Panel from Understanding Comics
If it’s true that graphic novels are subversive, it’s probably why I love them so much. Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics makes a very convincing argument that graphic novels are indeed a high form of art. My absolute favorite is The Invisibles, but there’s too much drugs and sex to make it usable in a normal classroom setting. Still, I hope will read the series anyway.
Anyhow, I came across the following article that argues for graphic novels in the classroom. I wholeheartedly agree!
Reading Online - New Literacies::
Educators need not worry that graphic novels discourage text reading. Lavin (1998) even suggested that reading graphic novels may require more complex cognitive skills than the reading of text alone. Some English teachers use graphic novels to teach literary terms and techniques such as dialogue, and they use works like the Victorian murder novel The Mystery of Mary Rogers (Geary, 2001) as a bridge to other classics of that period. Graphic novels can also inspire writing assignments. For example, the human interest story Jack Cole and the Plastic Man (Spiegelman & Kidd, 2001) intersperses an essay on the short, tragic life of comic artist Jack Cole with examples of his artwork, photographs, and even reproductions of a Christmas card Cole sent. The collage that results captures biography in a new way. For a challenging classroom project, students could create graphic novels based on literary works or their own autobiographies.
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