Graphic Novels and Comics in the Classroom

I am highly interested in the topics of graphic novels and comics in the classroom because I believe that any form of literature that can be used to make our students want to read and be engaged is one worth looking into. I honestly did not know what to expect when I opened up my copy of American Born Chinese because I have never had an experience with a graphic novel previous to this one (and "The Conventions of Comics" article was very helpful by telling me what makes a comic or graphic novel "tick"). I was very intrigued throughout my reading and was able to complete my reading in less than an hour. The simplicity of the style of this graphic novel, in particular, makes a good arguement for implementing other graphic novels in the classroom. I think that they can be used as excellent motivators, as they take the students, no matter what their reading level is, away from what is commonly perceived as being "appropriate" literature and gives them something "fresh" to work with.

While reading chapter five of Wilhelm's "You Gotta BE the Book," I thought about how the arts and an artistic way of thinking is not being cultivated in classrooms around the country. Using artistic and visual ways to motivate students has been overlooked in regards to learning only what is necessary to get the grade or score high enough on the exam. Wilhelm writes, on page 158, "visual imaging encourages students to access and apply their prior knowledge as they read, increases comprehension, and improves the ability to predict, infer, and remember what has ben read." If those are the benefits of allowing artistic thought and ability in the classroom, that doesn't sound too bad to me! Wilhelm also states, "art, unlike traditional forms of response, is not perceived by students to be 'correct' or 'incorrect'" (181). To me, this means that when engaging in art-based activities students are less likely to be judged based upon their opinion then they would if the activity wasn't art-based. Providing a (somewhat) even ground for student discussions by inviting the arts into a classroom is something that I definitely would love to try in my classroom. In addition to Wilhelm, Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher brought up some interesting benefits to using graphic novels in the classroom through their article. Frey and Fisher write, "Using graphic novels to scaffold writing instruction helped students practice the craft of writing and gain necessary skills to become competent readers" (23). I enjoyed reading the students' writing and hearing how their average sentence length grew over the period of time that they studied graphic novels. I also enjoyed how Frey and Fisher kept track of their students' progress over time and created lessons to deal with the problems that they found their students struggled with most. This engaged teaching style that was showcased in this article was very refreshing. Unfortunately, there are teachers who keep on teaching the same way lesson after lesson and year after year, even if they don't get the results they want. I believe that there is a value to teaching with graphic novels and comics in the classroom and I cannot wait to implement them in my own classroom.