicting a “random dude,” he really had a story behind it; most certainly, these

were just “random” pictures of space fight scenes. He did not narrate his story orally to me,

either. Recently (this trait emerged in May 2010), when I ask him a question, he stubbornly and

impolitely replies, “I ask the questions here.” He does not want to tell me too much about his

stories, because that would be a “spoiler” (he explained to me that a “spoiler” is a movie

sequence one can watch on youtube that anticipates the real movie).

1.3 Daily Program for Nine Reading Sessions

For the first lesson plan (02/16/2009), the goals for “writing” were to overcome his

“writer’s block”; the goals for “spelling” were to focus on low-frequency words, harder suffixes,

bases, and roots; and to work on Remy’s motivation. The rationale for “reading” was the

“scaffolded reading experience” as explained by Tierney & Readence (2005, pp. 29-35), in order

to plan instruction which motivated Remy, activated his prior knowledge, built text-specific

knowledge, related to his life, let him show off his good comprehension skills, and pre-taught

respective vocabulary and concepts. The strategy of “Thematic Units” (Tierney & Readence,

2005, p. 67) was used so that Remy would read about only one topic (which was Helen Keller

and sign language, including the Braille alphabet), but from different sources, in order to provide

him with knowledge about diversity in students’ lives, and to foster his tolerance and

understanding for children with disabilities. As far as my instructional planning went, I was

orientating myself along the guidelines of Pigdon and Wolley (1993) for developing “Integrated

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Curriculum Units” (Tierney & Readence, 2005, pp. 68-71). The rationale for “writing” was the

“Reading Writing Workshop” (Tierney & Readence, 2005, p. 87), in which Remy was focusing

on the part “Prediction and Self-Questioning Strategies Mini-Lesson” (p. 93) to become actively

involved in the story of Helen Keller and the struggle of blind people to overcome their

disability. The rationale for “word study/miscellaneous” was to teach Remy content-related new

vocabulary and to make him ask meaningful questions regarding our thematic unit, based on the

strategy of Question-Answer Relationships (QARs) developed by Raphael (1982). I encouraged

Remy to develop questions according to the three models: (a) explicit questions (“right there”),

(b) implicit questions (“think and search”), and (c) scriptal questions (“on his own”) according to

Tierney & Readence (2005, p. 274). The rationale for “motivational games and hands-on

material” was to provide Remy with “Forums for Response” (Tierney & Readence, 2005, p. 91),

which means that he could share his newly-gained knowledge with the other children of the

Reading Clinic. He was allowed to play games with others, such as “tic tac toe” for the blind.

The goals for “reading” were to have Remy read aloud a handout about how Louis

Braille invented the alphabet for the blind, and to motivate him through the story of a boy hero

overcoming his disability (in analogy to himself). We took it in turns to continue reading the

educational manga about Helen Keller. He read the right sides, and I the left. The goals for

“writing” were to do a five-minute quickwrite about the topic: “Can blind children play games

with each other, such as ‘tic tac toe’? Explain why, or why not.” Remy also had to describe two

photographs, one showing young Helen Keller feeling a sunflower, and one showing Helen

Keller feeling the lips of her teacher, Anne Sullivan, while learning to lip-read. Remy had to

write a description of what he saw, and then an inference of what he thinks went on in the

photos. The goals for “word study/miscellaneous” were to read a handout together with me about

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how Louis Braille invented the alphabet for the blind, and to write all unknown words into his

vocabulary booklet. The goals for “motivational games and hands-on material” were to learn

how blind toddlers play with wooden blocks with the Braille and the elevated alphabets on them,

and learn to read by touch. He and his sister were then blindfolded and played a game of “tic tac

toe” for the blind against each other.

For the second lesson plan (02/23/2009), the goals were the same as for the first

one; in addition, we worked on focus and concentration. The reflection included my assumption

that Remy has a “disorder of written expression” and that I might offer him typing instead of

handwriting to ease his trouble. I would have to teach him how to type with ten fingers first,

since he was just beginning to learn it in his 5th grade. The assessment administered on that day

was the Elementary Writing Attitude Survey (EWAS). I also planned on writing a special

tutoring log (child-friendly with less technical terms) for each session and to let Remy read it, so

he would be up-to-date on what I understood about his writing process, and what interventions I

was planning for him. I further told Remy he would be compensated for everything he did for

me; he received a vocabulary booklet and a writing booklet on that day. Those booklets were

only about eight inches long, so as to take away the threat of a “big empty page” in letter size.

The rationale for “reading” was the “Scaffolded Reading Experience” by Graves &

Graves (1994) to engage Remy in pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading activities

(Tierney & Readence, 2005, p. 29). I was aiming at brainstorming, question-asking, and

observing for that day, and planned on taping his oral stories and typing his dictated output. The

rationale for “writing” was to use a KWL to brainstorm, generate categories and organize ideas,

specify questions, check on learning, and guide further reading (Tierney & Readence, 2005, p.

157). Our topic that day was reptiles, specifically, leopard geckos. The rationale for “word

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study/miscellaneous” was the “Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy” asking Remy to collect

meaningful words, and me to select words (Tierney & Readence, 2005, p. 232) which he wrote

in his vocabulary booklet. This exercise is concept-specific; today, we dealt with leopard geckos,

and last time, we had dealt with blind people. Our second rationale for “word

study/miscellaneous” was the “Target Concept” including a word map, using the one about

reptiles from our textbook (Tierney & Readence, 2005, p. 319). Our rationale for “motivational

games and hands-on material” was to engage in the “ReQuest Procedure” which lets students

formulate their own questions and develops their questioning behavior (Tierney & Readence,

2005, p. 270).

Our activities for “reading” were to take the Elementary Writing Attitude Survey

(EWAS) which I read to Remy, and he circled the Garfields. Then, he read the report I had

written about him from the last session. After that, we did a little Braille reading exercise (a page

in Braille about Helen Keller) including a “secret key,” and a riddle in Braille. Our activities for

“writing” were a quickwrite about the question: “We know that blind people can read books in

Braille. But can they ‘read’ or feel pictures?” During this activity, Remy was blindfolded and

made to feel the “feel book” for the blind, Expectations. A gift for blind children from Braille

Institute, vol. 48, 1996, edited by Douglas Menville, and illustrated by Mollie Doctrow. He had

to feel different animal shapes that did not only contain outlines, but also patterns like fur. Our

second quickwrite was, “Can blind people exchange business cards?” After he had written down

his answer, Remy was provided with Braille paper, a stencil, and a little slate to make his own

Braille business card. Our activities for “word study/miscellaneous” were question-asking

activities (about the topic of geckos) and learning technical terminology dealing with this topic.

He wrote those words into his vocabulary booklet, and we were planning to put them on a

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website I was going to create for him. Our activity for “motivational games and hands-on

material” was that I had brought a live leopard gecko in a cage. In a group exercise involving all

children from the Reading Clinic, we did an anticipation game (“What is in the cage?”), then

making observations and inferences.

For the third lesson plan (03/03/2009), the goals were again writing, spelling, and

motivation. The rationale for “reading” was “block 2” from the “Four Blocks” as described by

Cunningham, Hall, and Defee (1991 and 1998): Self-Selected Reading (Tierney & Readence,

2005, p. 12). I had bought a new book for him, Star Wars, Boba Fett (A Clone Wars Novel,

Scholastic, by Terry Bisson, 2003), his favorite self-selected topic. Our rationale for “writing”

was “Thematic Units” as described by Weaver, Chaston, and Peterson (1993) and containing five

principles of learning: (1) opportunities to select and engage in natural reading and writing, and

experimentation; (2) negotiation of curriculum with life-relevant and interesting topic; (3)

functional and purposeful thematic units; (4) use of direct and indirect teaching of skills based on

current needs (here: dictation and audio-taping instead of handwriting or typing); and (5)

teaching as direct response to Remy’s actions and inquiries (Tierney & Readence, 2005, pp. 67-

78). Our rationale for “word study/miscellaneous” was still the “Vocabulary Self-Collection

Strategy.” We dealt with the content area of Star Wars this time. Our rationale for “motivational

games and hands-on material” was to continue the “ReQuest Procedure,” still dealing with the

topic of geckos.

Our activity for “reading” was that Remy read aloud the first three chapters of Star Wars.

Boba Fett to me. Besides, he announced that his birthday was on March 11th, so he will receive a

Star Wars book as present. Our activity for “writing” was that Remy summarized chapter 1

together with me (guided practice), and chapters 2 and 3 alone. I typed on the laptop for him, and

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he dictated me what to write. He was made to type a few sentences by himself. He had his own

website with password now to write on, and started to learn basic website creation skills. Our

activity for “word study/miscellaneous” was to collect more difficult vocabulary from our

content areas. Our activity for “motivational games and hands-on material) was to touch pieces

of shed gecko skin and guess what it was, felt like, smelled like, etc. A little baby leopard gecko

visited the Reading Clinic that day, and all children were invited to compare it to the adult gecko

they had seen last time. Remy also did a relaxing vocabulary game after having answered the

question, “Can blind children play Scramble”: he received a Scramble game for the blind with

embossed letters and the Braille alphabet on the plastic pieces. He was supposed to pick words

from our content areas.

For the fourth lesson plan (03/16/2009), the goals were still the same, and the rationale

for “reading” was again Self-Selected Reading, dealing with chapter 3 of Star Wars. Boba Fett.

The rationale for “writing” remained the same, too (Thematic Units). The rationale for “word

study/miscellaneous” was again the “Vocabulary Self-Collection Strategy,” and Remy wrote

difficult and new words about Star Wars on his new website. The rationale for “motivational

games and hands-on material” was again the ReQuest Procedure. The activity for “reading” was

that Remy read chapter 3 aloud to me and summarized it on his website. He was allowed to

dictate to me after having typed a little by himself first. Our activity for “writing” was to type the

reading summary of chapter 3 on our website. We had to relocate to my office, since the Reading

Clinic classroom had no Internet access. Our activity for “word study/miscellaneous” was to

collect difficult words from Star Wars and write them on the website. Our activity for

“motivational games and hands-on material” was to put some graphics about Star Wars on

Remy’s website.

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For the fifth lesson plan (03/23/2009), the goals and rationales were the same as for the

fourth lesson plan. Our activity for “reading” was that Remy read what we had summarized last

time and typed on his website. Then, he read chapter 4 aloud to me and summarized it. He was

allowed to dictate to me after having typed a little. Our activity for “writing” was to type the

reading summary of chapter 4 on his website. Remy also typed a field trip report to a star lab on

his website. He further had to handwrite the answer to a short prompt into his booklet: “How

does the field trip relate to the book we are reading?” Our activity for “word

study/miscellaneous” was to improve his general spelling through continuous collection of new

and difficult words from the content area of Star Wars. Our activity for “motivational games and

hands-on material” was a field trip to a school that had a star lab set up. The children climbed

into the star lab where they heard and saw a presentation, and Remy and I took photos for his

website.

For the sixth lesson plan (03/30/2009), the goals and rationales were the same as above.

The activity for “reading” was that Remy read what we had summarized last time (the star lab

experience). Then, we took it in turns to read chapters 4 and 5. The activity for “writing” was

that Remy typed the reading summaries 4 and 5 on his website. He was allowed to dictate

summary. Remy further created an online list of “The Code of Jango Fett,” putting up rules from

the chapters, including the page numbers where he had found them. Our activity for “word

study/miscellaneous” was again to collect new vocabulary, this time from chapters 4 and 5, and

to write the words in his vocabulary booklet and on his website. Our activity for “motivational

games and hands-on material” was to do website work (pictures and photos), and if Internet

access was not available, to look at and admire the print-out of his website as it was so far.

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For the seventh lesson plan (04/06/2009), the goals and rationales were the same as

above. Our activity for “reading” was that Remy read his reading summaries 4, 5, and 6 aloud

(from the website if Internet access; otherwise, from a print-out). Then, he and I took it in turns

to start reading chapters 7, 8, and 9 of Boba Fett (everyone reads one page alternating). Our

activity for “writing” was that Remy typed and/or handwrote parts of the reading summaries of

7, 8, and 9, and dictated the rest to me. Remy further enlarged his online list of “The Code of

Jango Fett,” putting up more rules including the page numbers where he had found those. He

also continued to put more pictures and even sound files as URLs on his website. His second

writing task was to pick three rules from the Code of Jango Fett and to answer the prompt:

“What would those rules mean for you?” Our activity for “word study/miscellaneous” was to

write unknown words from chapters 7, 8, and 9 in his vocabulary booklet, and our activity for

“motivational games and hands-on material” was to continue with our web work.

For the eighth lesson plan (04/13/2009), the goals and rationales were the same as above.

Our activity for “reading” was to take it in turns, page by page, to read chapters 8, 9 and 10. Our

activity for writing was to create the corresponding reading summaries; Remy had to handwrite

or type two, and dictate the other one to me. We used quarters to place on the backs of his

hands, so he would type with all ten fingers. We had done this before, but now, he won’t be

allowed to buy candy at the vending machine for them anymore. He also had to provide more

personal statements about the rules from the Code of Jango Fett. During the writing tasks, Remy

drew an unsolicited picture for me: a “hyperdrive engine” and a “hydrotube” of a space shuttle.

He had also brought a LEGO® droid figurine and drew it for me in pencil: R2-D2. Our activity

for “word study/miscellaneous” was again our vocabulary booklet; this time for the new

chapters. Our activities regarding “motivational games and hands-on material” consisted in

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planning for our presentation on April 20th, 2009, in front of the parents of the Reading Clinic

children, when Remy is going to present his website.

For the ninth lesson plan (04/20/2009), the goals and rationales were the same as above.

Our activity for “reading” was that Remy read what we had summarized last time, and then we

took it in turns to read chapter 10 in an alternating way (a page each). Our activities for “writing”

were that Remy dictated the chapter 10 reading summary for me, and handwrote one or two

sentences. We did a “think aloud” before he wrote anything, to make sure that he had clear

thoughts and organization before committing his ideas to paper. Remy also did some more

“creative writing,” composing statements on Jango Fett’s rules from his Code. Our activity for

“word study/miscellaneous” was to collect difficult words from chapter 10 for his vocabulary

booklet, and our activity for “motivational games and hands-on material” was to practice

presenting his website.

1.4 Private Tutoring Report

For the private tutoring sessions, we did not use our precious time for reading anymore;

Remy received his books, read them at home, and we did writing exercises about them the next

time we met. Only a few times, he and his little sister Rula took it in turns to read chapters from

the Bone comic series. We did picture stories by scanning pages from the Bone comics, cutting

out panels using the free software IrfanView, and inserting them in a two-column table into a

Word document. The pictures were in the left column, and the text Remy had to write was on the

right. In the beginning, I did all this preparation work alone; in the last few months of 2010,

Remy cut and pasted pictures of his choice himself and inserted speech bubbles, and thus added

to his computer skills. We did the same thing with the graphic novel of The Curious Case of

Benjamin Button. When he worked online, instead of using a Word document, Remy pasted his

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own LEGO® photographs into a table I had put up on his website. I let him work very

independently; sometimes, he asked for the right spelling, but most of the time he worked

without my support and had learned well how to get photos from his camera onto the computer

and upload them to his website, where he had to scale them so they would fit his table. Below is

a sample of his online photo stories; it uses dialog.

This elevator is off limits. Only Sith patrol and

those with the proper authorization are allowed.

It's obvious from the way you're dressed that

you aren't part of the Sith patrol. So unless you

have the proper authorization, you must move

along.

Figure 4. Sample of online Star Wars photo stories

Remy did not invent the text; he recited Star Wars movies from memory. He spent lots of

tutoring time watching them on youtube (partly, to “get ideas,” and partly because it was

distracting and less work than writing). When I asked him one day why he had been so

unproductive the previous session, he said, “Well, there were too many movies!” This report will

be continued when stage 3 begins, where Remy will take his picture stories and compose a fluent

text (narration and dialogue) with their help, but without inserting photos.

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APPENDIX B – Original 6+1 Trait® Writing Scoring Continuum

Original 6+1 Trait® Writing Scoring Continuum

6 + 1 Traits Rubric for Recounting a Narrative Purpose: Written recount of what happened Score

Criteria for Written Recount

Evidence of Criteria in Student Writing

5 3 1

Ideas

This paper is clear and focused. It holds the reader's attention. Relevant details and quotes enrich the central theme.

□

The writer is beginning to define the topic, even though development is still basic or general.

□

As yet, the paper has no clear sense of purpose or central theme. To extract meaning from the text, the reader must make inferences based on sketchy or missing details.

□

Organization

The organization enhances and showcases the central idea or theme. The order, structure, or presentation of information is compelling and moves the reader through the text.

□

The organizational structure is strong enough to move the reader through the text without too much confusion.

□

The writing lacks a clear sense of direction. Ideas, details, or events seem strung together in a loose or random fashion; there is no identifiable internal structure.

□

Voice

The writer speaks directly to the reader in a way that is individual, compelling, and engaging. The writer crafts the writing with an awareness and respect for the audience and the purpose for writing.

□

The writer seems sincere but not fully engaged or involved. The result is pleasant or even personable, but not compelling.

□

The writer seems indifferent, uninvolved, or distanced from the topic and/or the audience.

□

Word Choice

Words convey the intended message in a precise, interesting, and natural way. The words are powerful and engaging.

□

The language is functional, even if it lacks much energy. It is easy to figure out the writer's meaning on a general level.

□

The writer struggles with a limited vocabulary, searching for words to convey meaning.

□

Sentence Fluency

The writing has an easy flow, rhythm, and cadence. Sentences are well built, with strong and varied structure that invites expressive oral reading.

□

The text hums along with a steady beat, but tends to be more pleasant or businesslike than musical, more mechanical than fluid.

□

The reader has to practice quite a bit in order to give this paper a fair interpretive reading.

□

table continues

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table continued

Conventions

The writer demonstrates a good grasp of standard writing conventions (e.g., spelling, punctuation, capitalization, grammar, usage, paragraphing) and uses conventions effectively to enhance readability. Errors tend to be so few that just minor touchups would get this piece ready to publish.

□

The writer shows reasonable control over a limited range of standard writing conventions. Conventions are sometimes handled well and enhance readability; at other times, errors are distracting and impair readability.

□

Errors in spelling, punctuation, capitalization, usage, and grammar and/or paragraphing repeatedly distract the reader and make the text difficult to read.

□

Presentation

The form and presentation of the text enhances the ability for the reader to understand and connect with the message. It is pleasing to the eye.

□

The writer's message is understandable in this format.

□

The reader receives a garbled message due to problems relating to the presentation of the text.

□

APPEND

(Note: th

DIX C – Flan

he original Fl

nders Interac

landers rubri

ction Analys

ic does not s

sis System

split up categgory 9 into ““on-task” and “off-task.””)

215

Stage II: Tutoring from August 9th, 2010. Length of the video is 1:03:30. Remy is working on a graphic novel about one of the books of the series Bone by Jeff Smith.  

Min.  Flanders  Speaker  Verbatim 

1:00  5  Tutor  (to the girl) … you’re right, because the light is on. Okay, it’s on (referring to the i‐flip video camera), and it is a quarter past three… 

    Rula  Hi, X! (meaning the invisible committee chair, who, according to the tutor, will watch the video) 

  2, 5, 2, 6  Tutor  Hi, X! (waves in front of the camera) We’re starting right now! Remy has read it very fast! (camera shows boy holding a Bone book and looking at a page, deep in thought. There are post‐it notes stuck in the book by the tutor; they indicate where a new chapter starts, and until which one the boy was supposed to read) And Rula is making a nice comic. (to the girl) You can hold it up, so she can see what you’ve done already! 

    Rula  I’ve barely done anything, though. (holds her letter size page into the camera; one sees panels made with a broad blue marker, and sees two colorful illustrations dealing with a birthday party) 

  7  Tutor  Oops, upside down! 

0:19    Rula  Upside down! (laughs and turns the page around)  

  2, 5, 2, 4  Tutor  Yes! Looks good! (holds camera above boy’s printed‐out inserted scans from the Bone graphic novel, where he has to fill the blank speech bubbles with text) And this is Remy’s stuff. He finished reading! And we’re doing the prologue now. See you Tuesday! (waves good‐bye into the camera and rolls back to the desk with her swivel chair) (to the boy) Okay! Let’s go ahead! Typing or handwriting? (boy has the choice; if he wants to handwrite, he can fill in the printed speech bubbles; if he wants to type, he can do so in the interactive ones on his computer screen) 

    Rula  He’s gonna do type, he’s gonna type! 

  8  Remy  Yeah, type! Yeah, I’ll do typing. 

  5, 4  Tutor  Okay. So… I’m putting these things on here (sticks two post‐it notes onto his computer screen; one on the left side where the cartoons with the speech bubbles of his graphic novel are, and one on the right side, where the blank fields are), so you remember that the dialogue is on this side, and the narrative is on that side. So, what would you put in the first field?  

  8  Remy  I don’t know. 

    Rula  (interrupts) Wait, what is today? 

  2, 5  Tutor  We can look in the prologue again. (to the girl) Today is the 9th of August. And it’s Tuesday. 

    Rula  Thanks! Tenth, eleventh, twelfth… (counts on her fingers) Excuse me… 

  8  Remy  I don’t know. 

1:14  5, 2  Tutor  You can mix pictures. You don’t need to take the text from the first picture. I’ve made a very big field to type in, because I have only one picture for the whole page. And then again, one picture for a whole page. Kind of a summary of the whole thing. Otherwise, I would have 

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to put every picture in there, and you would write a long, long, long story…  

    Rula  Or type! 

  3, 2  Tutor  Yeah, type. And this way, it’s only two pages. (scrolls up and down, so boy can see) The most important things. So, dialogue here! (points to the left side of the screen, while boy is still reading his graphic novel) 

  9 off  Remy  You can see nothing! 

  3  Tutor  I can see nothing? 

  8, 9 off  Remy  Eh, no… it’s so hot! 

  1, 4  Tutor  I know it’s hot. It’s summer! In Africa, it’s much hotter, isn’t it? 

    Rula  There’s only summer and spring. No winter, no fall. 

  3  Tutor  That must be really hot. (wipes face) 

    Rula  I found the “Easy Button”! (presses the “Easy Button” from Staples, and the recorded voice of a man can be heard: “That was easy!”) 

  10  Remy  Nooooo!!! (the children always used to fight who could press the button) 

  2  Tutor  When you finish the first page, you can press the “Easy Button,” too! 

  8  Remy  Okay, I’m okay with it now… 

    Rula  I’m not finished, but I started this at home, just today. 

  5, 2, 4, 10, 2 

Tutor  (to the boy, who looks up from his reading) Wow, you finished! That was easy, too! So, let’s go ahead. Just decide what you put in the dialogue field. It’s a dialogue between Fone Bone, who is coming off the tree to do something, and the long guy, his friend – his cousin. Smiley Bone. Is it Smiley Bone? (three seconds silence; then, tutor looks into the camera) Come, X. is watching! She’s already bored because nothing is happening! 

    Rula  “Hmmm, this is boring!” she would say! 

    Tutor  Yeah. She can eat her lunch in that time. 

  9 off  Remy  Eh, you might wanna get a new one, because I think I drank part of that. (referring to the tutor’s Fanta can) 

  3  Tutor  You did?? (laughs, pretending to be disgusted) Noo! 

3:22    Rula  What, this one? (laughs) 

  8  Remy  Eh, the cold one. (some cans had been in the fridge, and some had been standing on the book shelf) 

  3  Tutor  Yeah, you have a cold one and a warm one now, and you can have both now! 

  9 on  Remy  Oh, really? Good. 

  5  Tutor  But I’ll keep this one (takes another can in her hand).  This is yours. This is the warm one, and this is the cold one, I guess. And we have more cold ones in the fridge. If it gets too hot in here, you can even take a closed cold one and put it under your shirt, and it will be cold! 

    Rula  Oh! (laughs) That’s gonna be weird! 

  3  Tutor  Yeah!  

    Rula  Oh, what am I doing… (checks her work) 

  2  Tutor  (to the boy, who is still reading and has turned away from the tutor on his swivel chair) Okay, let’s go ahead. 

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  10  Remy  Erm. Erm. (clears his throat) 

  2, 6, 4, 4  Tutor  First speech bubble… Refer to what you see in the picture, and then just take a summary of the first page or so. Why is he climbing up those trees? What’s the guy down there saying?  

    Rula  (interrupts) I need to get a new paper! (tutor leans over) 

  3  Tutor  You can draw on there. 

    Rula  No, I mean one that’s blank. 

  3  Tutor  There’s one that’s blank. (refers to premade grids for a graphic novel) Oh, you mean entirely blank? Okay. We have those. (gets up and walks to the book shelf; hands her paper) Here’s white paper. 

    Rula  Thank you! I need to read the paper, please. Where is it? (tutor helps girl; mumbles; then, turns to boy) 

  2, 6, 4  Tutor  Okay. Let’s talk about what you’re going to write first, and then put it in there, okay? Maybe that’s easier. What is your sentence? 

  10  Remy  (still reads in his book) yebbede yebbede yebbede…. Yeahde yeahde yeahde… 

  3  Tutor  In English, please! (laughs) 

  9 on  Remy  Not gibberish? 

  8  Tutor  Not gibberish. 

  9 on  Remy  Okay. (finally leans over and looks at screen) 

5:16  4, 4, 6  Tutor  What would you say? This guy is talking, so in that dialogue box, what would you say? You can look again, or do it from memory… and just say the sentence, what you would say. And then, we’re going to type it. 

  9 on  Remy  You skipped some pictures. 

  3, 5, 6, 6, 5, 4 

Tutor  I know; that’s why you have to do a summary. That’s why you need to put more than one picture in there.  Or leave it out, and put just what’s in that picture in there. Put the summary in the next one.  If we took every picture, we’d never finish; it would be a whole book, as big as this one (touches his graphic novel). We want to summarize it, to make it shorter. Or do you want me to do every picture, and make you write so much?   

  8  Remy  Meh! 

  4  Tutor  Meh? 

  8  Remy  I said meh! 

    Rula  He doesn’t know. 

6:13  10, 4  Tutor  (after several seconds of silence) Okay, what does it say in the same picture in the book? (boy looks up the page) 

  8  Remy  It said, it says: “Well!” That’s pretty much it. (shows her the book with a grin)  

  3, 4, 5, 6, 4 

Tutor  Okay; that’s not enough. What would you put in there? You have a big field. Summarize. What does it say in the next two or three? 

  8  Remy  “Bad news… I don’t recognize anything.” (mumbles what it says in the speech bubble) 

  2, 6  Tutor  Okay. So if you can put that into the speech bubble before the other guy… 

  9 on  Remy  Ah, wait, next two/three pages… 

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  7  Tutor  Okay. No, em, the same page, just the next two/three pictures on the same page!  

  9 on  Remy  Oh. 

  2  Tutor  So, “I don’t see anything; bad news” – that was on there, okay. 

  9 on  Remy  Me… (flips through pages; in thought) 

    Rula  That’s what it says? 

  5  Tutor  You had this already. That’s not there anymore. (points to the post‐it note in his graphic novel; he had flipped too many pages and arrived at a previously covered section)  

  10  Remy  Ah man!! (screams) 

  6, 6, 5  Tutor   Okay, you can say: “Hey, can you see anything up there?” or so. Just put a dialogue in there. And this guy is talking; not this guy. 

  9 on  Remy  I know. 

  5  Tutor  If you want to change it, you can also change it. Do you want this guy to talk? Then, we grab this here and put it up there. I’ll show you how, if you want the other guy to talk. See, we have this thing here – if you click it, there’s this yellow spot, see that? If you touch that spot and move it… (tries to show him how to move a speech bubble’s anchor to another character’s mouth) 

  9 on  Remy  I know how to move it! 

  4, 5  Tutor  Oh, you know it? Then you can make this… 

  8  Remy  Yeah, I learned it in school. 

  2, 4  Tutor  Oh, at school! So, which guy should talk? 

  9 on  Remy  That is a good question. 

  3  Tutor  Yeah? (happy) 

7:44  9 off  Remy  – which guy should talk? What – who was the first president of the United States?  

    Rula  Hm! (laughs) 

  9 off  Remy  Who? What is going on here?  Ah, we got good questions. And yet, we can’t always get a straight answer. 

    Rula  Would you just do it? 

  9 off  Remy  Can we? 

8:01  3  Tutor  Okay, you made it smaller… (boy has grabbed the mouse and made the speech bubble much smaller, so he would have less to type in) 

  9 off  Remy  (louder) Can we?? I was talking about… (boy moves the speech bubble higher. Alas, now he uncovers the original graphic novel speech bubbles, which the tutor had covered with her big custom‐made speech bubbles for him to type in.) 

8:18  2, 3, 7  Tutor  Looks good! Can we? Okay, now you can see his nose… that doesn’t look good, because there’s something below it. (original speech bubble became visible) 

  9 on  Remy  Oh, dialogue! 

  3  Tutor  Yeah, that’s the “well.” We don’t wanna see that. 

  9 off  Remy  There’s a “well”? Where? (is kidding the tutor) 

  7  Tutor  You covered his nose!  

  9 off  Remy  Ah wait, where? There’s a “well”? (of course he sees it. Maybe he wants to make a word play regarding a water well?) 

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  3  Tutor  Yes, you said so yourself. 

  9 off  Remy  Where’s a “well”? I don’t see a “well.” 

8:41  7, 6  Tutor  (disregards his constant question) And now the tree is talking! (boy has put the anchor of the speech bubble in the tree) You need to grab the yellow spot. 

  9 on  Remy  Tree… 

    Rula  Excuse me! (girl has burped) 

  2  Tutor  (looks at her drawing) Ah, great! 

    Rula  Thank you! It was supposed to be purple, but this isn’t really purple. 

  2  Tutor  This is purple. 

    Rula  Yeah, this is purple… 

  3  Tutor  This is dark purple. (they laugh) 

  2  Tutor  Yeah, that’s perfect! (looks at what boy has typed into the first speech bubble) 

  9 off  Remy  So, what happened? This isn’t… so, what exactly happened, happened between the last two books?  

  3  Tutor  It has nothing to do with the other book. They are completely new stories. 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah… 

  5  Tutor  It’s just a bit difficult from the beginning; you don’t really know a whole lot… 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah, well… yeah well, they may be different stories, but th‐, but they all follow the same point. 

  3  Tutor  Yes, they do; there are the same characters… 

    Rula  (interrupts) A bunch of people… 

  5  Tutor  … (inaudible due to girl’s talking) and the bad, bad rat creatures, and they’re in here, too. (points to his screen) 

  9 on  Remy  Eh, well, they still follow the same point. The end of the story is still continued.  

  3  Tutor  Uhum. So, you’d better find out how… 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah, we’ll find out what happens after the story. So what if like what they do, so what if like what they do on TV… 

  3  Tutor  Uhum… 

  9 on  Remy  So, what happened between the last two books? 

  7  Tutor  I’m asking the questions here! (grins) 

  9 on  Remy  Hey! 

  5, 2  Tutor  I’m not telling you anything. That’s a spoiler. You’ll get all the books if you want.  

  9 on  Remy  Yeah well, yeah well, reading this ahead of time without really knowing what’s going on, that’s a spoiler. 

  2  Tutor  (tutor doesn’t react, since the stories are independent from one another, even if she skipped two volumes) Uhum. So, let’s go ahead. (reads) “We’re no more lost.” 

  9 on  Remy  (corrects her )It’s “now.” 

  3  Tutor  Oh, “we’re now more lost”! 

  9 on  Remy  Than before. 

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  3  Tutor  Than before. Okay, type “than bevore,” because otherwise, I’ll pronounce it wrong, and then “we’re no more lost,” because we’re found again! (laughs) 

10:56  9 on  Remy  Touché. 

  6, 6  Tutor  Yeah, finish the sentence; otherwise, I’m reading it wrong… And then you need to move the yellow spot, so this guy is talking, not the tree, if you’re really picky…  

  9 on  Remy  The tree! 

    Rula  Do you think “finders” or “fighters” sounds better? 

  5  Tutor  Fighters. 

    Rula  Okay. (turns to her work) 

  2  Tutor  (looks at girl’s artifact) That sounds really good. 

  2  Tutor  (turns to boy) Hey, “than before.” Let’s see if you can spell “than” right, because my students spell “than” wrong. 

    Rula  Whaaaat? 

    Remy  Than… 

  5  Tutor  Okay, there are two “than’s” – one has an “a,” and one has an “e.” 

    Rula  No, that’s “then.” 

  3  Tutor  Yeah, but you pronounce both the same… 

  9 on  Remy  Oh, yeah! 

  2, 2, 5, 4  Tutor  Okay, let’s see if Rula knows it. Remy has it right already. Okay, there are two “than’s.” (writes them on a piece of paper and shows it to the girl) Tell me a sentence that has the second “than.”  

    Rula  Then? 

  6  Tutor  Yes, a sentence with this.  

    Rula  Then they went to Antarctica.  

  2, 5, 2, 4, 6, 5 

Tutor  Yes, that’s right. (writes it down) Then, they left. Or, then, they went. Okay. What about this “than”? Tell me a sentence with this “than.” It’s not “then they went.” 

  10  Remy  Oin, oin, oin, oin, oin… 

  5, 2  Tutor  That’s the other “than.” (girl is quiet) He has one: “We are now more lost than before.” 

    Rula  Oh, I get it, I got one, I got one, I got one…  We got more problems… that’s not a whole sentence. 

  3  Tutor  We got more problems… 

    Rula  Than before. That’s what I was trying to say. 

  2, 5, 2  Tutor  Than before. Very good! So if it’s a comparative, you compare: more than before. Then, you have the “than” with an “a.” More money than before. More problems than before. But if you say, “first I do this, and then I do that,” it’s this “then.” And you two got it right. 

    Rula  I know the second one… 

  3  Tutor  Yeah, the second one… 

    Rula  Because I have to use it in a bunch of sentences in school when I was in second grade…  

  5  Tutor  Yeah, you can start sentences with this one, but you can’t start sentences with this one. See, my students are like 20, 25 years old, and they still get it wrong. 

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    Rula  Whaaaa??? 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah, well, it’s difficult. 

  3  Tutor  It is difficult. 

13:42  9 on  Remy  Yeah, well, it’s more difficult… well, I think it’s one of the more difficult things in… stuff. 

    Rula  I think it’s because they’re too old! 

  3  Tutor  Naw; it has nothing to do with this. 

  9 on  Remy  It has nothing to do with age, though. 

  5, 4  Tutor  Yeah. You just have to think a little bit when you write. You can’t just write what it sounds like, because “then” and “than” sound the same. Right? 

    Rula  Yeah. So different… so is “when” and “when”… it’s also a name. 

  4  Tutor  Huh? “When” is a name? 

    Rula  Uhum. I know a girl named “When.” She’s in second grade now. (She probably meant “Gwen”?!) 

  5, 2  Tutor  There are lots of words like these, like “meet” and “meat.” I think we talked about this before. “Meet” and “meat” (leans over to the girl’s desk and writes them on a piece of paper), and “two” and “too” – those are homophones. Words that sound the same but are written in a different way. – Okay! (turns to the boy, who has typed in the meantime) Great! 

    Rula  (yells in between) Plus, words that sound the same and are written… 

  9 on  Remy  Okay, I mean really, now I’m just really confused… 

14:45  6, 4  Tutor  Now, you have to summarize the next thing – who made this dirt spot in here?? (laughs) Em, em, em (pretends to be upset)… Whatever… 

  9 on  Remy  But really… things are really confusing. I mean… I mean how do they get in such bad shape? I mean, what, in such a bad shape. Where, where’s, where’s the other brother, and what happened to everybody else? 

  5, 7  Tutor  You will know that later. The other brother is somewhere else – but they’re not brothers, they’re cousins. The other cousin is the one with the black shirt and the yellow star on it, and that’s a really mean cousin; he always gets in trouble. And those are the two nice cousins. The other cousin is with the villagers, and something bad, bad happened to that village… 

  9 on  Remy  What happened? 

  5, 2  Tutor  You’ll see that as soon as we finish those pages (points to his screen), and then read chapter I. You’ve already been there… And you’ll find out something astonishing about the girl with the long red hair. Okay, go ahead! 

  9 on  Remy  Err, can I borrow this? (grabs the Bone book that’s lying on his sister’s desk) 

  7  Tutor  There’s nothing in there… 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah, but there are some things in the past… Where is it? Where is… here we go! (shows her a page) Does it have something to do with this weird dream? 

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  3, 2, 2, 2  Tutor  Yes, it does; uhum. That’s right! That’s a good idea. And you’ll find that out soon. Come and finish this, and then you can read on, and then you’ll know what the dream was about, because the solution is right there. 

  9 on, 10  Remy  Well, I read, well, I read about it in the introduction. Accor‐, according, according from what I read in the introduction… where is it, drrrrr, drrrr, ermmm…. (wildly leaves through the book) 

  6  Tutor  Be careful with the book! Don’t destroy it! 

  9 on, 10, 9 on 

Remy  Where is it? Ermm, drrr, rrrr, emmm… (lashes out with his left and and by mistake slaps tutor right in the eye) Oh, I’m sorry!!! 

  5  Tutor  (laughs and looks in the camera; faking complaint when calling the name of committee chair, who is supposedly going to watch the video) X!!! 

  9 on  Remy  I’m sorry, X!!! Just look away from when that happened. Just look away. (is laughing, too, and turns the camera, so it faces away from him) 

  4, 4  Tutor  What do you mean, from when that happens? Will that happen again? (laughs) 

    Rula  What happened, what happened! (corrects the tense) 

    Tutor  (thinks she needs to explain to the girl) I had my face in his way. 

  9 on  Remy  I’m sorry! 

  1  Tutor  It’s okay! 

    Rula  Pay no attention to what just happened! 

  10  Remy  Ehm… (reads in the book) 

  5, 2  Tutor  Yeah, that’s not the introduction; that’s still in the chapter you’re on. And you’re right about this…. 

  9 on  Remy   It’s in here somewhere… 

17:19    Rula  Does anybody have a dark green? 

  3  Tutor  Look in here, there might be some more… nothing here… 

    Rula  Dark, really dark…. 

  9 on  Remy  Ah, here we go, it’s here! (reads) “Member of the last royal family…” 

  3, 2  Tutor  Yeah! Hm, you’re very close… (boy has found out that the character Thorn is a princess) So you can guess already what’s gonna happen.  

  10  Remy  Meh. 

  2  Tutor  Okay, so… (tries to make him work on his speech bubbles again) 

  9 off  Remy  You need, you need to get the last two books... so that we can find out what happened. 

  2  Tutor  Uhum. I will, if you do a good job… 

17:56  9 on  Remy  I mean, I mean you can pretty much guess, you can pretty much guess what happened, what happened in these two books… (he looks at the back cover of his volume) 

  5  Tutor  I have this one, too, at home… (points at one of the volumes depicted on the back cover ad) 

  9 on  Remy  You can bring it… yes, we need these two books; but you need to get the other two; otherwise, it will just be really confusing… 

  2, 4  Tutor  Let’s make a deal: if you do a good job, I’ll bring the other books, okay? 

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  8  Remy  Oh, okay. But I’m still really confused.  

  2, 5, 4  Tutor  Doesn’t matter! We can do it, anyway. You know what they’re saying (points to his speech bubble on the screen). So this time, there are three different guys saying something for their dialogues… This guy – what is it, by the way? Is it a hamster, is it a mole… 

  8  Remy  A gopher. 

  3  Tutor  A gopher? 

  8  Remy  I’m not, I’m not… 

  3, 2, 5  Tutor  Might be a good idea. A gopher comes close… makes holes in the ground… has two teeth in the front like a rabbit, but is no rabbit… (leans over and looks closely on screen) 

  9 off  Remy  Don’t look! (turns away on his swivel chair with book in his hands) 

    Rula  There’s a wet spot here! 

  9 off  Remy  Rula! 

18:58  3  Tutor  That’s from your drink, probably. 

    Rula  I think it’s from the melting. 

  3  Tutor  Uhum. Condensated water. It’s not raining anymore, so no worries! (laughs; referring to the former leak in the ceiling) 

  9 off  Remy  Why did you do this, Rula? 

    Rula  I didn’t spill it! 

  2  Tutor  (to the girl) Boinc! You lost… (mumbles and bends down). (to the boy) Come! Let’s go on!  

    Rula  I lost three of them. 

  9 on  Remy  In a minute! I need to, I need to do something… 

19:23  6, 6  Tutor   Don’t look ahead! You’re doing that later. 

  10  Remy  Err, emm… 

  6, 2  Tutor  Don’t do more than we need to. But we need to finish those two pages for X. She’s waiting for them. 

    Rula  Then, you’ll do more and more and more? This will take a long time. 

  3  Tutor  It’s a whole book.  

    Rula  I know. 

  2, 2  Tutor  Come! Time’s up! 

  10  Remy  Errr… (rolls with squeaking chair close to PC again) 

  6, 4  Tutor  Squeeze… it’s empty. You need a new one? (with regard to his Fanta can) 

  8  Remy  Yes. 

  4  Tutor  Cold or warm? 

    Rula  Wait, he can drink three? (their mother had requested that each child drink no more than two soda cans per session) 

20:15  3  Tutor  It’s so hot in here! You can drink more today, too. Tell your mommy it’s 95 degrees in here… (laughs) 

    Rula  Yay!!! Wait, look at Remy.  

  7, 6  Tutor  Careful! If you want more, just take it out of the fridge or behind you… (boy starts pouring content of one Fanta can into another Fanta can) 

    Rula  I want a cold one. Because cold is better than warm. 

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  3  Tutor  Yes, I want a cold one, too. (gets up and fetches cold cans from the fridge) 

    Rula  Come on, Remy, you are pouring into the can? 

  5  Tutor  Here’s one. (gives can to girl) 

  9 off  Remy  I need some more of these. (boy has made a mess on the floor and is trying to clean up with the expensive tissue) 

  7, 10, 5   Tutor  They’re expensive; don’t ruin them all. What are you doing, we have paper towels… here, you want paper towels? (big commotion as kids scream on top of each other) Here.  (hands paper towels to the boy) Let’s just put one on the floor. 

21:12  9 on  Remy  Oh, okay, but there are still a lot of questions that need answering. (holding up his book again) 

  6  Tutor  Yes. When we get there. 

  9 on  Remy  I mean, I mean who is it? (leaves through book) 

  5  Tutor  That’s what you’re going to find out.  

    Rula  Classified information!!! 

  6, 5  Tutor  We’re not looking ahead! (snitches book away from boy) That’s a spoiler. 

    Rula  Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler! 

  2  Tutor  Okay, let’s go on! 

  9 off  Remy  Your floor is still very dirty. 

  3, 5  Tutor  I know. But it’s not dusty; it’s just dirty.  

    Rula  It used to be clean. 

  5, 5  Tutor  It used to be clean before you used to… (children laugh; boy takes the white board eraser and rubs it in his face)  Now it’s black, and now you’re all pink and orange and blue in your face! 

  9 on  Remy  Wait, what? (wipes his face with his hand, appalled) 

  3, 5  Tutor  No. (laughs) But it’s supposed to be for the smart board – or, the white board. 

  9 on  Remy  But it hasn’t been used yet? (inspects brand‐new eraser) 

  3, 6  Tutor  No. But you’d better take paper towels – cleanex! Lots of cleanex, to wipe of everything. (hands box of tissue to boy to wipe his face with) 

    Rula  Our car is hot, so we use these a lot. 

  4  Tutor  Don’t you have air‐conditioning in your car? 

  10  Remy  Woarrrr, uarrr, warrrr, warrrr… ooops. (boy wipes his face wildly and drops cleanex bundle) 

    Rula  Yes, but it’s hot. 

  5, 6  Tutor  (to girl) Yeah, it takes a while… (to boy) Yes, throw them in the trash can. 

  10  Remy  Trash can! (throws his bundle in, gets up, and walks around, murmuring) 

    Rula  When’s Christmas Day? 

  3  Tutor  Ahh, that’s a long time! It’s August, and then we have September, October, November, December (points to months on the wall calendar); so, in five months. 

    Rula  Wait, what day, like Sunday, Monday… 

  3  Tutor  Oh, okay, the 24th is a Friday; the 25th is a Saturday. So, you get 

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presents on the 24th. 

  9 off  Remy  I want a present; I want a present. 

    Rula  Next time we  come here, is it going to be school time? 

  3  Tutor  For you, yes; for me, not.  

    Rula  Oh. Oh, yeah! (stands in front of wall calendar, looks at it, and then goes back to her seat) 

  9 on  Remy  I forgot the punctuation. (works on his screen again) 

  2  Tutor  Yeah, very good! Uhum. 

23:25  9 off  Remy  (with loud voice) And now, we’re more lost than before! 

  6  Tutor  Click on the “save” button, to make sure you save everything… 

  9 on  Remy  Where’s the “save,” where’s the “save”? 

  3, 2, 4, 5  Tutor  Here, here, here… the second one up there. Yes. Now the difficult one: here are two pages; what do they say? This voice comes from above the tree; that’s where Fone Bone is… 

  9 on  Remy  I know; I know. 

  4, 2, 2  Tutor  You know what to say? You’ve got a good memory. I would probably have to look it up. 

  10  Remy  Uh‐oh. Eh. Oh. 

    Rula  He farted. 

24:04  3, 5, 6  Tutor  I know. I smell it. (kids laugh) I’m sorry, but I have to…. (opens the office door) Sorry, people who are out there! If there is anybody out there, close your nose! Ooohhh… 

  9 off  Remy  Ah, wait, take this with you!!! (throws white board eraser after her into the corridor. Girl and tutor are standing in the corridor, laughing) 

  4  Tutor  Why, did you hold it somewhere where it’s stinking? 

  8  Remy  No, I didn’t, it’s just fine…. (laughs) 

  5  Tutor  Ooohhh… Oh dear…. You know, we should just stay out here for a minute. 

  9 on  Remy  Okay, is the minute over yet? 

  3  Tutor  No… (tutor and girl come back in) Ah. 

    Rula  I wish you had freshener, freshener. 

  3, 5  Tutor  I don’t. I can smell the brownies. (kids laugh) Ah, too bad. Next time, I have to bring a freshener, if that happens again.  

  9 on  Remy  Yeah, again, okay, I’m sorry, but… 

    Rula  I want those two. (pointing to German chocolate bars of the Milka brand) 

  3  Tutor  Uhum, sure. They’re different. One is strawberry, and one has “cow spots,” “Kuhflecken” in German. I hope they didn’t melt. 

    Rula  The chocolate is even starting to taste like fart! 

  3  Tutor  I hope not! 

    Rula  It is! I’ll be right back. I’m going one further down to sniff the air and come back. 

  3, 5  Tutor  Okay! (girl runs down the corridor) (to boy) Ah, you want the dots. (looks at his screen) 

  9 off  Remy  Okay, close the door. 

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  9 off  Remy  Can I minimize this for a second? 

  7  Tutor  We’re not going anywhere else, no! Remember, X. is watching! 

  9 on  Remy  Hi, X. 

  5, 5, 2, 2  Tutor  Yah. She wants to see how much you have learned. (reads his speech bubble) “What now?” He’s saying something else. He says two different things. (boy mumbles and takes a word that is not a curse word, as in the original) Ah, that’s a good idea; you’re very polite. You don’t use the word. 

26:06    Rula  Hi. Hi. (comes back in) 

  6  Tutor  This can be closed. (refers to the door, which was not closed completely) 

    Rula  We haven’t even closed it. 

  5, 6  Tutor  Yeah, I know. We left it open for you. (to boy)  Okay, let’s do the second one. (refers to his speech bubble) 

  9 off  Remy  Ah, what a mess… it’s just so hot… 

    Rula  That’s why you should have took soda. 

  1, 5  Tutor  Yes, it’s hot. It could be worse. 

  9 on  Remy  It’s “taken,” Rula! 

  4  Tutor  What does MJL mean? (glances at girl’s work of art) 

    Rula  Mary, Jesus, Luke. 

  4  Tutor  Ah! Could be Mary, Joseph, Luke, no? 

    Rula  Uh‐um. Jesus is the girl! 

  3  Tutor  A girl? What? (all laugh) 

  9 on  Remy  I think it’s a mixed, I think it’s a mixed‐up version of the Bible. 

    Rula  Instead of Satan, it’s Axe. 

  3  Tutor  Axe. Oh. Wow! 

    Rula  Axa! 

  9 on  Remy  Rula, you’re rewriting the Bible? 

    Rula  No. 

  9 on  Remy  (raises hand and points index finger) Okay, but… okay, but don’t re‐, okay, but just don’t, okay, but just don’t… 

    Rula  God is God! 

  9 on  Remy  Okay, but… I, I, that’s what I was gonna say, thanks for thinking of him. Just don’t rewrite Revelations.  

    Rula  I’m not! (upset) Jesus is gonna die on the cross like he’s supposed to. 

  5  Tutor  Oah! (kids laugh at Rula’s determination) 

  9 on  Remy  Rula, isn’t it in this case “she”? 

    Rula  Yeah, she.  

  9 on  Remy  Just don’t rewrite Revelations. 

    Rula  I’m not going to! 

  9 on  Remy  There’s a specific say‐… it says not to rewrite it. If you change, if you change it, bad things will happen. If you rewrite it, bad things, bad things will happen. If you leave things out, bad things will happen. If you do anything besides reading it, bad things will happen. 

  4, 4, 5  Tutor  What? Really? Really? I didn’t know that. 

28:15  8  Remy  I read it, I read it myself. 

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  10  Rula  This actually isn’t a version of the Bible. It’s just a book that has Bible things in it. Because I was thinking of God on that day. – Loose tooth, loose tooth, loose tooth!!! (boy had finger in mouth; now covers his mouth with his hands and suffocates his yelling) No, it’s not loose tooth; he doesn’t have a tooth in there. 

  3  Tutor  Oh! 

    Rula  He has a hole. 

  3  Tutor  He’s too old to lose teeth anymore, right? 

    Rula  No, he’s going to lose most teeth… 

  9 on  Remy  This one’s small! (shows her his teeth) 

  3  Tutor  It’s really small! 

  9 on  Remy  Anyway, this one’s coming out! (proves it with his finger) 

  3  Tutor  Oh, yeah, I can see it! 

    Rula  Where’s the Bible? Do you have a Bible in here? 

  5  Tutor  I did have a Gideon Bible; it was green and tiny, but… I don’t know where it is. I used to have one. (tutor and girl look through book shelf) 

    Rula  Ohhh… I need a real Bible that has Revelations in it. I don’t really want to rewrite it; I just want to make a book. We’ll go back in time until like Antarctica, Africa… Africa is really hard – hot. Antarctica is really cold. 

  5  Tutor  I know. I’d like to be there right now. (laughs) I don’t have it here… 

    Rula  Really? 

  9 off  Remy  Awesome… 

  5  Tutor  Uh‐um. No Bible.  

    Rula  I’m not rewriting Revelations. I don’t even, I barely know what it’s about, besides dying on the cross. 

  5  Tutor  And the rising from the dead. 

    Rula  Yeah, that’s my favorite part in the Bible. Jesus being born and – what is it called? Jesus being… 

  9 on  Remy  Being sacrificed. 

  5  Tutor  On the cross. 

    Rula  Yeah, being sacrificed on the cross. See, that’s why I put the cross… 

29:58  9 on  Remy  No, wait, it’s being crucified. 

    Rula  Crucified. 

  5  Tutor  Crucified. Before that, he was whipped… that’s called flagellation. They whipped him… 

    Rula  I know all those things! Whipped like this… 

  9 on  Remy  No, like this! (whips with his hands) 

    Tutor  I’ve been in Rome where you can still see the column where apparently he was whipped, and they have a thorn from the crown that he wore. I don’t think it’s the real one, but it’s very old… I think it’s… 

    Rula  I think it’s fake. 

  5  Tutor  I think it’s fake. 

    Rula  Wait, is it like in stone? 

  5  Tutor  Well, em, there is this stone pole where allegedly he was whipped 

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on, but I don’t think it’s real. It must be fake.  

    Rula  I think it’s fake. Because Jesus was in… what was it? 

  5  Tutor   2,000 years ago… 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah, not much is known about that time. 

    Rula  But it was true! In the name of Jesus Lord, it was true! 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah, well, not known, not known, not much is known about that story. 

    Rula  My friend A. thinks, em, that God, there’s like 14 of them. 

  9 on  Remy  He believes, he believes in Greek gods. 

  5  Tutor  They have Zeus; that’s the master god. And then there are lots of others, like… 

31:23  9 on  Remy  Yeah, I watched a video about it on the Internet. I read, I read a book about it on the Internet. 

  2  Tutor  Oh, cool.  

  9 on  Remy  Oh, eh, not read, eh… 

    Rula  He got a book that said if you’re a half‐god or not, and he said that I’m a half‐god. He’s a half‐god, blah blah blah… 

  5  Tutor  Yeah (laughs). Half‐gods are when the gods married a human being… 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah, I read a  book… yeah, I got a book from the library that told all about, that told all about Greek gods. It may not be real, but it is entertaining. 

  5  Tutor  Uhum. It’s called a myth. It’s not real, it’s like a legend. 

    Rula  He thinks it’s real. 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah, and there’s no proof, there’s technically no proof that Greek Gods are real.  

  3  Tutor  No, there isn’t. 

  9 on  Remy  But technically, there’s no proof, but technically, there’s barely any proof that God’s real. 

  3, 5  Tutor  Uhum.  It’s just a belief. This is why it’s called “faith” – you just have faith in it; you don’t have a proof. 

  9 on  Remy  But maybe there is, but maybe there is… 

    Rula  Actually, there is proof – the Bible, church, and all the other stuff… 

  5  Tutor  But the Bible was written by people; they could have invented it; who knows? 

    Rula  No. God actually wrote the Bible. 

  5  Tutor  But we don’t have proof of that. 

  9 on  Remy  Maybe God them what to write. 

  5  Tutor  The disciples have written the Bible; the friends of Jesus. Four of them have written it; the New Testament. 

    Rula  Do you mean like Mark, Luke, John…   

  5  Tutor  Yeah, they wrote the New Testament; not the Old one. 

  9 on  Remy  Maybe people, maybe people, maybe God told them what to write! 

  3, 5, 2  Tutor  (to the boy) Yeah, that’s what we believe, but we don’t have proof. They could have invented it. They’re dead; we cannot ask them anymore. Okay – (wants to point to the screen, but bangs her hand on the boy’s Lego construct that he has just gotten out) oh, sorry! 

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  9 on  Remy  Oh, sorry! But there might be some link that we got. I’m just saying… 

    Rula  I’m sweating. My neck is wet. 

  3, 6  Tutor  I’m sweating, too. If it gets too much, just go out in the corridor… 

33:11  9 on  Remy  But my may I… May I speak!! 

  3  Tutor  You speak the whole time. Yes. (girl laughs) 

  9 on  Remy  Okay, thank you. Anyway, anyway, in Revelations it says, it says that God threw death and Hades into, into a lake of fire. Coinc‐, coincidence? Maybe it’s just referring to Hades as a subject, but maybe there is some link to the Greek gods? Just saying. 

    Rula  Was Jesus an Israelite? Or what was he? 

  5  Tutor  He was a Jew. King of the Jews. 

  9 on  Remy  Although… 

    Rula  Oh yeah, a Jew.  The Jews thought that Jesus was their master. Jesus was the only one, was ‐‐ the Jews thought was left. And they were so wrong… 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah, the Jews didn’t accept him. 

  2  Tutor  Okay, let’s do our story now.  

    Rula  I’m not sure… 

  5  Tutor  We don’t need to tell X. the story of the Bible (laughs and points to the camera in the background. Kids start laughing). Sorry, X.! 

34:13  9 on  Remy  (boy holds his right hand in front of his mouth like a speaking tube) Just ignore, just ignore what we said, what we were talking about! 

    Rula  (yells) Yeah! 

  5, 2, 2  Tutor  Maybe she didn’t know it yet; cannot hurt to hear about it. Okay. Let’s go on… 

  9 off  Remy  Is the camera on mute? (still uses his hand as speaker phone and yells) 

    Rula  No! 

  5, 2, 5, 2, 2 

Tutor  No, of course not. Okay, let’s go on. We have one hour and ten minutes. We want to finish those two pages, because I’ll take them to X. on Tuesday. We want to make a good impression on her. 

    Rula  We’re your homework! We give you our homework, and you bring it to her. 

    Tutor  Em. But we don’t meet anymore before next Tuesday. I meet her before I meet you. 

  9 off  Remy  A fan!!! (has taken his book and flips the pages quickly, so they’re blowing air in his sweaty face) 

  5, 2, 2, 6, 6, 2, 5 

Rula  But still you gonna show her what we did. 

  3, 2, 2, 5, 6, 2, 2, 5 

Tutor  Yeah. (to boy) Okay, come. Let’s go on. The second picture. Look em, at the pages with the gopher. (tries to get her hands in between the pages of the boy’s book) You need to summarize what happens there in three speech bubbles, okay? It’s a difficult task now. It’s this page and this page. (shows him in book) 

  10  Remy  Eh…  

  2, 7, 5  Tutor  You can do this; you’re a smart boy. – Don’t use this one; use the cleanex, please!  (boy takes tissues and wipes his face) Because I 

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have students in my office, too. 

35:23  9 on  Remy  Oh. 

  7, 5  Tutor  No, don’t look at the end. Uh‐um. We’re not looking ahead. That’s a spoiler. (tries to wrestle the book away from him) 

    Rula  Spoiler, spoiler! 

  5  Tutor  Don’t look at the end first. Like, when you read a detective story, when you know who killed the person, it’s no fun to read the whole book anymore. 

    Rula  It’s just boring. Plain old… 

  2  Tutor  Let’s go ahead. 

  9 off  Remy  Technically, me reading this book ahead of time before I read the first – the other two books – that’s, that is a spoiler!  

  5  Tutor  No, it isn’t. 

  9 on  Remy  Yes, it is. 

  5  Tutor  It just makes it more interesting.  

  9 on  Remy  No, it’s… 

  7, 6, 2  Tutor  I gave you the other book last time, but you didn’t do anything with it. So this time, we’ll do something. Okay, let’s go on.  

  9 off  Remy  It’s a spoiler. Doesn’t matter. Yes, it does.  

  5, 6  Tutor  So, you have three bubbles. Fone Bone, Smiley Bone, and your gopher. And the gopher has to say a lot; that’s why he has such a big speech bubble. Because you need to put a big summary in there. 

    Rula  (interrupts) Here! I already have one. (hands her a blue highlighter, which the tutor puts away) 

  3, 5  Tutor  Thank you. (now leans over the girl’s drawing. Boy has bent away to the right side, still reading in his book and not doing his work) Oh, somebody is in bed there? (referring to girl’s graphic novel that she is drawing)  

    Rula  Oh shoot, I did the hair color, the wrong one. It’s supposed to be yellow. 

  3  Tutor  Oh yeah, it’s yellow now. 

36:42  10  Remy  Errrr, emmmm…. (he’s bending back and forth; probably playing with his Lego, which is hidden by his back) 

  2, 2, 2, 4  Tutor  Okay, come! Remy! Focus! Do you have a quotation mark there somewhere? (points to his screen) 

    Rula  Hey, did they fix the printer? 

  3, 5  Tutor  No, it’s still green. Very dark green. (shows girl a printed page from Remy’s graphic novel. Tutor had used refillable ink previously, and the children had  been appalled that their pictures came out in messed‐up colors.) 

    Rula  Woah! 

  2, 5, 6  Tutor  Doesn’t matter. X. won’t care; she wants to see the text, and not the picture. (to the boy, who now uses the mouse and caused an icon to pop up) Oh, click that away! 

  10  Remy  (screams) Ahhh!! 

  4, 5  Tutor  What do they say? That’s difficult. You have to do a summary. 

  10  Remy  Eahh… (boy doesn’t sit, but hovers in front of his screen; legs on his 

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swivel chair.) 

  6, 2  Tutor  You click in a speech bubble, and then it’s activated, and then you can type in it. You know that already. (boy is clicking into his graphic novel on the screen now) 

  10, 9 off  Remy  Tyooo, tyooooo (boy whistles). It’s so hot! Hold on. (boy gets up and walks around) 

    Rula  I feel like I’m dying… 

  1  Tutor  It could be worse. 

37:51  9 off  Remy  Why don’t you raise the volume on this thing? (goes over to radiator and searches for a dial to make it colder) 

  5  Tutor  There’s nothing going on there… it’s just the same warm air. We cannot raise anything, because the whole building is off. (the university is not in session, and the air‐conditioning in this office is not on. There is no thermostat in this office, either. Boy walks to the door.) Everybody went home! You can leave the door open; we’ll get some cool air from the outside! It’s a bit better… 

    Rula  Yeah! 

  9 on  Remy  The whole building is off! (boy has opened the door) 

    Rula  If you go through the stairs, then it’s actually kind of… 

  2, 5  Tutor  Yeah, very good; it’s not the A‐wing anymore. We shouldn’t complain. People who live in Africa have it like this every day. 

38:18    Rula  I’ve been there before. 

  3  Tutor  And it’s terrible?  

  10  Rula  I’ve been there nine or six days. (everybody has gone out into the stairway; one hears voices from far away; incomprehensible) 

39:41  5, 2, 5, 10, 2 

Tutor  (tutor approaches office) I have an idea – we’ll leave this door here open. Okay, we’ll leave this door open, and then this, and then the cold air will slowly come in here! (tutor has created a draft. Girl is back in office; boy is still outside and makes noises far down the corridor. Tutor yells after boy.) Come, let’s go on! Yeah, at least we have some air. Come, Remy! 

    Rula  How am I gonna staple my book together?  

  3  Tutor  With a stapler… At the edge… I would do it this way. (shows girl) 

    Rula  I’m not gonna staple it today; I’m not yet finished. 

  5  Tutor  You know, I’ll put the chocolate in the fridge, because it’s completely melted. (takes the chocolate bars and puts them in the fridge) Just remind me to take it out, okay? 

    Rula  Okay.  

  5  Tutor  (boy has finally come inside; tutor to boy, who always wants to work with closed door) We’ll leave this door open and the other one, because there’s nobody in the building anymore except for us. 

    Rula  Yeah, open the doors! 

  9 on  Remy  So, do I have to, do I have to finish this under a time limit? 

  5, 6  Tutor  Yes. You have exactly two hours. And now, we only have one hour. And don’t forget, we need to do this side, too! (points to the right side of the table on his screen, where he is supposed to type in the narration and stage directions, since the left side has only the speech 

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bubbles) 

  9 on  Remy  Two hours? One hour already? 

  3, 2, 2, 2  Tutor  Yes! What you have done is fine! We only have two pages, and you’ve already finished the first half of the first page, so… Just focus; then it goes faster.  

  9 off  Remy  Focus! Focus! Rula! 

  7  Tutor  Oh, don’t break my bones.  I’m not a strong person. Aua. (he has pushed her very roughly to the side) 

    Rula  I’m stronger than you! 

  9 off  Remy  No, I’m stronger than you! 

  3, 2  Tutor  (to the girl) You’re stronger than I am, probably, Rula. (to the boy) Okay, what does he say? 

  9 off  Remy  I’m strong‐, anyway, I’m stronger than you, Rula. 

    Rula  No, you’re not. How can you be… 

  5  Tutor  Boys are mostly stronger. 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah. 

    Rula  You wanna see? (challenges him to fight) 

  7, 7, 7, 2  Tutor  No, no! Someone is going to be hurt. No fighting! Let’s… 

41:33  9 off  Remy  You don’t wanna see this, X.! (takes camera and turns it around, so it faces the book shelf and shows a coffee filter) 

  7, 10  Tutor  Stop this! (turns camera the right way; kids are heard giggling and wrestling) 

  10   Rula  Stop, stop, stop, stop! (kids are still wrestling loudly) 

  7, 7, 6  Tutor  No! Stop! (gets boy to come back to his seat) Let’s not get hotter than we are already! Pooh! 

  9 on  Remy  Okay, okay. 

  5, 4  Tutor  Okay, you just wanted to write something in there. It’s this picture – no, it’s not, it’s this… (shows him in the  book) So, what are they saying? Just make a summary. Put more in there, because I only gave you two pictures instead of twenty. 

    Rula  That’ll be a bunch. You’ll probably just do the first and second and third one. (mocks him) 

  9 off  Remy  Eh, guys…. (he just announced a fart) 

    Rula  What? 

  5  Tutor  I think I need some air… 

    Rula  Oh!!!! (girl laughs and runs outside) Close the door! 

  9 off  Remy  Close! Close! Close! Uarghhh… (runs around) 

  5, 4, 2, 2, 2, 5, 2, 6, 6, 4 

Tutor  Now we’re gonna suffocate in here. Okay, it’s alright; it’s not that bad this time. (boy comes back in) That must be the brownies. Do you have enough air in here? Okay, let’s go on; let’s finish this. As a present for X. We haven’t given her anything in a long time. Maybe in two weeks, you can come with me to give it to her. (this is an incentive, because the children love the committee chair) But let’s give her our stuff first. Next week, we won’t work, because it’s break for her; so, she just comes in her spare time, like I do. But in two weeks, we have school, and then, she might want to meet you again and you can give her your nice work! Okay, just say what they’re 

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doing or saying, and then, we type it! So, just say it in your own words, before you type it. What is Smiley Bone, the long one, saying? 

  10  Remy  Burrrburr, burburburburroh! 

  6  Tutor  In English, please? 

  10, 9 on  Remy  Eh, eh… (he leaves through book) It’s in here… 

  6  Tutor  Look at the same picture first.  

  10  Remy  (mumbles something incomprehensible) 

  5  Tutor  Oh, that’s the secret the language! We’re not there yet; ahh! I understand that; I know what it means. 

  9 on  Remy  What does it mean? 

  5, 4, 6, 4  Tutor  (takes the book from him and checks) “Careful, we need to speak…“(mumbles) Okay, it’s this picture. What does the long guy say here? And it makes no sense in your story, so you have to put something else in there. So, what does the long guy say in this picture? 

  9 off  Remy  Ay, it’s so hot. I can’t concentrate… 

  5  Tutor  Well, then let’s go to the hallway. You have that thing… 

  9 on  Remy  No, no‐ho, I can concentrate now.  

  2, 2  Tutor  One more hour; come on! It’s not as hot as it is outside. Right? 

    Rula  Yeah. 

  5  Tutor  Outside, it’s much worse. We don’t wanna be outside right now. So, what is the long guy saying? 

    Rula  Yeah… I almost went outside! 

  9 off  Remy  (holds his Lego construct) Thank you very much. 

  4, 4  Tutor  What is the gopher accusing him of? What did he step on? 

    Rula  His foot? 

  8  Remy  His foot. 

  7, 5, 5, 4  Tutor  No, his hole. He stepped over his cave, right, and he couldn’t get out anymore? And he said, “don’t step on my hole! Don’t step on my hole again!” And he says??  

  10, 8  Remy  (with squeaky voice) “I won’t.” 

  5, 7, 7, 7, 5 

Tutor  “I won’t” – okay, but “I won’t” makes no sense here, because he hasn’t said that yet, that he stepped… (boy grabs her arm and twists it) Don’t do that; you’ll break my bones. Really. I mean that. I have very thin bones. 

  9 on  Remy  Really? 

  3  Tutor  Uhum. 

    Rula  I can see them. 

  5  Tutor   Yeah. And they break very easily. There are people who have glass bones; have you heard of this disease?  

    Rula  No. 

  5  Tutor  They have to wear bandages all over…  

    Rula  They’re too skinny? 

  5  Tutor  No, their bones are as thin as glass, and if they bump just like this, they break their arm. And they die very soon, because they always get hurt. And in their houses, everything is padded, so they don’t have corners like this, because they would die if they hurt 

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themselves on this. It’s a disease; genetic. It really happens. 

  9 on  Remy  Em, do you have this disease? 

  3  Tutor  It has nothing to do with being skinny; it’s inside you, it’s the bones. 

  9 on  Remy  Geez. What happens if… 

    Rula  So as thin as glass? Man! 

  5  Tutor  They break very easily. 

    Rula  My do‐‐, I would know how that feels, because my mirror, it broke… because somebody was carrying it, and then it just fell down. And my piano broke. 

  4  Tutor  Really? 

    Rula  Because the same person was carrying it, and it dropped. 

  5  Tutor  I hope he’s replacing it. 

    Rula  His name is B. No, he didn’t replace it. We haven’t seen him in a long time. 

  3  Tutor  Oh, that’s bad. 

    Rula  We haven’t seen him in like a month. 

  5  Tutor  Pianos are expensive. 

    Rula  I know. Now, the corner is broken. 

  5, 6, 5  Tutor  His insurance should pay, though. You should try to contact B.; maybe, your mother should, and ask him what his insurance is, and the insurance should pay for that. Because it’s an accident; he didn’t do it on purpose, right? So, the insurance usually does this. 

    Rula  He was carrying it with somebody. 

  4  Tutor  For moving? 

    Rula  For moving… it breaks so many things.  

47:08  2  Tutor  (to boy, who has typed in the meantime) Hm, really nice! 

  10  Remy  Erm. (clears his throat) 

    Rula  I need help. 

  4  Tutor  Uhum. With what? (leans over to the girl) 

    Rula  I do not know what to do with this one, and this one, and this one… (motions to her graphic novel panels that she is drawing about a surprise birthday party) 

  3, 4, 5, 4, 5 

Tutor  What happens; what is the event? At first, he’s lying in bed. And what does it say? “The next day…” 

    Rula  Wait… 

  4, 4  Tutor  Doesn’t she get up in the next picture? Doesn’t she sit on her bed, or stand next to it, because she’s getting up? 

    Rula  No; she’s about to go out the door, and then she’s going to the kitchen. And then, they surprise her with the surprise birthday party. 

  6  Tutor  Okay, so you can draw her next to the bed, because she’s already gotten up, and in the next one, you have to draw a picture… or, just a door, and maybe you make a sign over the door that says “kitchen,” so people know it’s supposed to be the kitchen. And then you need a table with lots of surprises on it.  

    Rula  No, they throw her a birthday party in the afternoon, and at the end of the night, her bed transforms in… whenever she gets in her bed, she gets into the covers; then they swap her out and take her to the 

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secret land. 

  2  Tutor  Oh! That’s difficult to draw, but you can manage. 

    Rula  See? Her name is Jesus, and she’s supposed to be in a… like, what was it called…. 

  4  Tutor  So it’s a fairy tale? 

    Rula  No, not a fairy tale… 

  9 on  Remy  Normal life? 

  4  Tutor  A myth or legend? 

    Rula  Legend, yeah. She’s supposed to go to this church opportunity, and, em, and since her name was Jesus, and church has a lot to do with Jesus, they want her… and, she gets all A’s, em. She’s only got one B in her life. 

  3  Tutor  Uhum. 

    Rula  And it was a B+. 

  2  Tutor  Wow.  

49:15  10  Rula  Hatchoo.  

  5  Tutor  Bless you! Are you cold?? 

    Rula  No, she’s, he’s hot!! 

  9 off  Remy  Ah, it’s just so, it’s just so confusing… (leans his head on her arm) 

    Rula  No, I know what to do, I know what to do…. 

  2, 2, 6, 5, 2, 2 

Tutor  (looks at what he has typed into the speech bubbles) That’s cool! That’s very good! Don’t forget your punctuation. And then, you have enough for X. This is very good. Much better than the comic. 

49:36  9 on  Remy  No, err, no, I think the comic is better. 

  5  Tutor  Oops; yeah, you can drag it… (boy moves speech bubble) 

    Rula  Here’s your fan! (has folded a paper fan and waves it in front of tutor’s head) 

  3  Tutor  Ahh, that’s a real fan! 

  9 on  Remy  Yeah… Keep fanning me! And get me cold… 

    Rula  Let me make another one. 

  5  Tutor  Next time, we’re getting ice‐cream. 

    Rula  Yeah! 

  9 on  Remy  Ice‐cream!!  

    Rula  Is it closed, or not? 

  5  Tutor  It’s closed today. Next time, it won’t be closed; they reopen tomorrow.  

    Rula  Yay. 

  2  Tutor  (boy grabs her arm, and she shakes his hand off) Let’s… Okay. Go ahead! (reads his speech bubble) One of them looks sorry. And then M.… (girl fans for her) Ahh, she fans… 

  9 off  Remy  (girl fans for the boy) Get me! Get me better! Get me accurately! 

  5  Tutor  Ahh. She will get hot if she has to fan you all the time… more fans coming… (girl stands behind boy, holding one fan in each hand, panting loudly while fanning  with both fans) your servant!! 

  9 on  Remy  Thank you, servant! 

    Rula  I’m not your servant. 

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  9 on  Remy  Thank you, sister. 

  5  Tutor  You’re a helper. 

  9 on  Remy  Thank you, helper. 

    Rula  Sister. 

  9 on  Remy  Thank you, sister‐helper.  Now, keep fanning. 

  5  Tutor  (to boy) You’re like a pharaoh; you know, those Egyptian kings; they have somebody fanning them… 

    Rula  Oh, we just saw that on TV this morning! 

  5  Tutor  They have long palm leaves, and they’re fanning all the time, too. 

50:51  9 on  Remy  Yeah. I learned, I learned that in Social Studies, too. Keep fanning me. 

  5, 4  Tutor  Yeah. In Egypt, they made pyramids… (Rula fans, and children are laughing) What’s the sentence with the “M” supposed to mean? I have no clue. 

  9 off  Remy  What about – mustard??? (giggles and grabs girl’s arm) 

    Rula  We’re not nasty! Ou! (boy has grabbed the fans) 

  7  Tutor  If you want her to fan you, you have to be nice to her; otherwise, she will stop. 

  9 off  Remy  She hurt my arm! 

    Rula  No, he’s the one who grabbed me! 

  3  Tutor  Yes, I saw that. Okay. Let’s finish this. (points to his screen, and boy leans forward and types) 

  10  Remy  Errr… Mergevillearghhhhhh. 

    Rula  Mergevilleargh?? I should have brought my peach. 

  2  Tutor  (to girl) Aww… (to boy) Where’s the mole? He’s there; alright! Looks good! Uhum, very nice.  

52:18    Rula  (about her graphic novel) When she has to go to school, ‘cause she’s like 16, so what would she be in, like what grade, or something? 

  4, 5, 4, 5  Tutor   16? Junior. That’s like 10thgrade, right? Because as a senior, you’re 17 or 18, and then you’re done; you can go to college. 

    Rula  Ah. I think you overdid this… 

52:33  2, 7, 5  Tutor  No, it’s right… (boy’s computer makes “bleep” and shows a pop‐up icon) Oops! No, don’t do this; just exit out. Otherwise, something happens… 

    Rula  And it’s something bad! It will hurt the computer. 

  5, 6  Tutor  Yes. It may hurt the computer; it can lock the computer, so you cannot type anymore, or you have no sound anymore, so… don’t do anything except for what you’re supposed to be doing… 

  10  Remy  Oahhh… (yawns and stretches)  Oh God! 

  4  Tutor  (to boy; looking at what he has typed) Is this an “I”? Or is it an “el”? 

  9 off  Remy  I’m still dying in here. 

    Rula  I think you did it too much. You did it too much. 

  3  Tutor  It’s only three quarters of an hour. 

    Rula  You did it too much. 

  3, 6, 5  Tutor  (to girl; bends over her work) Oh wow, that’s long. Too bad. Do it better. I think the smaller one doesn’t work very well. And the big one doesn’t make it even.  

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    Rula  But it’s better… at least we got something…  

  3  Tutor  Uhum. And now this one… it says a whole lot. 

53:28  10  Remy  Ahhhhhhh!!! Arghhhhhh!!! 

  6, 6, 6  Tutor  (to girl) You need to summarize. Don’t forget to click the “save” button. Oops! Ah, you have to get your picture yourself, and the green… 

    Rula  Actually, where’s the paper? Where’s my paper? 

  5, 4  Tutor  You made a fan out of it. You want more paper? 

    Rula  No. I didn’t make a fan out of it.  

  4  Tutor  Where’s your story? 

    Rula  Ah, that’s what I was looking for! 

  2, 7  Tutor  Ah, okay. (to the boy) No, we are not looking in the end of the book! 

    Rula  Cheater! 

54:04  4  Tutor  So, what does the little mole say? (mumbles) Whom is he lying to? Is he lying? 

  8  Remy  Wait…  

    Rula  Who wants a coke bottle? Ten seconds! (opened a Haribo package) 

  5, 4  Tutor  I would like one! (to the boy) Do you want one? 

  8  Remy  Yes! 

    Rula  Ten seconds! Faster! (boy has jumped up and run over to her) Wait, no, you won’t get one! (kids laugh) You’re not gonna get one! 

  9 off  Remy  Yes! 

  6  Tutor  Be nice! 

  9 off  Remy  Yes! 

    Rula  One! Two! 

  2  Tutor  He deserves it. 

    Rula  Three! (kids struggle and laugh) Three! Four! 

  3, 6, 6  Tutor   Okay, thank you. Keep the rest until he’s done another speech bubble; then, he gets one! He needs to do something first. 

    Rula  Five, six, seven, eight. 

  2, 2, 5  Tutor  Come on, it’s not that hot. Your sister and I are in here, too! Oops. Oh, he lost three pens. 

55:07    Rula  Including your pencil! (the boy has run out into the corridor to cool off) My mom heard on the radio that Miley Cyrus did a bad song, because she was doing it over somebody 40, like her dad or something. It’s called “Seven Things.” Remember that video I showed you? 

  3  Tutor  I know “Seven Things.”  

    Rula  Remember the video I showed you? 

  3  Tutor  Uhum! 

    Rula  They said they should advise kids not to watch it. I never knew. Until my mom told me two days after I showed you.  

  5  Tutor  It was too late already… It wasn’t that bad, though. 

    Rula  It was a good song, but... 

  5,7, 4  tutor  Well, there are lots of other songs. (calls into the corridor) Remy!!! Oh, do you like those? 

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    Rula  I saw them… I’ll try one.  

  5  Tutor  These are sweet, and these are the sour ones. I like the sour ones. (offers her candy) 

    Rula  I don’t like the sour ones when they are big, because then, they are too sour. So then you gonna have like more… Is it sweet? 

  3, 4, 10, 4 

Tutor  Uhum. Where did he go? Hello? Remy!!! (tutor goes into the corridor, looking for him. Girl follows. One hears kids giggling further down in the corridor. Tutor and girl come back into the office.) Want an edge brownie? (the girl’s favorites) 

  10  Rula  Yeah. A crunchie one. Crunchie!  

    Tutor  I’ll eat an edge one, too. (mumble; then calls into corridor) Remy! We’re almost done! Half an hour and ten minutes, and then we’re done! And next time, it will be cooler. 

58:12    Remy  (boy comes in and walks to his seat) This is just like half time. 

  10  Tutor  Um‐um. Almost. It’s not sunny now. (to the girl) Do you want another corner?  

    Rula  Yeah, there’s not only light. 

  9 off  Remy  Turn off the lights – video – cool. (boy turns off the light) 

    Rula  What? (laughs) 

  3  Tutor  I don’t think it will get cooler… 

    Rula  Actually, maybe it will…..  

  3, 4  Tutor  But it looks nice. Want another corner? 

    Rula  Uh‐um; not right now.  

  4, 5  Tutor  Not right now? Okay. Here’s another one, if you want it later. (opens up can; a loud “plop” is heard, and liquid spills) 

    Rula  Ahhhh!!! (screams in her highest voice) 

  10  Tutor  Eeeehhhh! What a mess! I made it this time. (to boy) Okay, you go on typing while I clean up. Let’s see who’s faster! 

    Rula  I bet you’re faster! 

  10  Remy  No!!! (boy tries to steal her little Haribo coke bottles) 

  7, 5  Tutor  Remy, no, you have to type one speech bubble first. Rula will give you coke bottles for one speech bubble. 

  9 on  Remy  I already, I already started! 

  7  Tutor  Yeah, started, but you haven’t finished it. 

    Rula  That’s why I started to give you some! 

  10  Remy  Yay. (disappointed) Yuarg… 

    Rula  Plus this one, extra one, if you type ten words in a row! Non‐stop! 

  5  Tutor  Okay, you have to count them! 

    Rula  They have to be real words! 

  9 off  Remy  Okay, so no subblebleblu, okay, so, no subblebleblublelubbseben? 

  3, 5, 4  Tutor  We’ll get to the secret language later. There is actually secret language in this book. Okay, so what does the…. Okay, here: “Mister” – didn’t you want to put a word after “Mister”?  

  8  Remy  I did. 

  3  Tutor  Yeah? Let’s finish that. Before you forget. 

    Rula  Hurry up! – Oh, here! (passes gummy coke bottles in bag to tutor) 

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  5  Tutor  For him. When he finishes that. (puts them aside) 

  9 on  Rula  How do you spell “gopher”? 

  3  Tutor  G‐o‐p‐h… 

1:00:01  9 on  Remy  Gh? 

  3  Tutor  No, ph… e‐r. 

    Rula  Pher. That comes as one. 

  9 on  Remy  I finished it. (boy types, and he also makes the pressing noise in preparation of a fart) 

  7  Tutor  There’s a speech bubble left. There’s a fourth one. 

    Rula  Did he type three? 

  9 off  Remy  Uh‐oh. Do you guys smell it? 

  3  Tutor  No, I don’t. It went your way. 

    Rula  No, I can smell it. 

  5  Tutor  I don’t smell anything. 

    Rula  Maybe it went that way. 

  9 off  Remy  Eh, guys… 

    Rula  (girl laughs and squeaks) Sorry! (runs out) 

  10  Tutor  I hope it goes down the stairway!! Okay, I need to go out, too. You finish that speech bubble. (exits) 

  9 off  Remy  Coke!!!  

    Rula  And don’t steal the coke bottles!!! 

  10  Remy  Heeheeheehee… (has sneaked over to sister’s place and taken candy) 

1:01:29  5  Tutor  He did! No! No, he stole a coke bottle!  

  9 on  Remy  Only one! 

  5, 2  Tutor  That’s not fair! Poisoning us and stealing coke bottles. – He can have one. 

    Rula  Ouch! Ou, ou, ou, ou, ou… ehhh… 

  5, 1  Tutor  Careful! It’s okay… Okay. 

    Rula  He rolled over my foot! 

  9 on  Remy  I’m sorry!  

  5, 4, 5  Tutor  Those chairs are really, really dangerous… You know what I did once? My sister had no shoes on and stood in front of a door like this, and I opened the door and ran over her toe. Oah, and her toe went all blue. And a few days later, it fell off. (I meant the nail!!!) And I really felt so bad. I didn’t mean it; I just opened the door and she was standing there… So you always have to be careful when you don’t wear shoes, with those chairs…  

  9 on  Remy  So gross! 

    Rula  Mine is kind of black. 

  5  Tutor  It either turns black or really, really blue, and then it’s falling off, but it’s growing back. 

    Rula  My mom, when she dropped the ping‐pong table on her foot… 

  3  Tutor  Ouch!!! That’s heavy! 

      Yeah, and my piano teacher was there, because we were playing ping‐pong, and it was only set up half way, so we were trying to put 

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it down to move it, just we forgot the red thing, which was there to make it easier to move it, and it just all collapsed. Everybody else let go! My piano teacher J. said, “Let go,” so we let go! 

  3  Tutor  (laughs)  That’s bad! 

  9 on  Remy  Now I’m done! 

    Rula  You already got your one; you’re not getting any more. 

  2, 6, 4, 5, 6, 5 

Tutor  Okay, scroll down…. Is there another page? Okay, there’s the second page. And then we do the right column. You still have half an hour and seven minutes… 

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Stage III: Tutoring from May 10th, 2011. There are two videos, because Remy switched off the camera once. Length of the first video is 13:05 min., and length of the second video is 52:14 min. Remy was in the final stages of composing his after-treatment text-only essay about Benjamin Button. Min. Flanders Speaker Verbatim 1:00 9 on Remy A book! (he holds up a graphic novel) 4 and 5 Tutor A book? A comic book? A real book? A Star Wars book!!! 9 on Remy Wait! Wait! Before you read this… (stands straight in front of

tutor and faces her) Rula Oh, I’ve already read this! 9 on Remy Do you remember, do you remember the events that happened

before this? 4 Tutor You told me, right? 8 Remy Yes. 5 and 6 Tutor I should remember them. Then I have something to do while

you write your story, right? Tell me when one hour is over… 8 Remy Right! (determined voice) 5 Tutor … and then you can unpack your presents. 9 on Remy Although, that time is not that long with the book… (props a

potato chip in his mouth) 5 Tutor I know! Maybe I’ll finish in on hour. 0:33 Rula So when would be one hour? 0:37 5 Tutor Em… it’s twenty to four – at twenty to five. (to the girl) And

your website was open already – page manager… 9 on Remy (with a full mouth) Is this time right? 5 Tutor (didn’t understand what he said with a full mouth) Yeah, let’s

see… “Then, after much…” oh! Thought! Th, th, th! 9 on Remy No, not that! Is the time right? 3 Tutor (thinks he means the tense in his sentence) Well, the spelling is

wrong! “After much thought, the…” 9 on Tutor Miss Christina, the time! Here! (gets impatient; puts his finger

on the digital indication of the time in the lower right corner on his laptop screen)

1:07 3, 5, 6 Tutor Oh, the time! No, this time is wrong. (motions to wall clock standing on paper towel roll in front of him) Look at this one. This time is wrong; it’s much later already. The time on that computer is wrong, too (motions to Rula’s desktop computer). We can fix that. (Brings up icon on Remy’s screen to correct time.) You can say, put in 4:37. ..

9 on Remy Is it 7:38? 5, 2 Tutor 4:37, so that 3 should be a 4… (he types it in). Yeah, 37, very

good! The seconds don’t matter. (Tutor didn’t notice that she told him a whole hour wrong!) Okay, now it’s good. Yes, good job! (sits down next to him while he is clicking the icon away)

2:02 9 on Remy We did good; did good. (pours himself cranberry juice; drinks noisily, holding the plastic cup with his right hand while

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holding the bottle with his left hand; then, reads the ingredients on the label)

Rula Columns are going up, right? 3 Tutor Em, columns are up, rows are straight; right! (leans over to

girl’s screen) How many rows? Just guess, because you can always insert more; all you need. And you always need one more than you think, because of the first one on the top. So if you need two, put three.

2:35 Rula Okay (girl is creating a table on her website, to put photos and text of her Disney Channel characters in). I need more than two.

10 Remy Eehh, ehh… (has his mouth full of cookie; shows tutor that there is transparent duct tape over his cookie box)

3, 5, 2 Tutor Yeah, I sealed it, so it wouldn’t all dry up… Last time, you wrote four sentences. Let’s see if you can beat that. This one counts, too, because you fixed that. (Boy mumbles something incomprehensible, and types concentratedly.) Uhum, very good!

Rula Can I use this? (tutor looks at her screen) 3:57 9 on Remy What is wrong with me today? (probably refers to red squiggly

lines of his spell checker) 6 Tutor (to girl) Click this away, this bubble thing; you don’t need that,

right? 4:08 9 on Remy What is wrong with me today? (tutor turns back to him again) 3 Tutor You use lots of difficult words! (his computer makes an error

noise) 9 off Remy (pours himself another cup of cranberry juice; the bottle is

almost empty now) Man! I drink this so fast! 4:27 3 Tutor I need to buy new cranberry juice for next time, right? 9 on Remy Yeah… I guess I don’t like to drink apberry, or cranapple…

(motions to apple juice bottle, which is still full and unopened) 3 Tutor Not even the mixed one? (refers to the

pomegranade/apple/cranberry juice) 9 on Remy Crample! 3 Tutor Crapple! (laughs) It’s crappy, so it’s crapple, right? Or it’s

pomerapple… or granapple… 9 on Remy Or apberry, apberry… We have sprite, and we have very few Fanta bottles left…

(looks into book shelf, where the soda cans are stored) 10, 9 on Remy Euwwww….. We guess Rula doesn’t, we guess Rula doesn’t

want to drink healthy! (referring to girl drinking Fanta) I can’t believe you guys are being seduced by this! (takes a piece of potato chip out of the bag)

5:17 Rula Well, I don’t like cranberry juice. 10 Remy Pssssss!!! (Plays star ship with his potato chip. It is flying into

his mouth.) 5, 4, 2 Tutor I like potato chips… (gets up to get paper plates) Oh, this one is

yours! (hands a white paper plate to Remy) Do you want a

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plate, for your chips? (boy shakes his head; has his mouth full) No? (Pours chips on her own plate, eats one; sits down.) Oh, errrh, um, spicy! (Boy takes one from her plate and eats it. Boy munches and types. Silence.) (Encourages girl, looking at her saved pictures for her Disney Channel website.) You’ve got a hundred pictures already, altogether!

9 off Remy Oh, and by the way, Miss Christina, if you wait, if you wait just a few more days, I’ll be able to give you five more dollars… (referring to something he wanted her to buy for him)

3 Tutor You don’t need to give me any money; you just need to write, and then you’ll get it.

9 on Remy Okay, but don’t you need some money to help you with taxes, and such?

3 Tutor Naw. 9 on Remy Okay! 5 Tutor I’ll have a little summer job in June. That means, in June I

cannot teach you for two weeks (makes a V with her fingers), because I will teach classes from June 12th to July 4th.

9 on Remy That’s too bad! I hope I can get the X-wing before then! 5, 2 Tutor Yeah! Let’s see how much you finish. Maybe we can order it

already, and it can be sitting in my office until you’re done. You can look at it every day, and take it home when it’s finished. You’re almost through! There aren’t that many events any more, right? Now they split up, and he gets younger and younger and younger…

7:50 10 Remy Ohhhh myyyy (flips through his graphic novel of Benjamin Button)

2 Tutor See? Almost through… 8 Remy Yeah! 4 Tutor How many pages do you have left? Four pictures on each

page… 8 Remy Okay, four, eight, twelve! 5 Tutor Sixteen… Rula Wait a minute, twelve pages, or twelve pictures? 5 Tutor Pictures! 8:38 10 Remy Yarhhh! Or should I say, yarhhh!!! (pours himself more

cranberry juice) Because yarhhh, because yarhhh is… (mumbles; drinks and continues typing)

9:16 4 Tutor I think you’ve had that book since May 12th, right? Isn’t it time to turn it in, soon? (leaves through library book)

8 Remy Yeah, yes. Rula Our library books are due on Wednesday. 3 Tutor Oh, okay. 9 on Remy Well, yeah, unless you renew them. Rula Not this Wednesday; next Wednesday. 5 Tutor Well, but if you finished reading it, you don’t need to renew it,

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right? 8 Remy (boy leans over to her) Well, I only finished reading it. I….

maybe I should use these for reference, if I ever choose to do a sto-, to do another Star Wars Trilogy.

5 Tutor Then you can rent them again! I would turn them in, so somebody else can read them in the meantime.,

8 Remy Well, sure, but just think about it… just think – just stay with me here. There’s already, there’s already a Star Wars Trilogy out there telling the Episodes IV through VI, right? (tutor nods) So, but there’s no, but there’s no prequel Trilogy, Episode I through III.

3 Tutor That’s true. 9 on Remy So? You get what I’m saying here? 3 Tutor Oh yes! Rula But you’re probably not the first one to make a prequel on

Trilogy III. 2 Tutor But the first one to make a Lego photo prequel of that quality! 9 on Remy Yeah! I’m gonna need a lot of bri-, I’m gonna need a lot of

bricks, so…. 5, 4 Tutor (to the girl) That looks strange! What are those circles? (Looks

at her strangely colored piece of potato chip.) Rula Hey!!! 9 off Remy Rula, wait, don’t eat it!!! (takes away her potato chip) I need to

examine it! 5 Tutor Eh, it’s green! 9 on Remy Yeah! 5 Tutor You don’t want that anyway, Rula, let him eat it… (laughs) 9 on Remy I saw, I saw, I saw them, no, I saw them on an episode of

Arthur. The green potato chips are, the green potato chips are kind of rare from time to time.

5 Tutor Maybe they’re poisoned… 8 Remy No, no, that, they’re not poisoned… 5 Tutor Maybe they’re moldy! 10:59 8 Remy Uh-um. (negates) 5 Tutor Maybe they weren’t ripe yet! Rula Why are you eating them? 5 Tutor Because he doesn’t care. Uargh. 9 on Remy It’s about to happen, anyway… Rula (interrupts) I thought you meant it was poisonous… that one

couldn’t eat it at all… 8 Remy It’s not poisonous. I don’t know; it’s not poisonous. I just want

to examine it. Rula But then how come you’re eating it? 8 Remy I got hungry ex-, I got hungry examining it. Rula No, you weren’t. You just wanted an excuse to eat it.

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Min. Flanders Speaker Verbatim 1:00 5 Tutor Tutor: I’ll just lay it down this way, so it won’t scratch. So…

(tutor lays down i-flip camera on the book shelf, so it will only record sound, not images; however, soon, she gets up and secretly turns it upright, so it records images again).

8 Remy Remy: No scratch, please! 6 Tutor Let’s see who’s done first: you with your three/four sentences,

or I with my book here. I’m slow, though… (revolving chair squeaks). Well, come on…

10 Exactly five minutes silence. Boy slurps drink and knocks down plastic cup loudly. The cranberry juice bottle is empty, and Remy places it upside down on the computer desk, so it is standing on its opening. It stays there. Kids munch potato chips.

9 off Remy (Boy is heard typing. His computer makes an error noise.)

8 Remy That’s not true. Rula Uhum! 8 Remy Seriously, I did see it on an episode of Arthur. It’s out there. 4 Tutor What is this guy? Eehh… (points to an ugly alien in the graphic

novel) 11:56 8 Remy Poggle the Lesser. He’s also one of the main guys on Geonosis.

(pours himself the rest of the cranberry juice and waits until the last drop has arrived in his plastic cup. Drinks noisily.)

5 Tutor Ah, this is what you always say: “I have a bad feeling about this!” (tutor has found one of his favorite sentences in the Star Wars graphic novel)

9 on Remy They say this in almost every Star Wars movie! I’m serious! 3 Tutor Aha! I thought it comes from you! 12:32 8 Remy No, it doesn’t come, it doesn’t come from me. (Laughs;

amused) They say that in almost every Star Wars movie. And not just that; they say it in lots of other movies.

3 Tutor Interesting! 9 on Remy Oh, in lots of other movies you wouldn’t even think about! But

it’s there! 5 Tutor I’ve got a bad feeling about this! 13:03 9 off Remy Yeah… Hey, there’s nothing to see here!! (approaches the i-flip

camera and holds one hand over the lens) 4 Tutor Why not? 8 Remy Because. 6 Tutor Lay it down… (recording ends, because Remy switched off the

i-flip) Second part

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Wow, this is… (mumbles). Does anyone else smell fried chicken? (Tutor and sister negate.)

4 Tutor I had chicken today; Chinese chicken. And sushi. What did you have for lunch?

8 Remy Food. Rula Spaghetti. 4 Tutor Spaghetti, huh? Remy I had food, I had food for lunch. 5 Tutor It’s all food! Rula Did you have salad bar with spaghetti, Remy? 8 Remy (munches potato chips) Argh, argh… Salad bar didn’t have

spaghetti. Rula Okay, so he had spaghetti. 8 Remy Salad bar didn’t have spaghetti! Rula No one said did you have salad bar OR spaghetti! 5 Tutor One or the other! 8 Remy Well, I had salad bar. 4 Tutor Really, just salad? That’s healthy! Rula No, it’s not just salad…. Salad bar is where you get salad with

food… 9 on Remy Rula, let me explain… Salad bar is, is like Rula said… Salad

bar is more than salad. 3 Tutor More than salad. 10 Remy It’s where you get to choose what you eat… there are also

several oth-… there are also several things. There are also several things you get. I’d like to tell you, but… Besides the salad – and, and cheese – you’ll have to guess, you’ll have to guess what’s in it…

Rula And crackers! 8 Remy And crackers. And meat crackers. Rula And soup! 8 Remy Yeah, and the soup. They tell you about the soup. They tell you

what the soup is going to be. You guys, all soup is good. 3 Tutor Ah, okay. 9 on Remy Oh, and today’s soup was taco soup. 3 Tutor Taco soup – that sounds good. 8 and 9

off Remy Yeah, it was. And it was not. Has it been an hou-… Um, only

five minutes until it’s been an hour, guys! 7 Tutor No, it’s just half an hour. Not even… you didn’t come at 30,

you came at 37. 8 Remy But it says 4:55! (The plastic clock on the desk says 3:55 p.m.) 3 Tutor Yeah? Then we have to go until 5:36… Then it’s an hour. 8 Remy 5:36! Rula 5:36? 10 Remy (screams at a high pitch) 5:36?

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5 Tutor 4:36! You’re right… 4:36. At 5:36, we’re already late getting to your mom’s car!

10 and 8 Remy Oooh!!! So, wait… but it’s already 4:55! Rula No, it’s not; it’s 3:55. 10 and 8 Remy (squeaks) No, it isn’t! It says 4:55. 56 on this! (looks at the

digital clock on his laptop) Rula No, it doesn’t! (can’t see his computer clock from her desk) 5 Tutor On his computer, but it has to be 3… Rula Oh, on the computer…. That’s why it’s crap… of course that’s

wrong… 9 on Remy (upset) I can’t believe you lied to me! 3 Tutor Maybe it changed again. It doesn’t always work on the

computer. That’s why it’s wrong. 9 on Remy You told me you changed it before. 3 Tutor Ah, now I made a mistake. 9 on and

10 Remy Now the time is right. 3:56. (Boy types concentrated and slowly

with both hands. Sometimes, there are seven seconds in between, before another finger hits a key. One minute silence. Then, computer makes error noise again. Boy whispers, “damn it….” three times. Three minutes silence. Boy types much faster now.)

5 Tutor (Gets up with her comic book and walks over to the copier): Um! I need to make a copy of this one page. That’s really good.

9 on Remy What’s really good? 5 Tutor There’s a mistake in here that I’m going to use with my

classes… Rula Wait, wait, what is it? 5 Tutor You won’t know what it is… I’ll have to show you on a

different piece of paper, so you see what kind of mistake this is. It’s called “dangling modifier.” Something really difficult in grammar…

9 on Remy (thoughtful) Dangling modifier… 5 Tutor Uhum. Have you heard about that before? Probably not… it’s

for university people. It’s quite difficult… Here’s an example. 8 Remy Well… I think I might, might have heard…. 5 Tutor Okay. I’ll show you an easy one, and then a difficult one.

“Waiting for the bus, the time went by slowly.” This sentence sounds correct, right? “Waiting for the bus, the time went by slowly…”

Rula No! It doesn’t sound correct. 5 Tutor Good! Because it’s wrong. I’ll show you with two different

colors. 9 on Remy “Waiting for the bus, the time went slowly?” I don’t see what’s

wrong with that. 5 Tutor I’ll show you…

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Rula It sounds weird! 5 Tutor This one here is the modifier (highlights first half of the

sentence in one color); it explains something, right? 8 Remy That’s true! 5 Tutor What is the person doing? Waiting for the bus. Then, you

always have a comma. Until here, it’s correct. But the noun, the word “time,” after the comma, is wrong (highlights it in another color), because what comes after the comma has to DO what is here (points to differently colored part before the comma), and the “time” is not waiting for the bus. Right? So, if time’s not waiting for the bus, the wrong person is here. So the correct sentence would be: “While I was waiting for the bus, the time went by slowly.” Because I am waiting for the bus, not the time….

9 on Remy Oh!!! Now, that makes sense. Tutor See? Rula Wait… I have a question! What’s the problem? 5 Tutor That’s the problem! Rula No, I mean what’s the problem in that… (refers to the page the

tutor is copying) 4 Tutor This one is the same as here. Look at the first sentence. What do

you see? 8 Remy Oh, alright… I think I can see it! Rula I can see it! (screams excitedly) I can… Will you please let me

say it? 8 Remy Oh, oh, I think I can see the problem! Is it alright if I say the

correct sentence? 6 Tutor Yes, say the correct sentence… 8 Remy Oh, and by the way, Rula, stop… (whispers). (Reads) “Jango,

waiting for a moment… (mumbles) is at a disadvantage; his patience finally pays off. Is that correct?

2 and 5 Tutor Yeah! You have to put the right person there; Jango. See, the wrong sentence is: “Waiting for a moment blah blah blah, Jango’s patience….”

10 Remy (Gets up, walks around, waves around with his arms): Blah, blah, blah!

5 and 4 Tutor This is the modifier: “waiting for a moment.” Who is waiting for a moment?

8 Remy Jango Fett! 2, 5, 2 Tutor Yeah! In reality, Jango, and not the patience. The patience

cannot wait for the moment, right? You’re very smart, Remy. 8 Remy Yeah. 2 Tutor Very good! 9 on Remy Oh, thank you! 5 Tutor So I’m going to see if my students know that, and they should

know, because they’re becoming English teachers, right? But

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most of the time, they don’t know it. They’re not as smart as you are. (clicks the copy button on the machine)

10 and 9 on

Remy (squeaks) Whhhhaaat??? They should be smarter. 

2 Tutor You have a big advantage. You are smart.  9 on Remy English teachers should be smarter! They teach English! 5 Tutor That’s why they come to my class, to learn it. And some of

them become journalists. They want to write newspapers… 9 on Remy If they teach English, they should at least know how to teach it. 5 Tutor Uhum. That’s why they come to our classes. They learn to

become teachers here. They’re not done yet. It takes them four years. That’s a long time.

8 Remy Oh! Yeah. 5 Tutor But if you want to become doctors, like physician doctors, that

takes at least five or six years; it takes even longer. 9 on Remy Oh boy… 5 Tutor Yeah, it’s difficult. You’ll get a lot of money later; it’s

worthwhile. 9 on Remy Yeah, and you help people. 5 Tutor You help people; you save lives, right? (paper comes out of the

copier) So! Very good. There is our mistake. This will be one of my quizzes. Those here are all quizzes (points to a big pile of copied flyers, newspaper clippings, ads, etc.). All those newspapers here have mistakes… So. Let’s see if I can find another one. (Settles down with her Boba Fett graphic novel.)

9 off Remy Hey, if I could live (shows her Lego figurine), who would win the fight, the clone trooper or you?

3 Tutor The clone trouper, because he has weapons, and I don’t. 9 off Remy Who would win the battle of intelligence, you or the clone

trouper? Rula Hm! (laughs) 3 and 4 Tutor I! (laughs) I’m sure. Unless he has a super brain. Who knows.

Who programmed him? 8 Remy Eh, well, basically all clones, all clones are bases, are the value

of a Jango Fett. 5 Tutor And he is smart. 9 on Remy Intelligent. By the way, do you have the book about his life?

How he got, how he got to be the way he was. Do you still have that book?

5 and 4 Tutor (Motioning to shelf): If I do, it’s probably lying up there. I’m done with this book. I knew everything already! This is the book about Jango Fett’s death in the arena, and the beautiful woman at the pole, remember?

8 Remy And? And? 5 and 4 Tutor That’s the most important thing about it. Let me see what kind

of…. (stands up and looks through books on book shelf). I have

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these… See, that’s not the one. Maybe you have it at home? 8 Remy No, I left it here. It was here. I didn’t… I only read one of it… 4 Tutor I don’t know which one it is. It’s not this one, right? (shows him

a graphic novel) 8 Remy No. Uh-uh. 5 Tutor Then it must be at home. This is all we have up here. It can be

down here (bends down to lower shelf). Uh, here, okay. There! 8 Remy That’s, that’s it!! 2 Tutor Take it home! 9 on Remy Oh! Thank you. 2 Tutor Keep it. 10 Remy Oh woah woah woah arghh arghh…. (walks around, leaves

through book; stumbles) 6 Tutor Oops! But don’t read it right now; do your story first, okay?

And then you can keep it and take it home, okay? 8 Remy Okay. Yes, sir! 5 Tutor Ma’m! (laughs) You’re the sir. 8 Remy Yes, madam! 5 Tutor (grabs the empty cranberry juice bottle that’s standing upside

down) I think you got everything out of there that you possibly could, right? Let’s throw it away. (Opens the office door and throws it into the recycling bin outside) The next one has to be Fanta or Sprite.

Rula I want Coca Cola! 5 and 4 Tutor Coca Cola makes you hyperactive, and we don’t need that right

now (laughs). Right? It makes you very very nervous! It makes me nervous, too! (Sits down on chair next to his and looks at his screen.) Let’s see what you have so far… (reads) Yes! Let’s see how much you can finish. If you get almost through, you can order your – was it an X-wing fighter, or a Y-wing fighter…

8 Remy An X-wing star fighter! 4 Tutor Aren’t they the same? 9 on Remy Maybe I should be getting a Y-wing… Rula Remy, youwhoo!! (reproachful) 3 Tutor Whichever… They look a little bit different….  Rula I use that. 8 Remy Ohh? Rula She said I could use it. 8 Remy Well, okay, that makes sense. 6 and 5 Tutor Let’s do our story first, and then unpack stuff, and if we do a

good job, we order today and let it stand in the office until you’re done. The sooner, the better. Because in summer, we’ll have a break. If I have to teach other classes, and maybe I’ll go to Germany, and you’ll travel a little bit… 

9 on Remy You, you can look at these.

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3 Tutor Okay! (leans over to see the sentences on his screen; there’s half a page written on; single spaced)

9 off Remy It’s a Lego model... (holding up a figurine)  3 Tutor Uhum. You lost the little thing that was in his helmet. 9 on Remy It’s a Lego model for a clone trooper. You can put things like

antennas in some of those, in some of those cone things. And mini flashlights!

4 Tutor Oh, flashlights, too? 8 Remy Yeah. 6 and 5 Tutor Okay. (takes away his Lego figurine) It’s standing here, waiting

for you, until you’ve finished. (Stands up and show him on the big plastic wall clock): Only twenty-five more minutes, only until here, almost half an hour, and then you can unpack.

9 on Remy Yes! 4 Tutor I don’t even remember what you ordered last time. 8 Remy I got an Obi-Wan Kanobi and a Jango Fett. 5 Tutor And a Boba… 8 Remy Right! I almost forgot. I also got, I also got a Pictionary of Lego

Star Wars. 3 Tutor Oh? Maybe it’s there (looks at the pile of envelopes). If not,

you’ll get something next time, too. Rula Did all of my stuff come? 3 and 5 Tutor We got seven things altogether. If you ordered three things, and

Remy four… 9 on Remy Anyway, Miss Christina, I got to help you find an error in that

sentence… Rula I ordered four… wait, when are you going to buy the Tinker

Bell one, of the stickers? 3 and 10 Tutor Next time I go to Walmart, for next month? (Remy walks

around, makes noise, and moves a suitcase) Remind me to take the suitcase downstairs… all the bundles were in there, but now I can take it back home.

9 on Remy I also bought Stars of Star Wars. Anakin Skywalker… 3 Tutor Uhum. Darth Vader, as a young guy. 9 on Remy No! This was before Vader. 3 Tutor I know.

9 on Remy This, this is Darth Vader! (puts a Lego figurine on the desk

before her) And, technically, Anakin’s transformation into Darth Vader is t- is three years after the end of Epi-, of Episode II. Or also, at the end of that book. It’s three years away from the events in that.

6 Tutor Yeah. You could create a timeline with all the important dates. Oh, the other one is lying on his feet, by the way. (picks up figurine and hands it to him) Mace Windu.

9 on Remy Mace Windu. (Shows her the figurine) Do we know who this

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is? 5 Tutor A bad guy. 8 Remy No! Heck, no. (appalled) 4 Tutor No? 9 on Remy And check it out; this isn’t a mechanical hand… it’s all I could

find. I’m running low on bricks. Rula Mace Windu is not a bad guy. He’s the only Black guy. 8 Remy No, he’s not the ONLY Black guy… Rula I know, but he’s the only Black guy with a purple light saber. 8 Remy Yes. He’s, he’s the only Black guy with a light saber we know.

Aside, aside from Jolee Bindo from KotOR. Next to Jolee, Mace Windu is the most powerful Jedi in the Order.

5 Tutor But he looks bad. He looks grumpy… 8 Remy No, he isn’t. This, this is the Mace Windu model from the

Clone Wars series. Here. And this is the clone trooper, who [sic] you already know. (He goes back and forth from his backpack to his tutor, showing off more figurines he has brought.)

5 Tutor I know him. 9 on Remy You know, so we have the Forces of Darkness. 3 Tutor Oh, there they are. And Padme. Rula And Malik. 9 on Remy We also, we also, we also have the battle droid. 4 and 5 Tutor Is he missing an arm? He’s missing an arm. On the right side.

He lost his arm… (looks on the floor) 8 Remy Battle droid. Battle droid arm… (lays the Lego arm on desk and

bends down again to his backpack) Rula And also, we have – my hand! (shows her hand) 3 Tutor Which can do a lot of damage and steal stuff! 10 and 9

on Remy Aahhh! No!!! (tutor laughs) We also have the other battle droid.

Rula (grabs one figurine and takes it away) 10 Remy Ohhh! 5 Tutor Oh, he lost his arm! It’s very loose; it fell off again. Rula Sorry! 9 on Remy Again! And we also have… (comes with a different figurine) 5 Tutor (Looks at the girl’s computer screen) Oh, your name’s already

in there! Rula That’s the second one that I got; for Nickelodeon. 2 Tutor Uhum; nice! Rula So I’m done with Disney Channel, ‘cause I can’t think of any

other show. 2 Tutor That’s good! 9 on Remy Don’t forget about … (mumbles); it’s a new show that’s coming

soon. Very soon.

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Rula Coming soon! 5 Tutor Oh! You’ll be the first one to have a website about the new

show. 9 on Remy Yeah… Rula No, I’m not. Disney Channel already has one. 9 on Remy The second! 5 Tutor But you’re the first private person who has one. Disney Channel

is kind of public. 9 off Remy And we also have my custom Delta VII. (shows her a Lego star

ship) 2 Tutor Oh, yeah, it’s nice. 9 on Remy See, it’s blue instead of red. 2 Tutor It’s good…. That looks nice. 9 off Remy Besides… 6 Tutor (Motions to computer) Story? 8 Remy (With acceptance in his voice) Story. 6 Tutor Story. 9 off Remy And we also have lightsabers. 5 Tutor You’d better not unpack the lightsabers; we might lose them in

here. Rula When are we going to do our…? 5 Tutor (Motions to the wall clock, which shows 4:14 p.m. at that

moment) When the big hand is on the seven. (boy sits down; tutor to boy) So you might finish; who knows.

9 on Remy It’s only a few minutes away! 6 Tutor Use your time! 9 off Remy And don’t forget, Miss Christina, lightsabers can attach to

hands. 3 and 4 Tutor I know. It can attach to my hand, haha. You want a Fanta? 8 Remy Maybe. Or not now. 5 Tutor Okay. There are only two there. 9 on and

10 Remy (Sits and types with both hands) Okay, this is nonsense. Hooh!

5 and 4 Tutor (Copes with the little girl now; looks at her screen. Lets the boy work.) Eh, she has white skin. Looks like a vampire, don’t you think? A little bit?

Rula No, she’s goth. 5 Tutor I have a student in my class who is goth. She has, like, a

pentagram, long black hair, nose piercing, ear piercing, eyebrow piercing…

25:50 9 on Remy Wait, excuse me… excuse me, what, what does this picture mean again? Does it mean he’s underweight? (shows her a picture of Benjamin Button standing on a scale)

5 and 4 Tutor Oh, this here? Right, they put him on a scale, and… these are

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two pictures. This is the one where they notice he’s too light to play on the soccer team, and here he’s being defeated; he cannot play anymore, because they’re stronger… But it wasn’t soccer, right? Was it football? I think it was football.

Rula Football. 5 Tutor Yeah. Soccer is what they do where I come from – Europe.

Football is what they do here. It’s much more brutal. 9 off Remy You know, maybe I should have brought a building plate. So

that you could put the Lego mini figures on them. I also have several mini plates.

3 Tutor Yeah, so they wouldn’t fall down and get lost. 8 Remy They’re not gonna get lost! 4 Tutor We’ve lost something here already and found it, remember?

Pieces, in the past? 8 Remy Wait, oh… I remember. Oh yes. I remember. 5 Tutor But it doesn’t matter, because they never vacuum-clean here. I

have my own vacuum-cleaner (points to a red vacuum-cleaner standing in the corner behind the door). I hardly ever use it.

9 on Remy Hardly ever use it. 5 Tutor I’ll use it before the summer break… I have to clean my fridge;

it’s really really dirty, as you know; I have to wash it. I have to wash the microwave, because of all the molten Snickers in there (laughs and looks at the little girl, who used to put her Snickers in the microwave)… guess where they came from, heehee…

9 off Remy Are there any Snickers in there now? 5 Tutor No; it’s just dirt. 9 on Remy Too bad. Rula Sorry about that! It’s technically not my fault. 5 Tutor Yeah. They exploded. Rula They exploded by themselves. 5 Tutor They flew around. (Several seconds silence) But my goth

student got an A+ this semester. 9 on Remy Oh, that’s good. 5 Tutor When she first came in, I thought – ehm… she’s probably not

very good, but she was very good. Surprise, surprise… 9 on Remy That’s why you shouldn’t judge people before you get to know

them. 4 Tutor Yes, from their clothes, right? Rula Don’t judge people by their color. 8 Remy Or because they’re colored, Rula. 5 Tutor And she was all white. White and black. Black hair, black

clothes… Rula White skin. 5 Tutor White skin. She was pretty. Like this one. (Boy types; tutor

looks at girl’s screen. They talk in low voice.) She almost looks

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Mexican; or Indian. (girl looks for pictures of child stars on google images, to integrate into her website) Red hair. But it’s dyed, you can tell.

Rula Huh? Small! Yeah. (She found a tiny portrait on google images.)

5 Tutor They all look the same. Maybe you’ll find the same one, just bigger.

Rula Yes! (she found one) 2 and 4 Tutor Yes, that is good. Is her name really Cat? Cat like dog? Rula Uhum. 29:16 5 Tutor Maybe it’s the short form of Catherine or something… or

Catharina. Rula I wonder if I misspelled Shapira. Hum. 5 Tutor S-h-a… I guess. Yes. 9 off Remy Crapple. Eh. Crapple. Crap-ple. Cranberry and an apple.

Crapple. 2 Tutor (Looks at boy’s screen; lots of text is on there now) Hm, Very

good! Maybe we get to order the fighter today… It looks good! 9 on Remy Yes!! 6 Tutor But you can only take it home when you’re finished the essay.

But you can look at it already. 9 on Remy So you’re saying if I do a good job I can order… 5 Tutor We’ll order already, and it will stand here. 9 on Remy So you’re saying…. 5 Tutor You can order it. 9 on Remy Wow, really? Thank you! I appreciate it. 2 Tutor Uhum. You did a good job today. 8 Remy Yeah, high five! 31:01 3, 2, 10 Tutor (laughs) High five! (they clap hands together) Aaaah!!! (he

squeezed her hand) 9 on Remy Oh, sorry, sorry, did I hurt your hand? 2 Tutor No! (squeezes back) 10 Remy Aaaarghhhh!!! No, I’m okay. 6 Tutor Fifteen more minutes, come on! And then, you’ll get to unpack.

(Clock says 4:20 p.m.) 10 and 9

off Remy (beats around with his arm) Aaahhh! (his one hand beats his

other hand) I don’t know how this happened. It’s like this arm has a mind of its own. Uahh, uahh, ehh, ehh, ooohhh, doohooo, ehmmm, ehmmm, ehmmmmmm, ohhh…

3 Tutor Hypnotize it! (holds her hand over his arm like a healer) Don’t move anymore!

10 Remy Ahh, ahh, ahh… my hand… ahhh… um, um, ohhh… 3 Tutor Stare at it; hypnotize it! Don’t move, don’t move, fall asleep!

Get paralyzed. Rula If you’re asking…. he’s a puppet.

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9 off and 10

Remy Oh no, it picked up something from the floor; it’s gonna force me to eat it. Uahh, ahhh… (he takes a piece of potato chips and eats it) Ahh, no, no, that was so awful. My hand couldn’t go through with it. But now, it’s about – a gummy bear back here! What are the odds?

5 Tutor He found a survivor. Rula Ew, don’t eat it! 4 and 5 Tutor Why not? It’s just on the table. It’s not bad. Rula Remy, the back of that table is dirty! 5 Tutor Uh-um, the table is not dirty. 8 and 9

off Remy And it was on the plate. See, it’s right here. (boy grabs Star

Wars graphic novel) You guys start Vader and some storm troopers on it. The Death Star and, the Death Star and this personal fighter in the background.

3 Tutor Uh yah, that’s the Death Star, before it was blown up. 9 on Remy Yeah, and it looks to me like it was the first one. Because the

second one was never really finished. 3 Tutor Oh, they destroyed it before it was ever finished. What a waste! 9 on Remy It was operational, though. It’s just a service that wasn’t

finished…. (5 seconds silence) It looks as though there are five tie fighters in the background then; no, wait, just four tie fighters – no, wait, there’s five – five tie fighters, and four, and three of Darth Vader’s personal ships. This is the close-up of it…

3 Tutor Uhum; this is Darth Vader’s personal one. 9 on Remy This close-up is of Darth Vader’s personal one. 4 Tutor And what is it called? 8 and 9

off Remy Em, Darth – I think it’s called Darth Vader’s advanced tie

fighter. I don’t think it ever really got a name. It’s his own personal fighter customized. (three seconds silence) You can throw away the plate, if you want. It’s kind of all crusty.

3 Tutor Naw; it’s still good. It doesn’t look that bad. 9 on Remy You can wipe it off with a cloth, though. 3 Tutor Uhum. 9 on Remy (with a Star Wars voice; like “use the Force”) Use the cloth! 5 Tutor You can even knock it off really fast. 9 on Remy Or, or, or you can just use a wet cloth and wipe off the crumbs. 3 Tutor Uhum; that’s probably what I’m going to do. 9 on, 9

off Remy Yeah, see? Now, good things have to come to end, you know?

4 Tutor Who’s that guy? (referring to girl’s screen) Rula Psycho Ed. He’s their teacher. 10 Remy Aaaahhhh!!! 5 Tutor Looks like a crazy professor! 9 on Remy Maybe he is.

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Rula He’s not. But he does like coconut juice! 10 Remy Oh, coco-, coconuts… Wait, what? Oaaarhhh… Psssss…..

oarhhhh! 4 and 5 Tutor (to girl) Why do they call it medium? Is he a medium, like

somebody who can read the future and talk to dead people? 9 off Remy Ah man, the Jedi cut off my…. 5 Tutor Because this is called a medium. 9 off Remy Psssss….. Ssssss…. Ah man, the Jedi cut off my… 35:09 5 and 4 Tutor Ten more minutes!!! Do you want to order? 9 off Remy Ah man, the Jedi cut off my hand… Those things are expensive

these days… Rula Question! Never mind… (mumbles) looking for Jerry. (searches

google images) 5 Tutor Jerry…. 10 Remy Ssssss…. 6 Tutor (to the girl) Don’t forget to save. Rula (is humming happily) After I do this, I have a hundred pictures! 4 Tutor Are you at 99? Rula Uhum. 2 Tutor Wow! That’s cool. Rula One. Hundred!!! (with triumph in her voice) 2 and 6 Tutor A hundred!!! And a hundred and one… that’s good! (little

problem occurs when girl tries to save file) It didn’t save it… it doesn’t matter. We can still get it; do the others first, and then, we’ll go back to this one. The other button…

Rula That’s right. 6 Tutor Just click this one away, and then open it; em, yeah… open it …

minimize all the other things, and then click on the red one and open it again, okay? And now click on this little arrow… yeah , good… and then we go to Owner, Pictures, and now you have to find it… just find it and open it, and save it as jpg… (computer makes error noise)

10 Remy Eeehhhh…. 6 Tutor (to the girl, who has selected one image on the computer) This

one? Okay, open, and then we say File, Save as… Okay, now it’s in the right folder; it’s under Owner, under Pictures… Pictures, double click… and now you can save it as jpg… So. Okay, and then say, Save, and then, it’s okay. Now, you can click it away and go to Microsoft, and see if that works… If not, I made a mistake (laughs). If yes, you did a good job!

Rula You, too! 5, 6, 4 Tutor One of them is the right one; one is a jpg. Yes, that’s the right

one. There you go! It’s bigger than the one before. Seven more minutes! Do something more, and then you get to order. First unpacking, and then ordering. (to girl) This is blurry…. I think the puppet can open its mouth. It looks like it, right?

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Rula Uhum. (computer makes error noise) 4 Tutor Did you click “save”? Maybe we haven’t done it yet. Rula No, we’ve done it. I just…. Ohh, nice! 40:56 9 on Remy This is no help… How do you spell “kept”? You know, like the

past tense of keep? 3 Tutor Oh, em, k-e-p-t. 9 on Remy That’s it? 5 Tutor Yes, that’s it already.

9 on Remy It’s that simple! 3 Tutor Yes. 9 on Remy Em, does this work? 2 Tutor Yes, it’s right. 9 on Remy Alright. 2, 4, 6, 5 Tutor Very good! Did you save it? Make sure you don’t lose

anything… getting close to the end already! So maybe next time, we can finish, and if it arrives by next time, you can take it home!

Rula Can we unpack? 5 Tutor In two minutes. You’ve got too many pictures in there; it’s hard

to find something… 10 Remy Shh-shhh, t-t-tummm… (makes rap noises) 6, 2, 5 Tutor (To girl) That’s the end! Finish this one sentence, and then you

can unpack. Just this one picture, and then you can unpack. Oh, it’s a png? Oh, it works, anyway. It works. Nice! (looks at the pile of envelopes containing the little incentives ordered for this month) I think the brown ones are for Remy, and the other ones are for you. And you might get something next…

Rula All of those yellow ones are for Remy? 5 Tutor Yes, all those brownish ones; yeah, the yellow ones are all for

Remy; the white one is for you; I know, because I looked into it.

Rula Yes? 5 Tutor Yes. You can open that one first; it’s easy. And the big, long

one must be for you. Rula Oh, wait! 5, 2 Tutor Yes! And let’s see whether it fits in the trashcan… they took

away my neighbor’s recycle box, so we have to put it in our trashcan. Or I need to buy a recycle box. It looks good… Emm!

Rula Yay! 5 Tutor I don’t know what it is; I think that’s your book. That must be

one of your fairy books, because it has the right size. 46:04 9 on Remy How do you… Rula Ohhh! (delighted) 5 Tutor Yes, it is!

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9 on, 10 Remy How do you spell “address,” like…. how do you spell “address,” like woaffff….

3 Tutor Okay, with two “d’s” and two “ss’s.” Rula Can somebody please pass me the scissors? 9 on Remy Miss Christina… 4 Tutor Are you done??? You can unpack then, too. Rula Yours are all the yellow packages. 10 Remy Oahh! 5 Tutor (slicing open of packages is heard) Very good. Wow. You never

got that much. You’re having a very good day today. Rula Instead of the lazy one, like the time that you did not finish…. 9 on Remy Rula!!! I did something then… I typed two more sentences than

you told me to. 3 Tutor Uhum! 9 on Remy Actually, which is one more sentence than you told me to. 2 Tutor That’s good, too. 47:13 9 on Remy That’s good, too. Pretty soon, you almost got a page here!

(referring to his typing on the screen) 6 Tutor Okay. Check what’s yours! 10 Remy Yes, arhh, arhh, yes!! Mine! 6, 5, 2 Tutor Ah, look at this. That’s big. Looks good; wow! 9 on Remy Yes! 2, 5 Tutor Pretty good. Hey, there’s a figurine! 9 on Remy Yes! 5 Tutor Okay, wait, I’ve got to take this outside. (grabs the packaging

material) Rula And this! 6 Tutor Let’s put all the trash in this one here… all the envelopes…

This goes in my trash. 9 off Remy These are friends, Rula. These are friends. Rula Huh? Where? 9 on Remy There. In that package. Rula Oh. 5 Tutor Oh yeah, I didn’t see them. Good. (sorting through trash) This is

plastic… all paper mixed with plastic. This is plastic! 10 Remy Ah! Ah! (knocks something down loudly twice) Rula I need the scissors. 4 Tutor Yah, okay. Hm, who is this? Jango? (looks at Lego figurine

Remy has just unpacked) Rula No, that’s not Jango; that’s Luke. 10, 9 on Remy Nooo (squeaky voice), it’s not. 5 Tutor It’s Jango! 9 on Remy Rula, you don’t know all your Star Wars as well as you should. 5 Tutor That’s Obi-Wan. It’s the right hair. I think it looks like the one

you already have.

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8 Remy Yes. 5 Tutor Hello twin brother, where are you? (looks for the second Obi-

Wan that Remy had brought to tutoring class). Oh, I’m different; you have a yellow face; I have a pink face!!

48:54 9 on Remy I’m not a twi-… yeah, it’s not pink; it’s flesh! 3 Tutor Flesh…. Not a twin brother… 9 off Remy Ah, yeah, I got you… ah, yeah, I got you (slices open package). Rula This is long! 5 Tutor Yeah! I don’t think you need the instructions… this is just trash. Rula Hey, the instructions are in here! (lots of paper rustling; tutor

opens door and throws trash out) 9 off

and 10 Remy I’m attacked… woahh, woahh… I’m attacked. (plays with Lego

figurines) I’m attached, fewwww… 4, 5, 6, 2 Tutor (to the girl) Does it open at the top? Yes, it is open already; it

just needs to fall out. Fold it up. Oh, it’s nice. And oh… you need to put it together! Do you want to do it here, or at home? (girl has received an easel, colors, and brushes)

50:26 9 on Remy Miss Christina, can you give me your attention? Rula Here! 6 Tutor Okay, let me read the instructions. Rula Instructions are in here. 5, 4 Tutor Nails are in there…. Oh, we need a screwdriver. Of course I

don’t have one in the office. You need to put it together at home, I think. Or maybe we don’t need a screwdriver; we can do it without a screwdriver. Okay, where are the instructions?

9 on Remy Uhh… guys! Hello? Excuse me! 4 Tutor (to girl) What does it say? 9 on Remy That’s better. Now we get our ear. Rula Those aren’t instructions. That’s just what it’s supposed to be. 5 Tutor Okay. Yeah. One of those is the tray where the pictures go in.

(wood clatters) Rula Yeah, two of them, actually. One in the front; one in the back. 5 Tutor Okay, we have some that are like this. Rula Oh, you mean like this? 4 Tutor Uhum. Where’s the tray? Rula Oh, it’s supposed to be one of those wooden things.

5 and 4 Tutor It looks bigger. Are you sure? We didn’t take everything out.

No, it’s in here. This is the tray. 10 Remy Hatchooo. (sneezes) 7 Tutor (to boy) Don’t step on that thing! Don’t break it! 8 Remy I’m not. 5 Tutor I had one, too, when I was your age. (referring to the easel) Rula How did you… did you put it together yourself?

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52:14 5 Tutor No, it was already assembled when I got it.

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APPENDIX D---Participant’s Writing Samples

1.1 Final Essay, Stage 1

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The curious case of Benjamin Button (aftermath). Benjamin Button. Someone who started of with the face of an old man and dies a baby boy. It was indeed a peculiar set up for one so old to die so young. Practically a baby, small and frail. Now you are probably wondering what I mean. Well I’ll tell you then. Benjamin Button was born in the 18th century. Although the year and the day of his birth are unknown, we do know that he was born in Baltimore, a town in Maryland. Now try this, think of your life resembling a clock. 12 o’clock is your starting point, but you also start out as an adult. As the hours drag on, you keep getting younger and younger, that is until your final hour, when you die. In the time before your demise your life is being slowly drained away, and you yourself are powerless to do anything about it. Now how would you like that? But unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to our poor, poor Benjamin. Events

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that took place in his life were very odd, as were his growth patterns as he got older. This is his story. His life started out in the Baltimore hospital, that’s where our story begins, where destiny is born, and where things took a turn …….for the worst. Ben’s dad comes to pick him up from the hospital, he’s very surprised at what he finds there. At first he thinks it’s some sort of joke. But it turns out that what was supposed to be a small cute and happy baby turned out to be a wrinkled old man. And so with no choice whatsoever, he brought this new (and wrinkled) life home with him. And it wasn’t long before young Benjamin made his first friend: his grandfather. Several years later, Benjamin fell in love with a young girl named Hildegard. And it wasn’t long before they became a couple, and soon after married! All was going well, until Ben’s old age reaction started up again. For the following paragraph, it could help if you thought about things this way: you finally

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receive a long awaited toy from a friend. At first it seems pretty great. But, as time wears on, you find it less appealing. After a while, you forget all about it. But, unfortunately, that’s exactly the case with our Benjamin. After the birth of his son, Roger Button, Ben was finding his wife less and less . . . . . attractive. Bored with his life, Ben goes of to serve in the war. After resigning from the military, Ben returns to his home. Only to find when time passes, things can change.

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1.2 Final Graphic Novel, Stage II

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     That's no baby 

    HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHa! 

   Oh my...   

doctor, what's wrong? 

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   Hey whight what  are you. . . oh no not the beard! 

  Awwwwwwww man! 

    This isn't fun at all. 

   And then I said "oh no you didn't!" and then she said "Oh yes I did!" 

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Well  that's weird. 

Congragulations! You've passed high school 

Now to college. 

how old are  

you? 

15. 

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I'm bored. 

Let's find you a date 

crazy!  yeah!  you'll  

pay! 

I like 

you

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 Marrying him isn't a good idea.  He's evil!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

  You may now kiss the bride. 

  This is our family. 

     Happy anaversery dear.  Oh Ben, you remembred 

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  I'm bored. 

  Top of the morning boys. 

  COOL 

   Hey, I'm back! 

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   I'm not happy 

  Oh my gosh, it's still happening!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

    Hahahaha  I'm having fun.  

WHAT! 

I'm getting 

younger. 

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Welcome to colidge.

WOWWWWWWWWWWWW

bored

YAR!

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Uhh Ow. yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyy

Bored, again

huh

Not fun.

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Aww man

he didn't like the glasses

not at all

no war for him

no

im thinking of prepschool

ok

and call me dad

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Hi, by

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

who are you

were did you get this letter from

cake

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awwwwwwwwwwwww

fun

More fun

birth

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waaaaa

yum

look

loike

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. . . Gone

the end.

. . . of his life. . .

. . . now . . . .

the story . . .

. . . all . . .

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1.3 Final Essay, Stage III

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Benjamin Button The story begins on the day after Ben’s birth. His dad was racing to the hospital, and was just outside the doors into the hospital when he ran into his family’s doctor. Ben’s dad asked the doctor how the baby was doing. He didn’t get a very optimistic response. So he raced inside the hospital and into the newborns room. This is what he saw. In one of the beds was an old man (not Santa Clause) with a long white beard. The young Benjamin Button! Wrinkly, and in desperate need of moisturizer. As you can imagine this raised some concern for Ben’s father. What would happen if he was seen in public with a geezer? So after going to a tailor shope, he presents to Ben some goofy looking clothes. It fixed the half-naked-old-man part. The only thing left to fix was Ben’s long hair and beard. So after giving Ben a hair and beard cut, his dad dyed his hair. Ben was then sent to kindergarten, but it didn’t work out. Ben most enjoyed talking with his grandfather when he had the time. One day however, Ben would make a mind blowing discovery. Ben discovered that slowly, but at a steady rate his age was decreeing. That’s right people! Ben was growing younger, physically and mentally. Anyway, Ben graduated high school when he was 15, and he wanted to sign up for Harvard. But when Ben revealed his true age, he gave the impression that he was insane. After being hounded by a crowd of people, Ben boarded a train and left. After this incident, Ben took over his dad’s business. One night, Ben and his father went to a dance. And then Ben saw . . . her. A beautiful girl named Gertrude. She sure was pretty. Ben and Gertrude took the dance floor. They fell in love and eventually got married. Gertrude gave birth to a son named Roger. However, not long after, the call to war rose. For some time, Ben was on the front lines of the war. He actually made a high rank before he left. When Ben returned home, he made a new discovery. His age was still decreasing! It was still happening, even during the war. Plus, in the mist of this bad news, there was a bonus. Gertrude . . . she was old now. Ben, he didn’t love her anymore. Ben, after much thought decided to inform the family of his strange growth revisal. They took the news better than he had expected. After breaking the news to the family, Ben and Gertrude’s relationship began to fall apart. Every time they went to a party, Ben would dance with a pretty girl while Gertrude would sit alone. Eventually, Ben made the decision to go to college. While there, Ben gained quite the reputation for being one of the top football players on campus. Once, in a game against Harvard, not only did Ben’s team win, but they also left Harvard team hurt, bruised, and some injured. However, these victories did not last. Not too long after this, Ben became under weight, so he couldn’t play football anymore. After that, Ben began to fail in his studies. Perhaps it may have been that the mysterious growth reversal not only affecting him physically, but mentally. What ever the case, Ben was failing, and everyone kept on telling him to go back to prep school. So after returning home he told Roger that he wanted to go to prep school. However, Rodger refused to let him go, and he informed Ben from then on to address him as . . . father. Rodger tried to make Ben look older. Ironic, really. Ben’s father tried to make him look younger, and now Ben’s own son is trying to make him look older. Ah irony. After that failed, a new war came up and the U.S. needed every man they could muster. A letter was sent to Ben for reenlistment, but Ben looked about a youngster nowadays. If he tried to fake his identity, he would be too young too join the army. Despite that, he came over to the reenlistment aria in a Boy Scout outfit and told the soldiers there that he was Benjamin

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Button. They didn’t take the news so well. In the end, Rodger came and took him home. Where Ben received a stern punishment. Soon after this Rodger got married and received a son. Ben and Rodger grew up (or in Ben’s case grew down) together. They both went to kindergarten. After the school term was up and running again, Rodger’s son went on to the first grade. While Ben stayed behind in kindergarten. But soon kids that were bigger than him were being mean to him. So Ben was removed from kindergarten and taken into the care of a nanny who Ben called nana. Kind of appropriate really. She helped him she feed him, did pretty much anything for him. Meanwhile, all this time the decrease in growth was continuing. He kept on decreasing until finally . . . there was nothing left

The end?

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1.4 Ten Writing Samples, Stage I

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Writing sample 1, Stage I, from 04/20/2009

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Writing sample 2, Stage I, from 04/20/2009 Remy typed on his Webpage: "What is Boba's history? Click here to learn," and linked it to a wikipedia info site about Boba Fett from Star Wars that he researched himself. He also leared four new vocabulary words from this article that he read aloud and wrote them on his online "new vocabulary list":

ultimately finally

inadvertantly accidentally

decapitation beheading

guillotine death weapon

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Writing sample 3, Stage I, from 08/17/2009

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Writing sample 4, Stage I, from 08/24/2009 (brainstorming about Benjamin Button)

LOG S7668876788976 2012 JAN.12 An experiment to create a new snack food dip has gone terribly wrong. Instead the result has been a baby boy. Scientist Luke Watson has decided to take the boy as his own. But I can't help but have a bad feeling about this. 3001 January 12 The boy is now 100 years old, a man that has had a long life full of good memories. One night he saw a shooting star he wished he got younger. He said that he would stay young forever. A month after that, tragedy struck. Scientific devices have shown reversal of his age: the man is getting younger!

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3001 May 13 It's nearly half way through the year since disaster struck. The man is now a boy. Strangely, interested in balls. I don't know how to explain it. It's just weird. We've done some testing with him, and we think that it's possible that there may be a way to cure this disease before it passes on to somebody else. I don't know how, but we're going to have to try. For his sake. Otherwise, he could disappear. Forever! 4002 April 12. It's the boy's birthday, and something strange happened. After he blew out the candles on his birthday cake, he grew a year younger. And after that, he got another year younger. It's only a matter of time until he comes to his fateful end. 4002 April 12 a.m.

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Success! Or so it seems. After we made some experiments, we discovered what might be a cure to this case. It might be our only hope, and we were right to trust ourselves. The boy is growing rapidly and...... Wait, I just got an update. The boy is going back again, and it's changing his superstructure.... he can't hold it!!! He's gonna blow!!!!! Later.... It turns out that he turned into a snack dip that we started out with. And it even tastes better than before. With a hint of salt and chemical X to kill the life within the snack food dip. It's the best snack food in the world. In the meantime, the story of a boy and an old man within each other is now classified information. If you've seen this, you're not to tell anyone of this. Otherwise, we'll track you down and have you

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destroyed. This is Captain Cusan signing out from LOG.

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Writing sample 5, Stage I, from 09/21/2009

The curious case of Benjamin Button (aftermath).

Benjamin Button. Someone who started of with the face of an old man and dies a baby boy. It was indeed a peculiar set up for one so old to die so young. Practically a baby, small and frail. Now you are probably wondering what I mean. Well I’ll tell you then.

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Writing sample 6, Stage I, from 09/21/2009

Three interview questions

1.How did you choose your career? 2.Do you have children with trisomy 18” 3.Can children with trisomy 18 read?

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Writing sample 7, Stage I, from 09/28/2009

Benjamin Button was born in the 18th century. Although the year and the day of his birth are unknown, we do know that he was born in Baltimore, a town in Maryland. Now try this, think of your life resembling a clock. 12 o’clock is your starting point, but you also start out as an adult. As the hours drag on, you keep getting younger and younger, that is until your final hour, when you die. In the time before your demise your life is being slowly drained away, and you yourself are powerless to do anything about it. Now how would you like that?

295

Writing sample 8, Stage I, from 11/03/2009

But unfortunately, that’s exactly what happened to 

our poor, poor Benjamin. Events that took place in 

his life were very odd, as were his growth patterns 

as he got older. This is his story.                    

  His life started out in the Baltimore hospital, that’s 

where our story begins, where destiny is born, and 

where things took a turn …….for the worst. Ben’s 

dad comes to pick him up from the hospital, he’s 

very surprised at what he finds there.  

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Writing sample 9, Stage I, from 11/10/2009