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Examining Studio Ghibli’s Animated Films: A Study of Students’ Viewing Paths and Creative Projects
Author(s) -
Williams Wendy R.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
journal of adolescent and adult literacy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.73
H-Index - 49
eISSN - 1936-2706
pISSN - 1081-3004
DOI - 10.1002/jaal.1043
Subject(s) - narrative , studio , coursework , animation , visual arts , reading (process) , multimodality , variety (cybernetics) , pedagogy , multimedia , sociology , psychology , computer science , art , linguistics , world wide web , literature , philosophy , artificial intelligence
Being literate in today’s world involves more than reading and writing traditional works in print. Students need experiences with a range of multimodal narratives, including animation. Multimodal narratives offer many entry points for engagement, and design plays an important role as readers/viewers navigate their way through these works and make meaning. This qualitative study took place in the U.S. Southwest and involved 20 university students enrolled in a Studio Ghibli Films course. Analysis of coursework using grounded theory and open coding revealed that participants designed nine viewing paths to interpret the films, approaching animated works as narratives, multimodal compositions, cultural/historical artifacts, transformed source materials, products of a director, objects of value, conversations between texts, commentaries, and personal experiences. Participants also composed a wide variety of creative projects that drew on their out‐of‐school interests. Animated works, such as the films of Studio Ghibli, have great potential in education.