Using Graphic Novels in the English Language Arts Classroom

William Boerman-Cornell, Jung Kim

• Editorial: Bloomsbury Academic
• Año: 2020
• ISBN:
  9781350112711
• Edición: 1
• Categoría: Pedagogía
• Categoría: Enseñanza de idiomas

Shortlisted for the UK Literacy Association's Academic Book Award 2021 There is an increasing trend in teachers using graphic novels to get their students excited about reading and writing, using both original stories and adaptations of classic works by authors such as Homer, Shakespeare, and the Brontes. However, there is surprisingly little research available about which pedagogies and classroom practices are proven to be effective. This book draws on cutting-edge research, surveys and classroom observations to provide a set of effective methods for teaching with graphic novels in the secondary English language arts classroom. These methods can be applied to a broad base of uses ranging from understanding literary criticism, critical reading, multimodal composition, to learning literary devices like foreshadowing and irony. The book begins by looking at what English language arts teachers hope to achieve in the classroom. It then considers the affordances and constraints of using graphic novels to achieve these specific goals, using some of the most successful graphic novels as examples, including Maus; Persepolis; The Nameless City; and American Born Chinese and series such as Manga Shakespeare. Finally, it helps the teacher navigate through the planning process to figure out how to best use graphic novels in their own classroom. Drawing on their extensive teaching experience, the authors offer examples from real classrooms, suggested lesson plans, and a list of teachable graphic novels organized by purpose of teaching.

Chapter One

How to Read Graphic Novels as Literature

When those students in our classes who have never read a graphic novel before first encounter one, many of them are completely unsure of how to go about reading it. Should they read the words first, and then look at the pictures, or look at the pictures first, and then consider the words? What are they supposed to be seeing in the pictures? How are they supposed to be picturing the story in their minds? Are there steps that they should follow? How do they know if they are reading correctly? If you, as a teacher, are new to graphic novels, you may find yourself asking the same questions.

Once students get past the sheer mechanics of how to read a graphic novel, the next question is how to understand it as a literary work. How should they best appreciate it? How can they think critically about the story, characterization, settings, and themes? How do they interpret a graphic novel? How is this different from the tools they use to consider the meaning of a regular text novel, play, or short story? How do they determine the validity of a particular interpretation?

This chapter answers these two questions:

1. How do I teach students to read graphic novels?

2. How do I teach students to read graphic novels as literature?

The first question is more about the mechanics of reading graphic novels. The second looks at how, when we teach literature through graphic novels, it is important to understand that it is not a matter of using the same lesson plan you would for a conventional book but that we need to modify our teaching to fit the very different affordances and constraints that graphic novels have.

The Mechanics of Reading a Graphic Novel

To understand how to teach the mechanics of reading a graphic novel, it might be helpful to look at a particular page of graphic novel text, in this case, the adaptation of the medieval poem Yvain, The Knight of the Lion by M. T. Anderson and Andrea Offerman (2017, pp. 30–1) (Figure 1.1).

FIGURE 1.1 Pages 30 and 31 of Yvain, The Knight of the Lion. YVAIN. Text copyright © 2017 by M.T. Anderson. Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Andrea Offermann. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Candlewick Press, Somerville, MA.

An accomplished graphic novel reader doesn’t follow steps so much as engage in an all-at-once activity, but for beginners it may be helpful to try to break the mechanics of it down into a series of steps.

To start, then, the reader needs to see how the panels flow through the page and then the reader must determine what path or plan to follow. This particular two-page spread is a bit complicated. While many graphic novels have the panels outlined in a white gutter (which makes it easier to see the divisions between panels), on this particular page, the divisions are indicated with relatively thin dark lines.

An experienced graphic novel reader takes a look at the layout of the pages to determine a path to follow through the two pages. From the beginning, that reader uses both the pictures and the text to make sense of the story. Usually in a two-page spread like this, each page is read separately. The exception is when individual panels continue across the fold in the page, signaling that reader that the two pages are meant to be read as a single page.

In this case, then we start at the top of the left page; we begin with the picture of the woman in the reddish dress (the queen) prone on the floor, clutching her hair, and the other woman (Lunette) comforting her. The reader’s eye scans the panel and sees that we seem to be in a well-appointed room of a castle. The suit of armor on the wall, the sword, the chest in the background, and the tapestry all indicate that. Based on body positions, we would guess that Lunette is comforting the queen. Lunette’s words tell us that the queen is grieving her husband’s death and that Lunette is suggesting that she consider finding a man to replace him.

One panel down and on the left, the queen seems to have pulled herself off the floor. Lunette is still touching her. The queen challenges Lunette to name a single man as good as or better than her dead husband. Lunette seems to have someone in mind but worries that the queen will be angry. The queen says she will not get angry.

In the next panel to the right, we look straight at Lunette’s face. She seems impassive (with maybe a slight wry smile?) as she says, “May it bring you happiness, Madam.”

Then we drop down another row to the panel on the left. Part of reading graphic novels is comparing the panels to each other, especially when they show the same subject. Coming from the previous panel to this one, we see that Lunette has turned her head slightly and that her slight smile has perhaps become a slight frown and her eyes perhaps show some apprehension. She says, “Since no one is listening . . .,” which seems to be both a suggestion that they are safe and also a warning that they must be careful how they talk.

One panel to the right, we have pulled back and we now see them both sitting on a bed with curtains, telling us this is most probably the queen’s bedchamber. Lunette, holding the queen’s hand asks her gently, when two knights fight and one bests the other, which is the better knight?

Then at the bottom of the first page, we again see two pictures of Lunette. In the first one, her expression seems similar to before, with a small, almost mischievous smile. She proclaims that she thinks the victor of such a fight is the better man. But then in the last panel on that page, her brow furrows a bit, her eyes open wide, and the slight smile vanishes as she asks the queen which one she would choose.

The reader’s eyes then move up to the top of the next page. Here the queen pulls her hand back from her lady-in-waiting and her eyebrows come down in an angry expression. She reproaches Lunette for trying to trap her. Lunette’s mouth is slightly open with surprise and yet she isn’t cowering.

Then the next panel, the most prominent on this two-page spread, is the one with the queen’s face on the left and Lunette’s on the right. This allows us to hear how Lunette will respond to this challenge and also see how the queen reacts. The split panel also serves as a central image for these pages, showing in a single image that these two panels are about an intense and intimate conversation between these two people. Lunette finally says it directly, that the queen should consider taking as her new husband, the man who killed her late husband.

In the panel below, we see the queen full of fury. Her mouth is open as she shouts. She points to the door. She towers over Lunette, who seems surprised again. Her words confirm her anger as she all but calls Lunette an idiot and orders her out.

In the penultimate panel, on the bottom left corner of the second page, Lunette seems completely innocent and naive, shrugging her shoulders and staring openmouthed and hurt (though her facial expressions earlier indicate that she knew exactly what she was saying to the queen). In the final image on the page, her hands are folded and she says that she should have stayed silent. Behind her we can see the queen covering her hands with her face.

How Do Words and Pictures Interact with Each Other?

Part of what makes reading graphic novels challenging is learning to recognize the ways that the words and pictures interact with each other. Scott McCloud (1993) identifies seven different types of interactions:

1. Word-specific combinations are those where the pictures illustrate the story which is mainly told through the text. If you would read the text out loud to someone who couldn’t see the pictures, they would be able to follow the story.

2. Picture-specific combinations, in contrast, are those in which the story is told mainly by the pictures and, as McCloud puts it, the words “do little more than add a soundtrack to a visually told sequence” (p. 153).

3. Duo-specific panels are those in which the words and picture are conveying the same ideas or content. Sometimes this can seem redundant with characters, for example, explaining action that the images show. For new graphic novel readers, though, this sort of redundancy may make it easier to understand.

4. The additive combination is one in which the words “amplify or elaborate an image” or in which the images amplify or elaborate the words. So either the words or images may be carrying the main part of the narrative with the other element adding to or supporting the first.

5. Parallel combinations are those in which the words and pictures are telling two different stories or parts of stories. These two narratives may be related, but they are distinct. For example, think of a sequence in which two characters are discussing ambushing a third character and we see images of that third character going about their day, oblivious to the plans being made about them.

6. Montage is an interaction in which words function as part of the image. A character could be buried under a sea of words describing their emotional struggles, for example.

7. Interdependent combinations are those in which the words and pictures “go hand in hand to convey an idea that neither could convey alone.” This is perhaps the most common sort of interaction and may be the most effective. The magic of graphic novels happens when the words and pictures are each able to do what they do best.

While it is helpful to understand reading graphic novels by looking at the format and structure of them, what do we know about how readers interact with graphic novels? Though there is relatively little empirical research on graphic novels, Meyer and Jiménez (2017) is one such study. Their research compared two graphic novel readers: one an experienced graphic novel reader and the other an excellent traditional print reader who had no experience in reading graphic novels.

Meyer and Jiménez used eye-tracking software to follow where the readers’ attentions were going on each page and also asked the readers to think aloud and describe their process as they were reading. They found that experienced graphic novel readers used all textual, design, and visual elements to build an understanding of what they were reading. The inexperienced graphic novel readers had a harder time using these elements to navigate the graphic novel. The experienced graphic novel reader’s eyes made several sweeps of the page, looking at visual elements and textual elements together. The inexperienced graphic novel reader tried to make sense of the narrative almost exclusively with the text, and as a result had a limited understanding of what he was reading.

When we think about how to read graphic novels as literature, this is the crucial difference—students need to learn to take the images fully into account. Think of how a reader would consider a standard text-only novel for English class. The teacher might start off by reading aloud or assigning as homework the first couple of chapters of the book. The teacher would hope that the student-reader would then be engaged in what they are reading and perhaps appreciate the story. Then, as the class moves through the book, the teacher might work with the student-readers to contrast the protagonist, antagonist, and supporting characters; to consider the setting; to map the plot, maybe using Freytag’s pyramid (inciting action, rising action, climax, falling action, denouement); to look for themes; to consider the work in relation to the context of other literary works written at the same time or about the same topic; and/or to develop an argument around some aspect of the book.

When teachers and students engage in these goals and skills while reading, analyzing, and discussing a graphic novel, they need to consider how the characters’ appearances reflect their inner spirits, moral choices, and emotional dispositions generally; how the setting is rendered as an image on the page and how that reflects mood; how facial expressions give clues about how we are to interpret the tone of what they say; how facial expressions can also reflect relationships between people; how recurring images can indicate plot movement or developing themes; how the interaction between words and images can indicate irony or reveal the trustworthiness of a narrator; how panel layout can reflect the mood or pacing of a scene; how drawing style and framing can connect this literary work to others through intertextual references; and many other aspects, some of which may be unique to the particular work you are studying. This is a lot to consider. It may be a good ...