Graphic Novels And Critical Literacy

By Author: Amandda
Total Articles: 59
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Although the term graphic novel itself is disputed (e.g., Hatfield, 2005; Wolk, 2007), here I adopt Gorman's (2003) definition of a graphic novel, which is "an original book-length story, either fiction or nonfiction, published in comic book style...or a collection of stories that have been published previously as individual comic books" (p. xii). I am concerned here with original book-length stories in graphic novels, allowing creators interested in mature themes to present longer complex narratives, which is not possible with the much shorter format of the comic book (Brown, 2004, as cited in Gravett, 2005). Although Gorman suggested that graphic novels "can be considered a reading intermediary from the computer or television screen to Thomas Sabo Jewelry the printed page" (p. 9), I prefer to see them as part of a literacy continuum of multimodal resources with which students need to be conversant in today's world.

In the past 25 years or so, the graphic novel medium has been coming into its own (Gravett, 2005). This medium has to be considered as "not the visual equivalent ...
... of prose narrative or a static version of a film," but rather "their own thing: a medium with its own devices, its own innovators" (Wolk, 2007, p. 14). As such, as both narrative and cultural production, the medium of the graphic novel warrants our careful attention and critical analysis (Witek, 1989). Indeed, when the graphic novel Maus was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1992, the medium was legitimized and validated in ways that were heretofore unimaginable.

Using graphic novels in the classroom contextualizes the featured language in ways that aid ELL students in learning how to use the language, or at least parts of it, correctly (Hornberger & Skilton-Sylvester, 2000). As Krashen (1989) pointed out, the visual narrative that accompanies the text in comic books "can provide clues that shed light on the meaning of an unfamiliar word or grammatical structure" (p. 402). Several graphic novels with substantive content are accessible to even high-intermediate ELL students-- such as Alia's Mission--and thus can enable them to engage in critical discussions in ways that are not always possible with only written texts, due to their scaffolding of textual meanings through their rich visual modes of representation. ELL students often face formidable barriers in a written text Thomas Sabo Bracelets without any accompanying visual context. In the context of teaching comic books, researcher Patricia Duff observed that "students noted that the colorful pictures, contextualized vocabulary and interesting content provided a compelling hook into reading" (cited in Norton & Vanderheyden, 2004, p. 217).

In addition, certain graphic novels can be a helpful resource for teachers who are always looking to find additional reading material that is both comprehensible and appealing for older learners (Cho, Choi, & Krashen, 2005). And rather than seeing graphic novels as a conduit to more serious reading (Cho et al., 2005), students who read Maus and other substantive graphic novels are engaged in serious reading. Thus, the teaching of critical literacy can take place while students develop literacy skills through then engagement with these texts so that they will be better equipped to deal with more traditional texts.