Learn more about MG’s research below and view her CV here.
MG studies children’s literacy and literature. Her research focuses on how children become immersed, or absorbed, in books, and the implications of that experience for K-12 education. In particular, she is interested in how story world absorption interfaces with reading engagement – a known predictor of reading achievement – and whether absorption might offer a new approach to improving children’s reading comprehension and narrowing reading achievement gaps.
Story World Absorption
This line of MG’s research aims to understand more about story world absorption, or the feeling of being lost, or “hooked,” in a book: the textual features (genre, descriptive language, characterization) that absorb child readers; the cognitive benefits, such as attention and social-emotional development, that accompany absorptive reading; and how absorption interfaces with reading enjoyment and engagement.
In a related line of research, MG uses philosophical and literary theory to re-conceptualize ELA pedagogy, arguing that what makes literature valuable is not only its presentation of information, or knowledge, but also the way it advances understanding. By distinguishing between knowledge and understanding, MG intends to promote ELA pedagogy that heightens reading engagement and broadens students’ epistemic range.