Abstract of

Exploring the Intergenerational Dialogue Journal Discussion of a Multicultural Young Adult Novel

Thomas W. Bean

Nicole Rigoni

This study explored the reader response patterns and intergenerational dialogue produced by five pairs of students reading and reacting to a young adult multicultural novel. The novel dealt with the ethical dilemmas faced by a young Hispanic character in a Fresno, California, barrio. Participants in this study were five high school social studies students and five university students enrolled in a required content area literacy class in an urban southwestern community. A qualitative multiple case study design was used to collect and code descriptive data. Data included weekly dialogue journals, instructor reflections, and participant interviews. Content analyses and coding of the paired dialogue journal exchanges revealed that the high school participants viewed the novel as a means of helping them make sense of their own lives and the lives of those around them through written dialogue with an adult dialogue journal partner. Dialogue journal partners caused each other to reconsider interpretations that, in isolation, would have been maintained, even if they were conceptually limiting. The study focuses on a consideration of two representative cases and implications for future research. This study has important implications for the use of multicultural young adult literature in the social studies content area. Participants offered multiple perspectives, maintained mutual respect for each other's interpretations, and revealed the potential for intergenerational dialogue journal exchanges in the social studies classroom.

Abstract from Bean, T.W., & Rigoni, N. (2001). Exploring the Intergenerational Dialogue Journal Discussion of a Multicultural Young Adult Novel. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(3), 232–248. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.36.3.1