When I was doing research for this month’s SLJ article on comics in schools, I had the opportunity to talk to a number of experts on the topic, including researchers, teachers, and school librarians. And as anyone who has ever written a story like this, or been interviewed for one, knows, only a fraction of those interviews goes into the finished piece.

Buy hey, we’ve got a blog!

All this week, I’ll be posting the interviews I did for the article. We’re kicking it off with a long, but very informative, e-mail interview I did with Meryl Jaffe, who is an instructor at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Talented Youth, Online Division, and the author of Using Content-Area Graphic Texts for Learning.

GC4K: How do you see teachers using comics—as instructional materials on a given topic, as supplementary reading, as literacy aids for reluctant readers, or to be read as literature in your own right? Which of these do you think are most appropriate? Which would you like to see more of?

Meryl Jaffe: Every which way! Comics and graphic novels should and are being increasingly used in classrooms both as central texts for language arts classes, as supplementary reading, and as literary aids for reluctant readers and weak language learners. They not only invite and empower students of diverse learning needs, they reinforce multi-modal learning, multi-modal literacy, and brilliantly address many of the Common Core Standards. In my ideal classroom graphic novels, interviews, speeches, scripts, video clips, and classic texts are all used together to teach the art and power of communication, entertainment, and rhetoric, to more broadly empower our students to better understand and conquer the worlds around them.

Comics and graphic novels, however, have struggled and gotten bad reps. While they used to entail the weekly strips or short bound issues of Archie, detectives or superheroes—all entertaining, but not exactly up there with Jane Austen—they’ve changed considerably over the last few decades and they deserve a closer look. The art, language, and content of kids’ graphic novels today is quite extraordinary and they most definitely have a place in 21st-century classrooms. They show and tell the art of metaphor and storytelling, they show and tell character and plot development, they show and tell facts and fictions.

Graphic novels incorporate visual and verbal literacy across various formats, genres, and text structures. By their very nature, comics and graphic novels draw the reader into the story both through their alluring art and through the need for readers to actively construct the stories as they integrate (often) divergent visual and verbal information. And many can and are taught as primary texts. But it gets even better—pairing graphic novels with prose novels, speeches texts, and primary sources allows for comparative discussions on format, word usage, literary style, text structures, and design. By teaching prose and graphic texts side by side, you involve visual and verbal learners, making learning more meaningful as students actively work, comparing and analyzing diverse texts and their affects. Using the mixed-medial texts also gives weaker language learners more footing and opportunity to participate and become more actively involved in discussions and projects.

Let’s take a closer look—evaluating how comics and graphic novels can help teachers affectively integrate Common Core Standards, while also understanding how these books can help meet students’ diverse learning needs.

THe Common Core Standards say that reading instruction must now address “Key Ideas and Details; Craft and Structure; Integration of Knowledge and Ideas: Range of Reading; and Levels of Text Complexity.” Here’s just a quick look at how graphic novels help teachers meet these standards:

Graphic novels typically use concise (and often advanced) vocabulary and the paired images help readers define and remember the words (addressing Range of Reading). Their concise language and sequential story panels help readers clearly distinguish between main ideas and details. This is especially helpful for young readers who so frequently have trouble with this task – the images help make the task more concrete and more manageable (addressing Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure). Pairing and comparing prose and graphic novels will also provide a means to compare, evaluate, and contrast different forms of texts and text structures. Furthermore, many classic books can be read in prose and graphic novel formats (for example A Wrinkle in Time (by Madeleine L’Engle, graphic novel adapted by Hope Larson), The Ember City (by Jeanne DuPrau, graphic novel adapted by Dallas Midddaugh, art by Niklas Asker), Frankenstein (by Mary Shelley), and many of the classics now in public domain). Comparing these stories across formats directly addresses Common Core Standards (addressing Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure, Range of Reading and Text Complexity). As themes, ideas, characters and events are developed in a visually sequential manner, it is easy to chart their development (addressing Key Ideas and Details, Craft and Structure, Integration of Knowledge and Ideas). Graphic novels can (and should) also be used in social studies to provide perspectives and discussions relating to National Council for Social Studies Teaching Standards: Culture and Cultural Diversity; Time, Continuity and Change; People, Places and Environments; Individual Identity and Development; Power, Authority and Governance; Production, Distribution and Consumption; Global Connections; and Civic Ideals and Practices)

But, before diving in, I want to clarify “comic.” I see a comic as a the awesome strips I grew up with, Charles Schultz’s Peanuts, Bill Watterson’s Calvin and Hobbes, Berkeley Breathed’s Bloom County and Gary Trudeau’s Doonesbury, to name my favorites. And there is most definitely a place in classrooms for these comics. While Doonesbury was very much a comic reflecting the political arena of the 1960s-1980s, the others are wonderful comments on everyday life. As such, they can be used to supplement lessons around the Vietnam War (Doonesbury), or they might be great tools to introduce works of philosophy, or even to help students dig into chapter books in language arts. Whether teachers have students read comics to introduce metaphor, simile, irony, or any other literary tool or thematic concept, or whether they have students create their own comic (to summarize, present, or reflect a specific theme or concept), comics most definitely have a place in the classroom.

The thing is, though that now in addition to comics, we have outstanding graphic novels, which I believe you are asking about. Graphic novels are stories told much like comics through the use of text balloons and sequential art. They ARE comics, but they are bound and typically tell a long(er) story, be it fiction, non-fiction, fantasy, mystery, science-fiction, or romance. Graphic novels’ short bursts of text (often in fun fonts) and vivid images make reading, classroom participation, and most curriculum come alive for all kinds of readers and language learners, and therefore they are serving increasingly central roles in language arts classrooms. Integrating multi-modal forms of literacy empowers more learners. Incorporating graphic novels help empower weak language learners, who find the reading less daunting and participation in classroom discussions and activities more accessible. Furthermore, there is a growing number of outstanding non-fiction graphic novels that should be used in language arts, science and social studies classrooms.

For weak language learners and readers, graphic novels’ concise text paired with detailed images help readers decode and comprehend the text. Reading is less daunting (with less text to decode) while vocabulary is often advanced, and the concise verbiage highlights effective language usage. Furthermore, the images invite and engage all readers. For skilled readers, graphic novels offer a different type of reading experience while modeling concise language usage. Because the text has to be succinct, graphic novels model how to efficiently communicate stories and ideas in short, pithy text. For these reasons alone, graphic novels are increasingly taking center stage in language arts classes.

Graphic novels are also outstanding tools to help teach and illustrate abstract concepts or distant events kids have trouble relating to, and their graphic, interactive texts can be used across content-areas. For example, there is an excellent graphic novel (grades 5+) about the United States Constitution called The United States Constitution: A Graphic Adaptation by Jonathan Hennessey and Aaron McConnell. This book not only clearly explains and details the Preamble, Articles of the Constitution, its Ratification (appeasing both Federalists and Anti-Federalists), The Bill of Rights (Articles 1-10) and the additional Amendments (11-27), it does an outstanding job of explaining the thought and details the framers wrestled with when dealing with the balance of powers and lobbyists. It is truly an outstanding work that belongs as primary reading in language arts and social studies classrooms.

Another example of an outstanding graphic novel that can be used across content-area is Ho Chi Anderson’s King (I would recommend this for high school and older as there is some inference to infidelity). This book contains interviews, background history on King and the Social Rights Movement, addresses violent versus non-violent protest, and contains Kings speeches as well as conversations with President Kennedy and other historical leaders. As the text formats vary within this book, it can be used to teach various non-fiction text formats while appealing to students of various skill levels. And, Anderson’s powerful art, just makes it all come alive – literally!

But the list goes on. Some of my favorite non-fiction graphic novels include:

Nick Abadzis’ Laika, about the space race from the Russian perspective and their efforts to get the first sentient being (the dog, Laika) up into space (grades 4+); Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi,  about life in Iran (pre and post revolution) (grades 9+); Zahra’s Paradise, a graphic novel about the life and turmoil in Iran during protests of 2009 (grades 9+); Hidden: A Child’s Story of the Holocaust, by Loic Dauvillier, about how the author was hidden as a young girl, surviving the holocaust (grades 6+); Lewis and Clark, by Nick Bertozzi (grades 4+); Journey into Mohawk Country, by George O’Connor, tells the story of Harmen Meyndertsz van den Bogaert who (based on his original journal) who at age 23 ventured into Mohawk territory with guides, maps and some food, trekking through freezing temperatures to revive the struggling fur trade (grades 4+); Marathon, by Boaz Yakin and Joe Infurnari, tells the story of Eucles and the (ancient) Battle of Marathon (grades 4+); Jerusalem: A Family Portrait, a memoir by Boaz Yakin with art by Nick Bertozzi, about Yakin’s family living in Jerusalem (and torn apart politically) during the fight statehood in the 1940s (grades 6+); Northwest Passage, by Scott Chantler, relays this story in American history (grades 4+); Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller, by Joseph Lambert (grades 3+); The Olympians series on Greek mythology, by George O’Connor (grades 4+), Books about the civil rights movement such as March, by John Lewis, Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell (grades 5+), and The Silence of Our Friends, by Mark Long, Jim Demonakos and Nate Powell (grades 5+), a story about Mark’s father, a reporter in Texas during the 1960’s, to name just a few. Feynman, by Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick relating the life of Nobel Physicist Richard Feynman (which can be used in science, language arts and social studies) (grades 8+); Primates: The Fearless Science of Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and Birute Galdikas, by Jim Ottaviani and Maris Wicks, about these three pioneering women and their studies/observations of primates (grades 4+).