Graphic+Novels+Why+are+they+being+used?

**Graphic Novels: Why are they being used?**


 * Engage struggling and reluctant readers-images provide added contextual clues
 * Also work well with English language learners
 * Provide students with complex themes and literary elements (narrative structures, metaphor, symbolism, point of view, inference, intertextuality, etc...) in a shortened format
 * Attract and motivate students because they differ from the traditional academic formats
 * Build students' critical skills in order to move on to even more challenging works (including the classics- western canon)
 * Graphic novels can enhance comprehension and literacy in all other subject areas (history, science, language arts) as well because they promote visual literacy (this is important when reading textbooks that combine images and texts-it helps students develop skill in making inferences and reading the text and image together.)

In our class discussions we've talked at length about using graphic novels (and many of the other genres and formats) for struggling and reluctant readers. Why, exactly, are they so good and what is it about them that make them a legitimate format for classroom use?

You can't just throw a graphic novel at a class and have it instantly work and engage all the students. Even if it is a quality piece of alternative literature it cannot be used as an easy fix. Graphic novels can enhance and bring about multiple literacies in students and can create a level playing field where everyone is reading the graphic novel. One student is not singled out reading an "easy" text while the others read a more traditional text. Additionally, graphic novels have the ability to connect with a larger and more diverse group of students and allow for the inclusivity of foreign students. However, teachers need to actively promote the instruction of graphic novels.

**Graphic Novels Encourage the Development of Multiple Literacies**

//“In the process of increasing awareness and understanding of literacy learning and teaching during the teenage years, an appreciation has developed for the significance of the wide range of “texts” adolescent literacy practices encompass, including websites, text messages, and blogs, in addition to trade books and school texts” (Anderson, Wilson, & Fielding, 1998; Moore et al., 1999; Reeves, 2004; Worthy, Moorman, & Turner, 1999). (Melanie D. Koss, 2009)// //“Recent publications cite multimodal literacy instruction, industry/marketing innovation, improving public perception and institutional scrutiny, improving gender and multicultural representation, and a diversification of genre as reasons for inclusion of graphic novels in the classroom (Versaci, 2001; Yang, 2003; Schwarz, 2006; Carter, 2007). (Eckert, 2010)// What does it mean to have multiple literacies?
 * Growth of visual literacy-understanding the part that images play in comprehending a narrative as well as how pictures can support and supplement text.
 * Modern literacy-text in a book or on a newpaper is no longer the only text we see or use. Nowadays there is online text, mobile text, e-readers, etc... and it is becoming necessary for students to be able to be flexible and proficient with the wide variety of text they are encountering.
 * Alternative text literacy-Graphic novels present a distinctive type of text that is unfamiliar to many. It is not set up in the prose style that we are used to and because of this difference it is necessary to alter the way it is read and comprehended. Additionally, the position and sequencing of the text requires the reader to develop a new set of skills and proficiency to read each box in a sequence as well as the boxes altogether in a sequence.

<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">As (Schwarz, 2002) pointed out "In any subject area, studying a graphic novel can bring media literacy into the curriculum as students examine the medium itself. Students can explore such questions as how color affects emotions, how pictures can stereotype people, how angles of viewing affect perception, and how realism or the lack of it plays into the message of a work." By bringing graphic novels into the classroom you can begin the process of introducing students a new and important way of thinking. <span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">During my research i came across one very interesting study that stated “Pilot studies in the early 1990s [designed] to compare the amount of information retained from comic books and standard history books indicated greater retention of information from the comic book as well as more vigorous discussion and debate that expanded concepts of the comic book presentation. (Health &Bhagat, 2005, p. 589) (Eckert, 2010). This is particularly interesting because it shows the impact that text and image can have as well as how vital it is that teachers introduce texts that the students are interested in and familiar with-it could mean the difference between them understanding and caring about the material or not. In the following quote Ekert illustrates this idea of the incorporation of "multi-modal" texts not just to engage the students but also to prepare them with the skill sets they will need to succeed in the remainder of their schooling and in out modern society.//“New literacy studies re-examines the notion of “text”, broadening it to include multimodal texts which can consist of words, images, hyperlinks, and/or video, attempting to “catch up with the staggering changes in media choices that have occurred in the last 25 years and with what they mean for how to define literacy” (Kist, 2005, p.3; emphasis in original). Students encounter and engage with this vast barrage of texts every day both in and out of school; consider the illustrated science textbooks, images included in history textbooks, the deeply embedded and ubiquitous visual landscape of the internet in which one can produce and consume multimodal texts instantaneously, and other media available to adolescents. Yet the “traditional” literacies which emphasize a neutral and universal set of reading and writing skills for decoding and encoding written text still dominate classroom instruction, largely because state and national assessments continue to measure student achievement in traditional ways. Graphic novels can serve as a bridge over the chasm between a multimodal text-rich culture and traditional assessments. They are hard-copy, hold-in-your-hand books, retaining some of the traditional notion of “text,” but their visual and iconic language offers teachers the opportunity to engage students in critically examining how they manipulate and are manipulated by different textual modalities.” (Eckert, 2010)//

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">In the techno-centric and image based world we now live in, it is becoming more and more difficult to engage young adults in reading and in literature. They are constantly being bombarded with images, media, sounds; all manner of things and ideas. Graphic novels can play a unique role because they are very unlike the traditional texts that students have been reading for generations. They, like some of the other “texts” mentioned, incorporate the wide variety of “adolescent literacy”. Graphic novels are current and modern but maintain the very important stories and elements of literature that need to be passed on."An important benefit of graphic novels is that they present alternative views of culture, history, and human life in general in accessible ways, giving voice to minorities and those with diverse viewpoints." This quote from (Schwarz, 2002) shows how graphic novels help to introduce cultural diversity and understanding into the classroom. By diverging from the traditional western canon and incorporating graphic novels classrooms are able to create a more diversified environment. Also, because graphic novels are a more modern phenomenon they are often times more inclusive of “other” cultures and provide a wider representation of many different cultures. This is particularly important in the classrooms that we are seeing today that are made up of many different cultures, languages and learning types and abilities. Graphic novels not only allow for visual literacy to be developed but also for the development of cultural literacy. Students learn to use inferences and come to see and understand other countries and cultures through the images that help them explore and feel comfortable in a format they are familiar with. <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%; text-align: left;">Graphic novels also bring to the forefront a new and very necessary form of literacy that has developed in our modern society; visual literacy. “Valuable thinking and learning also occur in sign systems that are non-linguistic.” (Zoss, 2009, p. 185) This quote shows the importance of implementing texts that are not linguistically based into the curriculum in order to increase the students’ awareness and literacy in interpreting images. “Engaging in critical examination of how the visual elements of a graphic novel interact with text is a complex cognitive exercise that spans content area and grade level. Literacy instruction should include multiple and varied opportunities for students to encounter texts based in language and image, and to think and respond [within a] semiotics-based curriculum that seeks to expand the sign systems available for adolescents to use to perceive, think about, respond to, and compose within schools.”(Zoss, 2009, p.189) (Eckert, 2010) Graphic novels do not simply layer images over text illustrating what that text is saying and require you to do much more than flip back and forth from the text to image. In many of the most respected graphic novels the images add a level of complexity to the storyline that would be impossible to achieve without them. Gunther Kress defines this phenomenon as “synthaesthesia” or “the transduction of meaning from one semiotic mode in meaning to another”. (1998, p.76) This action is performed constantly by our brains and should be fostered and developed in our students. “…the sequential art of a graphic novel multiplies the interpretive challenges and opportunities for analysis and interpretation…and… promote multiple layers of attention and habituate readers to relating such layers to one another.” (Health & Bhagat, 2005, p. 590) (Eckert, 2010) This quote shows the connection that graphic novels have to an advanced form of literacy. Through the study and interpretation of graphic novels students are able to enhance and utilize an action that their brain is already used to doing.