Warning: A Grade 7 Student Disrupts Narrative Boundaries

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1 Warning: A Grade 7 Student Disrupts Narrative Boundaries Journal of Literacy Research 43(1) The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permission: sagepub.com/journalspermissions.nav DOI: / X Sylvia Pantaleo 1 Abstract This article features a case study of the written and illustrative text produced by one Grade 7 student, Stefinia, and discusses the metaleptic transgressions evident in the book she created as the culminating activity of a research project. Stefinia was a participant in a classroom-based study that explored how developing students knowledge of literary and illustrative elements affects their understanding, interpretation, and analysis of picturebooks and graphic novels, and the subsequent creation of their own print, multimodal texts. As well as being informed by narrative theory and metafiction, the research was framed by an ecological perspective on teaching and learning in classrooms. During a 10-week period, Stefinia participated in interdependent activities that offered her opportunities to learn about metafictive devices, some art elements, and a few compositional principles of graphic novels. Stefinia read and wrote responses to several picturebooks and four graphic novels; engaged in small group, peer-led discussions about the literature; and received explicit instruction about particular literary, illustrative, and compositional devices and techniques. She had the opportunity to apply and represent her learning by creating her own multimodal print text as the culminating activity of the study. The content analysis of Stefinia s written and illustrative text focuses on her use of various metafictive devices that disrupted narrative structures or ontological boundaries in her multimodal book. The findings reveal how Stefinia s participation and engagement in a particular classroom community of practice affected her learning of the content and concepts under study. Keywords multimodal texts, children s and young adult literature, graphic novels, metafiction, middle years students, narrative competence 1 University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada Corresponding Author: Sylvia Pantaleo, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, University of Victoria, Box 3010 STN CSC, Victoria, BC V8W 3N4 Canada pantaleo@uvic.ca

2 40 Journal of Literacy Research 43(1) In picturebooks and graphic novels, the mode of image and the mode of writing (Kress, 2003) are combined in many different ways, and both semiotic resources are used to construct the narrative, unless the selections are wordless. 1 Indeed, the artwork, the design and the compositional features of picturebooks and graphic novels all constitute part of the telling of the story. Many contemporary picturebooks and graphic novels exhibit narrative structures beyond the conventional Aristotelian plot structure (Nikolajeva, 2004, p. 171) of a clear beginning, middle and end (McCabe, 1997, p. 456). For example, narrative embedding, or stories within stories, is a common structural device evident in several contemporary picturebooks and graphic novels. The stacking of narrative levels (Hofstadter, 1980) in these multimodal texts is created both independently and synergistically by the modal resources of image and writing. Gérard Genette (1980, 1988) developed a metalanguage that can be used to explain discrete narrative levels in embedded narratives. The diegetic, the fictional or story world in which the events and situations that are narrated occur (Prince, 2003), can be disrupted in a number of ways in texts, including the use of intrusive authors and characters who directly address readers as readers (such as the use of a warning). Genette (1980) defined metalepsis as the deliberate disturbing or breaking of narrative boundaries, any intrusion by the extradiegetic narrator or narratee into the diegetic universe (or by the diegetic characters into a metadiegetic universe, etc.) or the inverse (pp ). According to O Neill (2005), the most important and most effective means of elaborating and enriching narratives... is not by making the story itself more complex but by complicating and elaborating its discursive presentation (p. 368). Metalepsis is one narrative device that increases narrative complexity by blurring the sacred frontier between two worlds, the world in which one tells, the world of which one tells (Genette, 1980, p. 236). For approximately 10 weeks in 2009, I conducted a study with a class of Grade 7 students who read several picturebooks and graphic novels that feature transgressions of boundaries between narrative hierarchies. The research with the Grade 7 students was one of several studies that I have conducted during the past few years. Although the students participating in my multiple classroom-based studies have varied in age, each independent study has used similar research questions, designs, and methods of collecting and analyzing the data (Yore & Rossman, 2010). My program of research has been exploring how elementary and middle-years students respond to and interpret texts with radical change characteristics (Dresang, 1999) and/or metafictive devices (Waugh, 1984). The classroom-based studies have also examined how students transfer their knowledge and understanding of the concepts under study when the students have the opportunity to create their own multimodal print texts (Pantaleo, 2008b, 2009a, 2009b, 2010). Furthermore, the research has explored the teaching and learning practices that facilitate students understanding, analysis, and interpretation of literary and art elements in picturebooks and graphic novels. Not all of the literature read by the Grade 7 students has examples of metalepsis, as the purposes of the research were broader and thus affected the literature chosen as the content for the students to read and discuss. The qualitative study explored

3 Pantaleo 41 how developing students knowledge of literary and illustrative elements affects their understanding, interpretation, and analysis of picturebooks and graphic novels and the subsequent creation of their own print texts. Although the students were not taught the term metalepsis, they did receive instruction about metafictive devices that create metaleptic disruptions, consequently revealing the fictional illusion of text (Waugh, 1984, p. 6). Throughout the research, the students experiences with the picturebooks and graphic novels communicated how it is essential to see, not merely to look (Macaulay, 1991, p. 419). As described by Albers (2008), applying a theory of looking and seeing to visual representations in children s literature encourages readers and viewers to conduct more systematic readings of visual texts (p. 192). According to Albers, to see is to transact with the text, to make meaning from the elements that comprise the text (p. 168). During the research featured in this article, the students had opportunities to learn about the grammars of various semiotic systems in the picturebooks and graphic novels they read and discussed, and to develop a concomitant metalanguage to discuss aspects of the modes of image and writing (New London Group, 1996, p. 74). This metalanguage assisted the students in their aesthetic and analytical readings of the picturebooks and graphic novels, and in the planning and creation of their own multimodal print texts. The literature used during the research also provided the students with opportunities to develop their cognitive flexibility (Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson, 2004) and narrative competence, as the focus selections contained narrative complexities and irregularities. Furthermore, by drawing readers attention to how texts work and to how meaning is created, the metafictive texts used during the research encouraged the students to reflect upon the processes through which narrative functions are constructed, read and made sense of (McCallum, 2004, p. 587). Finally, outside of school, students are immersed in a plurality of multimodal texts that feature sophisticated structures, designs, and visual representations as well as multiple reading, writing, and viewing pathways (Kress, 2003). In school, students should have opportunities to read, view, discuss, and create texts that reflect changing ways of communicating and representing in their world. This article presents a case study of the written and illustrative text produced by one Grade 7 student, Stefinia (pseudonym), and discusses the metaleptic transgressions evident in the book she created as the culminating activity of the research. Although Stefinia s written and oral responses to the selections of literature read and discussed during the research revealed a sophisticated level of understanding and interpretation from the beginning of the study, I did not purposefully select her as a student who would be featured as a case study at the commencement of the research. My decision to focus on Stefinia s work occurred after I analyzed all of the students multimodal books. Although Stefinia s work did not exhibit the most metafictive devices (her book contained 16 of the18 metafictive devices taught during the unit), in my opinion, her book was the most sophisticated and imaginative with respect to narrative content and use of the metafictive devices (see appendix). Indeed, Stefinia used several techniques that draw reader attention to the embedded narratives and the narrative embedding in

4 42 Journal of Literacy Research 43(1) her work. Although only one artifact, Stefinia s book does provide information about her narrative competence and her understanding of and abilities to produce narratives (Prince, 2003). Before describing the theoretical frames that guided the exploratory study and reviewing some relevant literature, further information about metalepsis is provided to develop reader knowledge about this narrative device and its significance in understanding the complexity and sophistication of Stefinia s work. Narrative, Metalepsis, and Metafiction For some narrative theorists, the structures of the narrative are constitutive of the text s meaning and are what bring the text into being (Rudrum, 2002). For example, Propp s (1958) morphological analysis of Russian folk tales revealed a finite number of functions that focused on the significance of characters actions. Lévi-Strauss (1955) developed a structural theory about myths, and Barthes (1970) described how texts are constituted through five codes or signs. Other individuals have developed story grammars or maps or models to describe the underlying structures and relations among episodes or events in narratives. However, these story grammars have several limitations, including their reductionism and the fact that many are based on simple texts written for the express purpose of developing and explaining the models (Sipe, 2008, p. 42). O Neill (2005) explained that the term narrative structure has been used to refer exclusively either to the events within a story or to the discourse that presents the story (p. 366). However, the Russian formalists and Gérard Genette have identified distinct narrative elements. For Russian formalists, text-based literary theorists, the fabula refers to the events that occur in a story (i.e., the content), the brute chronology (Holquist, 1990, p. 113) of the narrative; and the syuzhet or sjuzhet refers to the way or the form of telling the events, the plot, the order and manner in which events are actually presented in the narrative (Cuddon, 1999, p. 328). Similar to the Russian formalists, Genette s (1980) systematic theory of narrative (p. 7) differentiates among various narrative elements, including story, narrative, and narrating. For Genette, story refers to narrative content; the narrated or story is the set of situations and events recounted in a narrative (Prince, 2003, p. 57). Narrative describes the discourse, written or oral, that narrates the events and narrating to the real or fictive act that produces that discourse in other words, the very fact of recounting (Genette, 1988, p. 13). As described above, Genette (1980, 1988) also distinguished among various diegetic levels in narratives and used the term metalepsis to describe the deliberate transgression of narrative boundaries. To Prince (2006), a narrative metalepsis is any convergence, contamination, or interpenetration between distinct enunciative situations or diegetic levels, any movement across presumably sacrosanct borders, any violation of the frontier between story and discourse, narrating and narrated, embedding and embedded narrative (p. 626). Malina (2002) describes metalepsis as a mutinous narrative device that disrupts narrative structure and undoes, at least temporarily, stable levels and

5 Pantaleo 43 definite boundaries (p. 132). Metaleptic disruptions increase the complexity of narratives through entangling diegetic levels and playing with ontological boundaries (Herman, 1997). Picturebooks and graphic novels can be considered multidiegetic in nature because the verbal world and the visual world can independently express two or more different narrative levels, or the semiotic resources of text and image can synergistically communicate multiple diegetics. Thus, because of the multimodal nature of picturebooks and graphic novels, metalepsis, one or more illicit movements up or down the hierarchy of diegetic levels (Herman, 1997, p. 133), can be exhibited in multiple ways. According to Pier (2005), metalepsis originated in ancient legal discourse (p. 303), and Fludernik (2003) states that evidence of metalepsis can be traced back to the Renaissance and, possibly, to antiquity (p. 392). Ryan (2004) credits Genette (1980) with introducing the term metalepsis into contemporary narratology. As well as in literature, examples of metalepsis are found in theater, film, and art (e.g., Escher and Magritte). Ryan also describes metaleptic examples in mathematics, logic, experimental science, and computer science and discusses the use of metalepsis in video games and virtual reality technology. According to Malina (2002), artistic exploitation of metalepsis has run rampant in the postmodern era (p. 1), and Ryan describes metalepsis as one of the favorite toys of postmodern culture (Ryan, 2004, p. 439). Malina explains that metalepsis provides an apt tool for depicting and enacting some of the key philosophical reconceptualizations of postmodernity (Malina, 2002, p. 2). Consistent with the spirit or tendency of postmodernism itself, metaleptic effects emphasize the shifting latticework of the actual and inactual and question a single, stable model world (Herman, 1997, p. 136). Because writers and illustrators have been exposed to the same postmodernizing influences as everyone else... it would be reasonable to suppose that such influences might find their way into books (Lewis, 2001, p. 99). According to McHale (1987), postmodern fiction is above all illusion-breaking art; it systematically disturbs the air of reality by foregrounding the ontological structure of texts and of fictional worlds (p. 221). Watson (2004) writes that there is a pervasive use of metafiction in postmodern discourses (p. 55). Metafiction is concerned with fiction-making itself (McCaffery, 1995, p. 182), and through a number of devices or techniques (Pantaleo, 2006a, 2008b), authors and/or illustrators of metafictive texts concomitantly construct and expose fictional illusion (Waugh, 1984, p. 6). As noted previously, the transgression of ontological boundaries creates texts that are metafictional in nature as reader attention is drawn to the fictional character of these mutinous texts. Stefinia and her Grade 7 classmates read many selections of literature that were metafictive in nature because these texts contain at least one metaleptic pop, a radical transgression of the narrative hierarchies between the levels of author and reader, narrator, and fictional characters, when the text world suddenly invades the actual world of the reader (Rubik, 2005, p. 172). The literature the students read, discussed, and wrote about, as well as the other activities they participated in during the research, influenced the written and visual texts the students created for the culminating activity. Thus, an

6 44 Journal of Literacy Research 43(1) ecological perspective also frames the classroom-based research described in this article because Stefinia s learning was affected by her membership in a particular social/textual community (Kress, 2003, p. 159). An Ecological Perspective on Teaching, Learning, and Researching I was both the teacher and researcher in the study, and I acknowledge my influence on the classroom community and the students learning. The texts, the purposes of, and expectations associated with particular kinds of textual practice (Dyson, 2001, p. 381) within the Grade 7 classroom, as well as the ideologies demonstrated and valued (Rowe, 2008, p. 70) by both the classroom teacher and me, influenced how the students approached, discussed, and wrote about the literature they read as well as how the students composed and created their own work at the end of the study. The students learning, as a result of their participation and engagement in daily and interdependent activities, created a particular classroom community of practice (Lave, 1996). The students ongoing learning throughout the study also affected their participation in the activities, my pedagogy, and the social nature of learning in the research classroom. Adopting a situated learning perspective recognizes how student participation in the practices offered in the research classroom contributed to their evolving collective identity and to their understanding and use of a particular discourse to talk about the focus literature and other texts. Rosenblatt s (1978, 1994) ecological perspective on reading explains how students reading transactions are affected by the interplay of numerous personal, textual, and contextual factors. Rosenblatt s transactional theory, which accounts for the particularity of the evocation and of the diversity of reader response, was foundational to my research with the Grade 7 students, as the students were expected to approach the picturebooks and graphic novels from an aesthetic stance and to explore multiple interpretations of the literature. Not surprisingly, the students reading transactions and oral discussions were affected by the literature they read and by their participation in particular types of learning experiences within the classroom. Defining writing as a social practice recognizes the connections between the reading and the writing completed by Stefinia and her peers during the research and the influence of their membership in a particular classroom community. A sociocultural theory of writing frames students writing as a social practice that is local, positioned, and cultural (Rowe, 2008, p. 69). Anne Haas Dyson (1989, 1993, 1997, 2003a), whose classroombased research on young children s writing is situated in an ecological perspective toward understanding literacy practices, has emphasized how children bring their experiences with social worlds and symbolic tools to school (Dyson, 2003b, p. 137) and documented how children appropriate and recontextualize their symbolic and communicative resources and knowledge when writing in classrooms. The situated nature of literate activity has also been revealed by research that has described how students written texts were influenced by the literature they read or by

7 Pantaleo 45 the literature read to them. Elsewhere (see Pantaleo, 2008b) I have described how the visual and verbal texts created by Grade 5 students reflected the content, conventions, and format of a selection of picturebooks (Dresang, 1999) that students read during a classroom-based research project. Lancia (1997) also found that Grade 2 students borrowed ideas from literature when writing their own stories. Cairney (1990) reported how the writing of Grade 6 students revealed reference to other texts in several ways. He also described how the writing of Grade 1 children was influenced by the texts they had heard and observed how the children s intertextual history was shaped within a particular social context (Cairney, 1992). Finally, in Dressel s (1990) research, those Grade 5 students who heard higher quality literature wrote stories that were judged to be better on literary elements of plot development, setting, character development, literary style and mood (Farnan & Dahl, 2003, p. 994). Schultz (2006) stated that written texts from classrooms reflect not only the audiences and purposes of the author... but also the history, values and intentions the composer brings to the piece, as well as the assignment and context in which it was written (p. 368). Teachers take up many roles in the authorship of students writing, such as scheduling time to write, specifying criteria, and providing feedback (Prior, 2006, p. 58). The description of the research context below provides information about how Stefinia s work was affected by (a) reading, writing about and discussing a particular selection of picturebooks and graphic novels; (b) engaging in activities with others; (c) receiving explicit instruction; and (d) receiving feedback from peers and adults. Research Context Stefinia attended a Grades 6 to 8 public school located in a predominantly uppermiddle-class area of a city in British Columbia, Canada. The middle school s culturally and ethnically diverse student population speaks approximately six different languages in addition to than English. I worked with Stefinia, her peers, and the Grade 7 classroom teacher, Ms. K., four mornings per week for approximately 360 min per week for 10 weeks (January through March 2009). Ms. K. and I had collaborated on a previous classroombased research project with a group of Grades 3 and 4 students (see Pantaleo, 2008a, 2009a), so our collegial relationship was well established. Although I took the lead in teaching the lessons during the project, Ms. K. was integrally involved in the delivery of the unit. When asked to describe the 25 participants academic achievement in reading and writing at the beginning of the study, Ms. K. referred to the students marks on their December report cards. The distribution of the students Language Arts grades was as follows: 2 students, A (excellent performance); 9 students, B (very good performance); 9 students, C+ (good performance); and 5 students, C (satisfactory performance). Stefinia was one of the 2 students who earned an A in Language Arts on her December report card.

8 46 Journal of Literacy Research 43(1) Research Purposes and Investigative Procedures The descriptive, naturalistic study explored how developing students knowledge of literary and illustrative elements affects their understanding, interpretation, and analysis of picturebooks and graphic novels and the subsequent creation of their own multimodal print texts. Specifically, by participating in the research, Stefinia and her peers had opportunities to develop their understanding and appreciation of some of the techniques that authors and illustrators use when creating picturebooks and graphic novels. As well as learning about various metafictive devices, the students were introduced to some illustrative techniques and art elements and to a few compositional principles of graphic novels. Although the focus of this article is the metaleptic transgressions evident in the book that Stefinia created for the culminating activity of the research, the investigative procedures described below provide readers with contextual information that is fundamental to understanding Stefinia s work. Readers are reminded that the brief overviews below provide only a glimpse of the richness and complexity of the teaching and learning activities that transpired during the research. Personal Response and Small-Group Discussions I began the study with the Grade 7 students by talking about the notion of response. Through a variety of activities, including listening to musical segments; visualizing sights, smells, and particular memories; and discussing local and world events, we discussed with the students how humans are constantly responding to multiple stimuli in their lives and that there are various kinds of responses and ways to respond. I read aloud The Wish, by Roald Dahl (1953), and the students wrote a response to the short story. The students independently read and wrote a response to The Short and Incredibly Happy Life of Riley (Thompson & Lissiat, 2005). Anonymous examples of responses, written by students in the Grade 7 classroom and from other classrooms, were shared with the students to identify and reinforce the qualities of a good aesthetic response (i.e., articulating one s opinions, emotions, and thoughts about the selection and supporting the latter with reasons and explanations). Throughout the research, the students received oral and written scaffolding to support and assist them with their written responses, and although all of the students demonstrated growth in their response writing throughout the research, most needed continued encouragement and support to extend their ideas and opinions. Time was also devoted to talking about small-group discussion etiquette with the goal of developing a communal understanding of the expectations, behaviors, and protocol of successful discussions. During the fall term, the Grade 7 students and Ms. K. had established expectations about engaging in peer-led discussions and participating in group work, and these guidelines were posted on a bulletin board. Further conversations with the students about discussion etiquette involved generating possible responses to situations that may occur during group discussions (e.g., how to disagree appropriately, how to piggyback on someone s ideas).

9 Pantaleo 47 Metafictive Devices in Picturebooks Willy the Dreamer (Browne, 1997) was used to introduce the students to the semiotic notion of intertextuality and to underscore the importance of looking carefully at illustrations in picturebooks. Before reading Browne s (1997) book, the students viewed and discussed several colored overhead transparencies of artwork featured in the picturebook. Following the viewing of the transparencies, the students read Willy the Dreamer. Browne s book served as a catalyst for discussing examples of intertextuality in a variety of other print and digital texts. The sequence of the other focus picturebooks used in the research was as follows: Re-Zoom (Banyai, 1995), The Three Pigs (Wiesner, 2001), Voices in the Park (Browne, 1998), The Red Tree (Tan, 2001), Chester (Watt, 2007), The Wolves in the Walls (Gaiman & McKean, 2003), Wolves (Gravett, 2005), and Black and White (Macaulay, 1990). To facilitate the students appreciation of Wiesner s postmodern pigs, the students read and talked about Tuesday (Wiesner, 1991) in small groups previous to reading The Three Pigs. In dyads, the students read Why the Chicken Crossed the Road (Macaulay, 1987) so that they would be familiar with the character Desperate Dan before reading Black and White. For most of the focus picturebooks, the students read the book independently, completed a written response, and participated in peer-led, small group discussions. Membership in the groups was teacher assigned and mixed with respect to gender and academic achievement. Generally the students were given a few focus questions to guide their dialogues, but the students knew that they could (and should) generate their own discussion topics and issues. Following the digitally recorded small-group discussions, the metafictive devices listed in the appendix, which is neither an exhaustive nor a definitive list, were explicitly taught and reviewed during various activities that involved the students discussing and examining the picturebooks in dyads and as a whole class. Some of the devices received more instructional time than others because of the nature of the selections of literature. In addition to the required texts, other picturebooks with metafictive devices were brought into the classroom for the students to peruse, and according to Ms. K., these selections of literature were extremely popular the students. Furthermore, throughout the research, we encouraged the students to make connections between the literary devices they were learning about in the literature and the existence of these devices in other print and digital texts. Art Elements in Picturebooks I began teaching the students about literary devices and illustrative elements in picturebooks on my 1st day in the classroom. As the focus picturebooks were read and discussed, I introduced and then reviewed vocabulary for the following peritextual elements: dust jacket, hard cover, spine, stamping, end pages, title page, half-title page, frontispiece, and copyright page. Other terms that were taught to describe features of picturebooks included recto and verso, double-page spread, typography, full bleeds,

10 48 Journal of Literacy Research 43(1) and gatefold. The students quickly began taking up the language of picturebooks and using the discourse in both their conversations and written work. With respect to art elements, the students participated in some activities that provided them with opportunities to learn about various pragmatic, aesthetic, and ideological functions of a few semiotic resources of the mode of image (Bezemer & Kress, 2008). The students completed an exercise described by Molly Bang (1991, 2000) that involves the building of an illustration from Little Red Riding Hood. By following Bang s (2000) instructions for sequencing a picture construction where size, color, line, and shape are varied and changed, the students experienced how the structure of a picture affects emotional response (p. 7). The activity effectively revealed several art principles to the students by requiring them to change the size, color, shape, and perspective of objects on their pages. Other minilessons were devoted to discussing the cultural meanings and significance of various colors, and the students were introduced to the terms hue, shade, tone, and saturation. The students also participated in lessons on perspective, point of view, and line. Overall, significant instructional time was consumed by introducing the students to just a few art elements. Compositional Principles and Elements in Graphic Novels In addition to the picturebooks, the students also read, responded to, and discussed four graphic novels. In general, Stefinia and her peers knew what a graphic novel was, although several stated that they had never read a graphic novel. The students were introduced to the idea that graphic novels were one kind of graphica, a medium comprising several formats (Thompson, 2008). The sequence of the graphic novels read by the students was as follows: The Arrival (Tan, 2006), Babymouse: Queen of the World (Holm & Holm, 2005), Amulet Book One: The Stonekeeper (Kibuishi, 2008), and Coraline (Gaiman & Russell, 2008). With respect to the graphic novels, the students were introduced to the terms panels, gutters, and narrative boxes. The students were familiar with speech bubbles and were cognizant of the importance of typography as a result of their work with the picturebooks. We discussed the use of sound effects and the use of line to show emotion and motion and action. Finally, a lesson was devoted to discussing how intensity can be created in panels (McCloud, 2006). Much of the initial instruction and discussion about graphic novels focused on Babymouse: Queen of the World. As well as the graphic novel features described above, the students were expected to talk about the art elements and literary devices that were taught throughout the project during their small-group discussions about the graphic novels. After all of the selections of literature had been read, the students completed a questionnaire that asked them to identify their favorite book. The students were also asked to describe how they read picturebooks and to generate comments to convey to individuals who might not appreciate the level of knowledge that is required to read and understand graphic novels.

11 Pantaleo 49 Students Multimodal Texts The culminating activity of the study required the students to apply and represent their learning by creating their own multimodal print texts. Typographic experimentation, intertextuality, and parody were mandatory requirements in the students work because of the high frequency of inclusion of these metafictive devices in the literature read throughout the research. In addition, the students were instructed to include a minimum of 10 other metafictive devices in their work. To assist the students with their planning, they received a handout with the list of metafictive devices that they had learned about throughout the study. The students were also instructed to use color, line, point of view, and perspective somewhere in their work that demonstrated their understanding of these design elements. Overall, the final assignment was extremely open-ended with respect to topic, format, and subject matter. Most students spent one Language Arts period generating ideas for and planning their stories. Those students who chose to create a graphica book or include pages that were graphica in nature were instructed that they also needed to demonstrate their understanding of panel shape, size, and layout; techniques to create intensity; speech bubbles; typography; and line that communicates action or motion and feelings or emotions. Although approximately 11 Language Arts classes were allocated for the students to work on the assignment, all of the students devoted out-of-class time to work on their books. Both Ms. K. and myself observed how during both the planning and designing of their books, the students offered ideas and suggestions to one another and how the students conversations about their books extended beyond the classroom and the Language Arts block. During a digitally recorded and individual interview, each student shared how she or he included all of the required elements in her or his book. As the students talked about their books, they showed and explained to me the metafictive devices that they had circled on another copy of the handout with the list of devices and described how they had addressed the other required elements identified above (i.e., color, line, perspective). Thus, these conversations enabled me to assess the students understandings and to gain an appreciation of their authorial and illustrative processes and choices. The interviews varied in duration from 12 to 32 min, but most were 16 to 20 min in length. The students also completed an end-of-study questionnaire that asked them to describe themselves as readers and writers and to identify and explain the aspects of their books with which they were most pleased. Data Analysis As is evident from the above descriptions of the teaching and learning activities, a wealth of data was generated during the multifaceted study: copies of the students written responses, transcriptions of the students small-group discussions of the picturebooks and graphic novels, transcriptions of the students individual interviews, copies of the

12 50 Journal of Literacy Research 43(1) students books, student questionnaires, and my researcher s journal. Considering the focus of this article, only the procedures used for analyzing the metafictive devices in the students books are described below. The metafictive devices listed in the appendix constituted the categories used to analyze the students multimodal books. Each student s book was read on at least two separate occasions, and during each reading, I completed a chart recording the presence of the metafictive devices, as well as the type of intertextualities evident in the written text and/or illustrations and the materials used to construct the book. The charts for each student s book were compared, and the very few discrepancies were resolved through a subsequent reading of a student s work. Ms. K. also independently analyzed a sample of the students books, and we compared our charts. As well as being familiar with metafictive devices, Ms. K. had experience with data analysis, as she had collected and analyzed data for her master s project. After Ms. K. analyzed the students books, we met and discussed each student s book. We also consulted the transcripts of the two student interviews about their books to provide further information about the students explanations about the metafictive devices included in their work. Our independent and collaborative examination of the students books revealed complete agreement about the metafictive devices in the two students books. Content analysis of the 25 books revealed that the number of metafictive devices evident in the students written and visual texts ranged from 10 to 18, with an average of 16. However, in quantifying the metafictive devices, the content analysis simplifies the complexity of the data. The students use or incorporation of metafictive devices differed not only quantitatively but also qualitatively with respect to frequency of occurrence and levels of sophistication and expression. As stated earlier, metafiction is fictional writing which self-consciously and systematically draws attention to its status as an artefact (Waugh, 1984, p. 2). Metalepsis creates texts that are metafictive in nature because reader attention is drawn to how texts work and to how meaning is created. Several techniques in Stefinia s book draw reader attention to the fictional nature of the text. A detailed description of Stefinia s book below will develop readers appreciation of the complexity of her work and will assist readers in understanding the discussion of the transgression of ontological boundaries in her book. The Case of Stefinia and Oswald On the final questionnaire, 12-year-old Stefinia wrote the following comments about herself as a reader: I m a really fast reader when I like the books (I once read all seven Harry Potter books in six days). However, if I don t like the book I have to struggle through it a bit. I read a lot, mainly sports and adventure, and I can read anytime, it s easy to block out other noises.

13 Pantaleo 51 When asked to describe herself as a writer, she wrote, I write pretty fast, so many ideas just pop into my head. I know teachers say you should, but I never EVER draw a web or make a plan before I write. I just put my pencil to the paper and go. Computers are ok for writing but it s so easy to forget to save and lose it all. Sometimes I discuss my stories with other people but that feels like cheating, so I usually keep quiet and show it to people when I m done. Stefinia s book, The Amazing Story of Oswald, is graphic novel like in nature. However, because the focus of this article is on metalepsis, very little description below is devoted to the compositional features and conventions of Stefinia s graphica text (Thompson, 2008). The Amazing Story of Oswald Nearly all of the artwork in The Amazing Story of Oswald was created with a black lead pencil, and color was used sparingly throughout the book. Oswald s eyes are blue, the Archie characters Stefinia extracted from comic books and the collage-like forest scene have color, and as described below, an outburst by Oswald on one page is intensified by the use of red. The images on the end pages are large versions of Oswald s eyes, expressing a range of emotions. The book has a copyright page, a dedication page and a half-title page. Oswald is a little bird with attitude. His cynicism is communicated on the cover by the expression on his face and by his comment about the title of the book: What a LAME title! What happened to my suggestion of Rusty the Biker Bird? On the cover, the end of a blue pencil crayon ( Blue/Bleu is written on the tool) is depicted as coloring the background of the forest. Three rectangular panels on the left-hand side of the first page of the story show the author-illustrator drawing Oswald with her pencil. In the first panel, Oswald has only a head, in the second panel, he has a head and most of a torso, and in the final small panel, the pencil is finishing Oswald. In a larger rectangular panel on this page, Oswald looks directly at readers, and then in two other similar sized panels, Oswald glances first to his right and then to his left. Pages 2 and 3 feature a full-page version of Oswald; on page 2, he appears a bit surprised about his situation, and on page 3, Oswald smiles, somewhat self-consciously, and waves his right wing at readers. At the top of page 4, a pencil that has written, Once upon a time there was a little bird named is posed ready to complete the sentence. An astonished Oswald, situated below the cursive text, flaps his wings and comments in a speech balloon, HUH? Who said that? Four small, rectangular panels on the left-hand side of the top of page 5 show Oswald suggesting possible monikers. In the second panel, he proposes Rusty the Biker Bird, and in the third panel, he recommends, Flappy Chan, Kung Fu Expert. In the fourth panel,

14 52 Journal of Literacy Research 43(1) complete with sunglasses and gun in wing, he states, The name s Bird... James Bird. Juxtaposed to the four rectangular panels is a larger panel that shows the pencil completing the writing of the word Oswald in large cursive script above the bird s head. Using his wing, Oswald lowers his sunglasses and states, HUH? The bottom half of page 5 shows a stormy-looking Oswald with three words above his head, YOU... CALLED... ME... and a page turn reveals the degree of Oswald s disapproval. Most of the red page is consumed by the black outline of Oswald s head. Inside a white speech balloon, the word Oswald is written in black capitals and underlined, and a white question mark appears outside of the speech balloon. Oswald s eye color is red, his black eyelids are furrowed, and red lines emanate from the red irises to the edges of his eyes. Four images of Oswald show him walking across the top of page 7, objecting further about his name as time passes. The pencil reappears on the right-hand side of page 7, above Oswald s head, and begins writing more text. The following sentence is depicted under the row of images of the complaining Oswald: One day Oswald was frolicking in the luxurious forest where young animals of Happyland often played. The bottom two thirds of the page is filled with a displeased Oswald. With wings on hips, he looks directly at readers and comments, Hey... I don t frolic. And where s the luxurious forest, huh? I don t see any. A page turns reveals a colorful, collage-like, luxurious forest. A blue pencil crayon is coloring the sky at the top of the page, and a small Oswald at the bottom of the page looks somewhat contrite but still skeptical. On the subsequent page, the luxurious forest is finished, and in the top right-hand corner, the pencil is just completing another sentence of the story. In a cloud the pencil has written, As Oswald played he made a startling discovery! However, Oswald is unimpressed with the events of his story, and in the bottom right-hand corner of the page, he states, Hmph. This is boring. I m OUTTA HERE! Page 10 is organized into two equal parts divided by a vertical black line. The lefthand side of the page is the luxurious forest of Oswald s story. Oswald exits the forest of his story through a door and enters an empty white space on the right-hand side of the page. A sign at the top of this half of the page says, END OF PAGE. The end-ofpage space is essentially a long hallway with doors leading to other stories (Harry Potter, Twilight, Three Little Pigs, and Series of Unfortunate Events), and with signs conveying to him that he is trespassing and not welcome in this space ( Why are you here? You re not suppose [sic] to be here! Go BACK! Get back to your story! Your story needs you! STOP! And get back to your story! ). In his haste to leave his own story, Oswald fails to immediately notice the author s new sentence, Oswald found a treasure chest! In two panels superimposed on the end-of-page background at the top of page 11, Oswald comprehends the significance of the sentence. He has dollar symbols for eyes, and his speech balloon contains the word TREASURE? with three more dollar symbols. On the bottom two thirds of the page, Oswald walks to the door where he exited the luxurious forest. A sign on the door says, That s right! Back to your story. However, the door slams on page 12 before Oswald can return to his story. On page 13, three panels, superimposed on the end-of-page background and placed diagonally

15 Pantaleo 53 from the top left-hand corner to the bottom right-hand corner, depict Oswald attempting to open the door of his story. However, his efforts are futile and on page 14, after thinking about his predicament in a few panels, he decides to enter one of the stories in the end-of-page hallways to get some assistance. The last panel on page 14 shows Oswald opening the door of Archie Comics. On page 15, when Oswald enters the world of Archie Comics, he quickly discovers that he is unable to converse with the characters because he can only chirp in their story world. Although the Archie characters think Oswald is cute, they cannot assist him because of the language barrier. Furthermore, they are involved in their own melodramatic, gender-related issues, so Oswald exits the Archie Comics on page 19 and returns to the end-of-page hallways. On page 20, as Oswald walks by the doors of other stories, he decides to enter Harry Potter because Harry Potter can fix ANYTHING! With a look of satisfaction, Oswald opens the door to Harry Potter, and on the subsequent page, Oswald appears in the bottom left-hand corner, amazed by the castle at Hogwarts. He comments, Wow! The movies never did this place justice! In a long rectangular panel at the top of page 22, Ron makes some disparaging comments about Oswald s appearance, and although Oswald attempts a rebuttal, Hermione, Ron, and Harry hear only CHEEP! Oswald is exasperated by his inability to communicate with the trio, and on page 23, he exclaims, Listen up, you magic freaks! Why can t you understand me? Just do some magic and send me home! Come ON! Hermione casts a spell on Oswald, enabling him to talk, and after several pages of arguing among Oswald and the Hogwarts trio, and among the trio themselves, Hermione finally listens to Oswald s story. She recognizes the title The Amazing Story of Oswald and remembers that the book is in the Muggle section of the library. On page 27, Hermione uses more magic to retrieve the book from the library, and on page 28, a series of variously sized, rectangular panels show Oswald standing on top of the cover of his book, locating the blank pages where he walked out of the story, and asking Hermione to return him to his story. Hermione, Ron, and Harry determine the correct spell, and on page 29, Oswald is magically returned to his book. The last image on page 29 shows Oswald s book being held open by someone and Oswald exclaiming in a speech balloon, I M HOME! Analysis of Stefinia s Book In The Amazing Story of Oswald, narrative boundaries are breached through several techniques, including the following: an intrusive character who comments on his own story and who directly addresses his author and readers, textual and visual interruptions of multiple diegetic levels, simultaneous story time and narrating time, shifting language registers, reader observation of the compositional process, and mise-en-abyme ( a miniature replica of a text embedded within that text ; Prince, 2003, p. 53). Oswald is responsible for many metaleptic transgressions in the book. He disrupts the conventional hierarchy of relations among author, narrator, and character (McCallum, 2004, p. 592) by directly addressing the author and readers and overtly commenting on both the visual and verbal text in the book in which he appears. Oswald is a fictional

16 54 Journal of Literacy Research 43(1) character presented as being capable of conceiving of the real-world author (McHale, 1987, p. 35). Oswald s disapproval of the title violates the book s ontological hierarchy of levels (McHale, 1987, p. 121) because his criticism on the cover reveals that as a character, he is aware of his own fictionality. His comment on the half-title page, That s me! provides further evidence of his knowledge of himself as a character. During her interview about her work, Stefinia explained the significance of Oswald s comment on the book s cover: He sort of, I don t know it just sort of really makes you more aware that he knows this is a story with a title, and he knows that people are going to be reading it. Thus, it seems that Oswald s objection to the title is addressed to both the author and readers. As mentioned above, metaleptic disruptions are created when Oswald openly addresses the author and readers, interrupting the primary diegesis. As well as visually acknowledging readers through numerous demand images (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006), Oswald engages in several direct gestures (e.g., waving) that seem to ask readers to empathize with him, forming a pseudo-social bond (p. 118). When Oswald reads the moniker Oswald, he looks intently at readers and this demand image further develops readers relationship with the little bird. The visual and verbal addressing by Oswald transgresses diegetic levels, drawing reader attention to the fictional nature of the book. Furthermore, Oswald s intrusive behaviors undermine readers securely detached position (Rubik, 2005, p. 172) and implicate them in the storytelling world. Although Oswald comments on his own story on a few occasions throughout the book, the author does not seem to hear her main character, as she does not visibly intrude on her own narrative. Oswald expresses disapproval of the book s title, his name, and the use of vocabulary to describe his behavior ( Hey... I don t frolic. ). As Stefinia explained during her interview, Oswald doesn t like how she s [the author] talking. He doesn t like how she is wording things. He is skeptical about the luxurious forest and exits his story because it is boring. Oswald is the protagonist and the reader of his story at the same time, and the narrating time of scenes coincide with their narrated time (Nöth, 2007, p. 180). Indeed, story time and narrating time become the same, as it seems that Oswald freezes the actions on the story level in order to gain time for his discourse (Fludernik, 2003, p. 387). Readers observe how Oswald s comments about his book result in disruptions of narrative time-and-space relationships. As well as engaging in metaleptic disruptions by commenting on his own narratives, Oswald transgresses ontological boundaries by participating in other diegetics. Not surprisingly, Oswald also expresses his opinions about these other fictional worlds. In the Archie Comics world, he makes observations about the characters ( Wow! So that dude really does have checkers on the side of his head. ) and their actions ( This is so over dramatic [sic]. I m outta here. ). Oswald seems to know quite a bit about the world of Harry Potter; he comments on Hogwarts castle ( Wow! The movies never did this place justice! ) and the relationship of Hermione and Ron ( Protecting your girlfriend, Weasley? I knew you had the hots for her since Book 2. But don t worry... you two get married in the end. ).