“This phenomenon has important implications for students’ engagement with reading graphic novels with complex themes because reader ‘ownership over meaning making is clearly one of the appealing facets of comic book reading” – Chun, 2009

I found this to be one of many important points Chun makes in his argument for graphic novels as a useful tool in literacy skills for English language learners.  The phenomenon referred to is the idea that graphic novels such as Maus are valuable, especially in an ESL classroom, because they allow the reader to make connections to events that would otherwise be hard to understand without some kind of visual or other representation. I agree with this point because I’ve noticed that readers, not just ESL students, are much more successful in reading comprehension when they are able to connect to the text in some way. Maus proves to be a useful teaching tool because the visual portrayal of Jewish characters as mice help the student to make the connection of the role of Nazis during the Holocaust.  The stylized wording that is used in the graphic novel also allows readers to make connections to different language patterns.

I agree with the use of multiliteracy approach because overall I it enforces the idea that students learn in varied ways and need some kind of context to make a connection and comprehend.  This is in with the techniques I’ve learned for scaffolding for ELLs that have  students draw pictures or create different body movements to  help students remember different vocabulary words, with the idea being that if the student can make a personal connection to the text it can help them have ownership to their own learning.