On Using Graphic Novels

As I read Cromer and Clark, I realized that I know very little about graphic novels, comic books, and what differentiates the two. This is probably a failing on my part. I think it is important to be “in the loop” about what students are looking at (my excuse for my recent reading of the Twilight series and new-found love for Edward Cullen). If you know what they like, what they are talking about, and what gets their attention, and I certainly think using a graphic novel would, I’m all for it. I could not believe the whining I got in my 12^th grade government class about reading. It was unbelievable, and my telling them that college professors often demand chapters or even entire books as a reading assignment fell on deaf ears. At first glance, graphic novels almost deceive the reader into thinking they are reading Peanuts or Garfield. Thanks to their intertextuality, students have to pay as much attention to the words (which at least 12^th graders at Mt. Vernon seem to despise) with images. Teachers can also benefit from the reverse psychology vis-à-vis the “cultural legitimacy” question of graphic novels. Cromer and Clark note research which says graphic novels are usually perceived as having “seedy” quality to them. If you bring something perceived as violent or seedy or just generally non-mainstream, you’ll likely have their attention, or it will at least liven up the routine. I admit that I also have this “seedy” perception of graphic novels, basically because the only graphic novels I know of, Sin City and 300, are both really violent and sexual. I was glad to see graphic novels referenced that weren’t made into a gory Bruce Willis film. The “In the Shadow of No Towers” graphic novel, referenced several times, piqued my interest. It sounds like a really interesting resource to approach a difficult, traumatic event and involves Bruce Willis not at all.

I was struck by the following quote on page 587: “Traditional Western historiography has generally privileged a single narrative (progress) and a single medium of pedagogic delivery (text). These a priori judgments of the relationship between facts and events have suffered the ill winds of postmodern critique.”

By substituting “GW” for “postmodern critique”, I think I have a pretty good summary of my experience with GW’s Graduate School of Education and Human Development. Textbooks have sufficiently been demonized and teachers who rely on them backward. I feel like this is a little unfair, as believe it or not, textbooks can provide good information and some students do learn very well from reading text. I was student teaching a subject I knew nothing about, and I had to rely on my textbook heavily to provide some context (a politically correct way of saying it taught me whatever I needed to know before I had to teach it to a room full of students). If I didn’t have it, I would have been lost. I think it is important to vary the routine and think outside the box, to bring in resources not traditionally used, such as graphic novels. But, when it comes to textbooks, I sometimes think we are throwing the out the baby with the bathwater. Hopefully, textbooks are written by intelligent people who are versed in what they are writing about. Hopefully. In my humble opinion, which is usually outside the GW box, I think that’s one baby worth saving.