Multimodal Young Adult Fiction and Reading Motivation

Abstract

This thesis investigates two young-adult novels, Sherman Alexie’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian (2007) and Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time (2003), in light of how they can enhance reading motivation among young male readers in lower secondary school. By looking at previous studies on boys’ reading habits and their reading preferences, this thesis demonstrates how Alexie and Haddon’s novels can encourage reading motivation with focus on multimodality, the protagonist’s gender, humor, and genre. Furthermore, this thesis also discusses the novels’ relevance in connection to the interdisciplinary topics health and life skills and democracy and citizenship from the Norwegian LK20 curriculum for the English subject.