The Boat, based on the story by Nam Le, illustrated by Vietnamese-Australian artist Matt Huynh and produced by SBS, is a digital graphic novel with interactive elements. It tells the story of 16 year old Vietnamese refugee Mai, her journey in a boat to get to Australia, and her encounters with a fellow refugee and her son. It is a compelling and relevant piece to share with students, particularly with the current climate and refugee crises across the world. The story itself is beautifully constructed, and the written text combined with the interactive elements makes this a fantastic resource to be used across multiple subject areas in the high school setting.
The digital graphic novel is “one of the fastest-growing multimodal formats that today’s visually literate youth” are engaging with (Moorefield-Lang & Gavigan, 2012). Viewing the story in this format is a perfect example of why. The sound effects of the storm, the busy city, the crash of the boat as it hits something – all are very effective at providing a multi-sensory experience for the reader. Add to this the language and music of the Vietnamese culture in the background during certain chapters, as well as visual effects such as the text rolling from side to side to mimic the movements of a boat, and what is presented is a completely immersive experience for the reader. The term “trans-sensory storytelling”, coined by Cowdy (2018), is one which describes engagement with touch and sound combined with visuals. Cowdy argues that this format actually enhances the opportunity for readers to develop empathy rather than the theory that digital literature diminishes it. The Boat is a perfect example of a text where students can easily empathise with characters by feeling like they are in the story themselves.
Like the previous two reviewed texts, this is free to access for anyone with a computer. For teachers and students in disadvantaged schools, free accessibility is paramount to engaging with digital literature, particularly if a text is to be studied in the classroom setting. Intelligently designed, students can scroll through the story at their own pace or turn on the automatic scroll function if manual scrolling is distracting, and skip backwards and forwards to different chapters, much like the pages of a book. This could help contribute to the “mapping of the book” that Jabr (2013) discusses in his article “The reading brain in the digital age”; however, as readers can’t literally turn a page or see the text in its entirety, it may affect how they comprehend what they are reading (Jabr, 2013) , which may negatively impact some learning abilities.
Further control over the text has readers being able choose to turn the sound off, or place it in “full screen” mode to limit distractions. This power over how they choose to watch/read the narrative is very appealing, particularly for classes with varying levels of ability and engagement. One critique is that it would have been beneficial if the narrative had a read-aloud function available to further enhance its usability for differentiation purposes.
For teachers, teaching resources, both creative and analytical, are available through the SBS website to support student learning of the text. Supporting material suggests the resource is designed for the English/Arts curriculum; however, this could easily be used in the Humanities and even Digital Tech subject areas, or cross-curricular work. Videos of real footage of refugees at the end of the book prompts students to connect the story with real people, and the rich descriptive language and vocabulary means there is enough literary scope to analyse language and story structure itself, making it a truly great classroom resource.
Digital fiction can be seen as ‘unruly’ in that it doesn’t conform to the conventions of traditional texts; yet they can be considered literature if they “tell a story, use literary devices and intertextual references” and if readers “make meaning from this interaction” (Allan, 2017, p. 22). If this is the definition of acceptable digital literature, then The Boat is most definitely literature. Use of this source in the classroom will allow students to engage in a world mostly unfamiliar from their own and to live in the experience of others, to interpret and analyse as well as create meaning.
Some learning theorists believe that digital storytelling can be applied to any subject as a pedagogical technique (EDUCASE Learning Initiative, 2007). The Boat is a digital text which forms a bridge of sorts for teaching and learning – one which takes the traditional narrative and presents it in an interesting and interactive multi-modal form, yet at the same time is not so foreign that those holding onto traditions of reading actual books cannot see its value and utilise its storytelling power in the classroom.
REFERENCE LIST:
Allan, C. (2017). Digital fiction: ‘Unruly object’ or literary artefact? English in Australia, 52(2), 21-27. https://search-informit-org.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/doi/10.3316/INFORMIT.904312437834156
Cowdy, C. (2018). Grammars of new media: Interactive trans-sensory storytelling and empathic reading praxis in Jessica Anthony and Rodrigo Corral’s Chopsticks. Bookbird: A Journal of International Children’s Literature, 56(1), 20-27. https://doi.org/10.1353/bkb.2018.0003
EDUCAUSE Learning Initiative. (2007). 7 things you should know about… digital storytelling. Educase. http://www.makerspaceforeducation.com/uploads/4/1/6/4/41640463/digital_storytelling_1.pdf
Jabr, F. (2013, April 11). The reading brain in the digital age: The science of paper versus screens. Scientific American. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/reading-paper-screens/
Moorefield-Lang, H., & Gavigan, K. (2012). These aren’t your father’s funny papers: The new world of digital graphic novels. Knowledge Quest, 40(3), 30-35. http://search.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lih&AN=82563984&site=ehost-live
