Using the Graphic Narrative to Stimulate Mezirow’s Transformative Learning Theory in Learners

Abstract

This article describes a bounded action research case study that examines how reading and discussing a graphic narrative (March Book Two, a comic autobiography of John Lewis’s life as a civil rights activist) enabled transformations in a group of seven adult student participants at a Canadian postsecondary institution. Data primarily gathered from photocopies of student work, including reflective journal entries, postsemester interviews, and the primary researcher’s daily reflexive and reflective research journal entries, were evaluated with Kitchenham and Chasteauneuf’s framework of assessing transformative learning with critical reflection types such as objective and subjective reframing of assumptions. The authors found that both the participants and the primary researcher engaged in a number of shifts, including engaging in systemic critical self-reflection of and on assumptions.