Week 3 Blog Post - Comics and Graphic Novels: Undermining Classroom values or opportunities for learning?

The use of comics and graphic novels as a stimulus for learning can undoubtedly herald wide educational opportunities. The benefit of allowing children access to texts that allow access to meaning through the interplay of text and image has been widely debated, with teachers aversion to such texts due to ‘worry about ideological aspects of material’ (Marsh and Millard 2001; p.34).

 Millard and Marsh (2001) state that comics and graphic novels engage their audience by exploiting children’s interests, largely for commercial gain. This suggests that educators may be reluctant to use such texts within their classrooms because of potentially inappropriate references made to popular culture such as current television shows, films, games and music interests held by children. Inevitably teachers will be conscious of the suitability of such texts. Within my own personal experience, looking at the October 2014 issue of popular children’s comic ‘Top of the Pops’; primarily aimed at a young female readership; a particular article on current fashion raised my concerns about the suitability of the clothing featured, for the intended readership. As advised by Stafford (2009; p117), teachers aiming to utilise graphic comics and novels for literacy learning will have to ‘consider material by individual page’ to be highly critical of the messages each text is conveying, (overtly or implicitly), to decide whether it would be beneficial to discuss these messages openly with children.

 We could argue that for children to be competent readers of text, they need to be aware that all texts are created for a purpose. Swain (2010; p.131)  writes ‘magazine content reflects the perceived ‘natural’ interests of the target audience and advertising is often seamlessly woven through some articles; the less experienced reader might be oblivious to this subtle manipulation of his response’. This leads me to conclude that constructive talk about the nature of comic and graphic novel features can lead to fruitful discussions about genre and narrative viewpoint, with children considering the objectivity of the author. Millard and Marsh (2001; p.29) argue that ‘comic reading provides a common discourse which can be used to enhance children’s shared understanding of pleasurable texts’. Within constructive conversation, the benefit of using a popular children’s comic or graphic novel provides a shared context as the basis for collective thinking.

Another concern amongst teachers is that more illustrative or image based texts demand less of the reader intellectually, in terms of enhancing their vocabulary and visual imagination, as the image contributes to interpretative meaning as well as the written word. However, research carried out by UKLA (2007) concluded that such texts demand an alternative set of reading skills from children.  This includes navigating an alternative reading pathway (as images and text are not organised in a linear way), causing children to demonstrate increased patience and persistence. Comics and graphic novels can therefore be used, alongside and compared to, traditional literary forms to develop a child’s sense of authorial intention and encourage a learning disposition that welcomes the challenge of deriving meaning from an unfamiliar text. My experience of generating my own e-comic on the iPad app ‘Book Creator’ about ‘My family pets’ led me to alternatively consider the layout of text and supporting image to secure reader engagement, and this would also be reflected in the educational benefit children would derive from conducting a similar activity.

 Example Pages from my e-comic made in the app 'Book Creator'

Creative context: Family Pets

Bibliography

Millard, E. and Marsh, J. (2001) 'Sending Minnie the Minx Home: comics and reading choices', Cambridge Journal of Education, 31: 1, 25 — 38

Stafford, T (2009) ‘Teaching Comics’ in Duncan, D. (2009) Teaching Children’s Literature: Making stories work in the classroom Abingdon:Routledge

UKLA (2007) Reading On Screen. Available at: http://www.ukla.org/publications/view/reading_on_screen_research_report/ (Accessed: 12^th October 2014)