• Advantages of using comics in the classroom
• Current classroom perspectives
• Comics as Institutional aids
The advent of the modern graphic novel gave a new impetus and sense of legitimacy to the use of comics and graphic novels in education (especially after Art Spiegelman's Maus, a graphic novel about the Holocaust, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992), and this newfound acceptance caused more teachers to use comics in the classroom, and even more importantly, it encouraged them to talk about their experiments with the genre in the classroom. According to Yang (2003a) this change in attitude is concurrent with the rise of the graphic novel as a literary form:
The tension of education's uneasy new relationship with comics was somewhat eased in 1992 when Art Spiegelman's Maus became the first comic book to win a Pulitzer Prize (Sturm, 2001). Maus, Spiegelman's biography of his father's Holocaust experience, was the most public example of a decades-long movement within the comics community towards artistically mature, literate work. A flurry of articles appeared in news publications across the nation proclaiming that comics had finally "grown up".
In the present-day educational scene, comics and graphic novels are being increasingly considered to be legitimate classroom materials and are used as tools in the classroom. The Internet has helped dissipate ideas about using comics in the classroom through teachers' forums and educational websites, so much so that many teachers consider the use of graphic novels in school curricula as essential. Thus, research on graphic novels is now accepted as not only worthwhile, but also necessary. The principal reasons that make graphic novels appealing for teaching purposes are:
(i) Although identified primarily as a literary genre, the use of the graphic novel in the classroom has not been confined to just the study of language and literature. The motivational benefits of using the sequential pictorial narrative in the classroom are well-documented.
(ii) They can be used across disciplines. Fields such as mathematics or even biology are considered well within the range of teaching and learning possible through comic books, as evidenced by the number of webcomics available that try to deal with these subjects. Yang (2003b) supports this:
Comics can also scaffold to disciplines and concepts outside of the language arts. For example, Jay Hosler's Sandwalk Adventures, a comic book starring Charles Darwin and a talking follicle mite, introduces readers to evolutionary biology… The syllabi of many history courses already include the aforementioned Maus…. Beyond specific works, the very act of creating comics is an interdisciplinary activity. In addition to reading and writing, comics-based projects can develop drawing, computer, and research skills. Many of the skills used in comics creation can be applied to film-making, illustration, and even Web design.
(iii) Also, Scott McCloud elaborates on the advantages of using comics in the classroom in Understanding Comics (1993):
In learning to read comics we all learned to perceive time spatially, for in the world of comics, time and space are one and the same (p. 100). Time within a comic book progresses only as quickly as the reader moves her eyes across the page. The pace at which information is transmitted is completely determined by the reader. In educational settings, this "visual permanence" firmly places control over the pace of education in the hands (and the eyes) of the student.
Hence, the advantages that comics bring to the classroom, as well as recognition of the multidisciplinary possibilities that they offer, have led more and more teachers to see them as a valid teaching tool, not just for literature or language study, but for the study of practically any subject that needs to be taught.
Current classroom perspectives
An increasing number of educators are in fact beginning to realize the value that the graphic novel brings to a classroom, irrespective of the field of study. Traci Gardner, an educator and writer who works on K-college curriculum and pedagogical materials, and a contributing editor to the NCTE INBOX blog, observes:
Graphic novels and comic books provide rich opportunities to explore multimodal literacy. They're anything but simple. The sophisticated relationships among images and words and layout encourage deep thinking and critical analysis. If we can help students "get" graphic novels, we will simultaneously teach them the literacy strategies they need for navigating many of the other multimodal texts they encounter in their daily lives. (Gardner, 2007)
In short, the graphic novel is not just about the written word, but also about images and the various ways in which images interact with words, and how both in turn affect the mind of the learner, causing them to think about their learning. This idea supported by Versaci (2001) who says:
Aside from engagement, comic books also help to develop much needed analytical and critical thinking skills. A common goal, regardless of the level we teach, is to help students read beyond the page in order to ask and answer deeper questions that the given work suggests about art, life, and the intersection of the two. Comic books facilitate this analysis in a way unlike more "traditional" forms of literature because in addition to making use of standard literary devices such as point of view, narrative, characterization, conflict, setting, tone, and theme, they also operate with a very complex poetics that blends the visual and the textual… By combining words and pictures, comic books force students, rather directly, to reconcile these two means of expression. Important and analytical questions that I pose to my students are "How would you describe the style of these pictures?" "How does this drawing style interact with the story?" "Why these particular pictures?" "How would a different style change the story?" The answers to these questions are not obvious, and by answering them, students begin to see themselves as analytical critics working to assemble and uncover the deeper meaning of a work.
Graphic novels thus cultivate 'thinking readers', and by extension, 'thinking writers'. Teachers have begun to understand the benefits of the genre for reading and writing. Rachael Sawyer Perkins, a teacher at Dolores Street Elementary School in Carson, California, says about this medium (NCTE, 2005):
For students who lack the ability to visualize as they read, it provides a graphic sense that approximates what good readers do as they read. Moreover, it provides an excellent way for reluctant writers to communicate a story that has a beginning, middle, and end. I think comics and graphic novels are an excellent vehicle for teaching writing, as a story has to be pared down to its most basic elements. It is easy for the students to look at a short comic strip and identify story elements.
These opinions from theorists as well as classroom practitioners testify to the growing acceptance of the graphic novel as an instructional medium. In the area of language teaching, while pictorial narratives were earlier thought of only as good reading material, today teachers realize that their scope is much wider and they are a tool to aid not just reading but also writing. While the use of comics for the teaching of reading skills (or language in general) has been one of the medium's most intuitive and obvious uses, there is ample evidence to suggest that they might also be useful for the teaching of other subjects as well. In India as well, comic magazines like Amar Chitra Katha and Tinkle were established primarily from an educational perspective. Anant Pai, the editor of the Amar Chitra Katha series, narrates how the idea for the series was born (Singh, 2009):
In June 1967, I was in Delhi, watching a TV quiz on Doordarshan. I was saddened by the fact that none of the participants knew what was the name of Lord Ram's mother. But, they all knew who the Greek god of Mount Olympus was!
Thus, when the home-grown Indian comic magazine did make an appearance, it was as an educational and instructional medium, and was seen to be serving the interests of children. Another more recent example is that of Scholastic Corporation, a book publishing company dealing mostly in educational materials, which has developed learning materials and activities based on Jeff Smith's comic series Bone (in fact, Scholastic publishes color editions of Bone and uses them for education as well). Thus, comics are rapidly becoming the new 'go-to' instructional aid in modern classrooms, and as such, there is great scope in exploring this medium and designing it (or activities around it) to make it ever more appropriate for the classroom.
