Narrowing My Sights--An I-Search Topic of Importance to Me

I have narrowed down my I-Search topic to my second option—an investigation of the use of Graphic Novels in the classroom. I mentioned in my initial proposal that I was not exposed to Graphic Novels as a literary text until my time at Rhode Island College.  In an Adolescent Literature course at RIC I was exposed to several Graphic Novels, but the one which has made me most connected to Graphic Novels as a form of literature is Craig Thompson’s Blankets.  Blankets is a beautifully written and illustrated Graphic Novel about a shy boy who comes of age and falls in love during the story.  It is beautiful to read, and it transcends the comic-y label that I feel many Graphic Novels are stamped with.  It is pure poetry.  So, I must ask myself, why don’t kids get to see more of Blankets and the like?  I think that there is a tendency for teachers of English to lean towards an all-text all the time curriculum, because it is simply what we’re used to.  So what are we saying to students when we insist (explicitly or not) that there is one form of writing that is considered literature, and one type only? Introducing students to texts that go beyond the scope of the traditional text-based novel, story, or poem can only broaden their horizons and open their eyes to nuance in life and in literature.

Based on my experience (as well as informal inquiry of friends and siblings’ friends) it seems that many students have a similar lack of familiarity with the Graphic Novel as a literary genre until exposure in college. So what about students who don’t go to college?  What about those who go to college but don’t come across a professor willing to introduce them to this intriguing literary genre? Unless they read Graphic Novels for fun, students most likely won’t be exposed to them at all.  I think that students who aren’t exposed to Graphic Novels are missing out on an interesting, creative, useful form of literature.

  My connection with this topic was sparked tenfold when we began studying Gods’ Man in our SED 445 course.  The text is wordless, and I will admit that upon first inspection I was terrified to begin “reading” it.  I tend to get stuck, on occasion, in my own way.  I am guilty of almost falling into the category of those text-only teachers I described above.  Facing Gods’ Man head on and succeeding raised my confidence with out-of-the-norm texts, and I believe it could have the same effects on any student.

In my I-Search I would really like to investigate a specific question in connection with Graphic Novels—how can using Graphic Novels in the classroom help engage students as writers in the classroom and in today’s world?  I may even consider narrowing my question to apply specifically to English language learners in the classroom.  The idea of taking words out of the equation entirely and focusing on images to tell a (still very literary) story is incredibly freeing.  I imagine it would be even more so for students who are still working on their English.