Memo 5--Synthesis of Research and Culmination of Ideas

I was inspired to investigate graphic novels as teaching tools after I had some wonderful experiences with learning through graphic novels in my own education.  There are two graphic novels that initially got me excited about the form—Craig Thompson’s Blankets and Lynd Ward’s Gods’ Man.  The more I thought about the beauty and the value behind these works, the more I realized that my wonder and interest could be translated into research that could one day help me to be not only a better writer but a better teacher of writing.  I could be the teacher I didn’t have in high school—the one who introduced new ideas about what literature is and what it can do for us (and what we can do with it).  

My research during this I-Search process has taken me down many varied paths.   Over these last few months, each path I have taken has led me to new discoveries regarding teaching reading and writing using graphic novels or comics in high school classrooms.  On a basic level, my research has broken my thinking on the subject into three (somewhat loose, but I’m working on it) categories. 

First, I have realized and read about what I have labeled the importance and purpose of using graphic novels—why should we use them? Why do they matter? 

Second, I have discovered (and considered at length) a text which lays out a plan for teaching writing with graphic novels—a bit of the how behind instruction. 

Last is a combination of the why and how in my first two categories—how reading graphic novels can be beneficial, and how we as teachers can make sure that it is. 

My (very) initial research landed me on a single question:  How can teaching graphic novels in the high school classroom help engage students as active readers and writers for today’s world?  I feel that the  more I have explored graphic novels as an instructional tool the more answers I have found to this question.   It has proven a question worth asking, and my endeavors have certainly been fruitful. 

I was immediately struck by the amount of relevant information I found when I first began searching—teachers were using graphic novels in their classrooms, and they were taking the time to explain, describe, and  defend their methods and their reasoning for doing so.  This discovery validated my efforts tenfold.  I found, during this stage, two examples of teachers using graphic novels in their classrooms and writing about their positive experiences.  One of the pieces I found addressed teaching English Language Learners specifically, and the other addressed using graphic novels to teach multiple literacies.  Already, I was beginning to realize the scope of the uses of graphic novels in classrooms. These examples of real world use seem to fall under all three of the categories listed above.  In this case, the answer to the question of why is, simply, because they work—and we have proof!  Examples are given as to how to use graphic novels with students (and what can happen if you do).  Additionally, these are real teachers working with real students—they give valid information about how we as teachers and future teachers can make learning happen in our classrooms. 

I went on to investigate a textbook (partially in the form of a comic book itself) by Jessica Abel and Matt Madden that essentially lays out an entire curriculum for the synthesis of actual comics in your classroom.  The textbook turns into a play by play unit on teaching writing using graphic novels.  This aspect of my research clearly falls into the second category—the how of using graphic novels and the graphic novel form to teach writing.  This portion of my research was eye-opening beyond the realization that oh-my-goodness-comic-formatted-textbooks-exist.  Upon investigating the text, I realized that graphic novels can be particularly fitting for teaching unconfident students that they can create fictional writing.  Writing comics (limited words, quick and easy options) can make the act of creating accessible—something that is so valuable for teachers and students of the writing process.  Most importantly, Madden and Abel’s text got me thinking about the importance of the act of creating in the classroom.  This is, after all, the meat and potatoes of my initial question and of my I-Search as a whole.

In keeping with my interest in the creation of narrative writing, I turned to Linda Christensen’s book Teaching for Joy and Justice, a course text of ours.  Christensen’s ideas about the all-importance of students learning to write narratives led to my realization of the importance of fiction itself in creating excited, competent, confident writers and learners.  This is my ultimate goal in teaching with graphic novels.  Really, this should be the ultimate goal for any teacher of English.  Christensen’s text also helped me to flesh out my understanding of the fear of writing fiction—a fear that ties in directly to the myth of the “born” writer.  Graphic novels can be used in the classroom to build writers and to help writers learn that a writer can be built and developed in the first place. Much of my reading of Christensen’s work led me back to a discussion of the why of graphic novels in the classroom.

Later, an investigation into a specific graphic novel taught in classrooms led me to a deeper investigation into category three.  I read the graphic novel Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, and I began to consider the specifics of teaching graphic novels as literature.  I landed on two specific benefits of teaching graphic novels like Persepolis—teaching genres through graphic novels (the autobiography, in this case) and teaching reading through critical lenses.  The more I thought about Persepolis as a piece of fantastic literature like any other the more I realized how valuable it would be to teach students about the autobiography as a category of literature (an oft underappreciated and misunderstood category, at that).  In a unit on Persepolis, students could even explore their own autobiography, eventually composing it in the form of a graphic novel.  Additionally, a critical reading of the novel in terms of historical or gender identity perspectives could give students practice with understanding the lenses through which we read, write, and exist. 

Despite my growing excitement, I maintained an awareness that a public school teacher always has people and systems to answer to.  For this reason, I chose to investigate teaching graphic novels in terms of the Common Core State Standards, the current standards system employed by Rhode Island and much of the United States.  I was surprised and pleased to find that teaching writing through graphic novels is a practice that can align with reading and writing standards in the CCSSs.  The realization that my ideas have the practical aspects necessary to become reality was a motivating factor in my research.

Teachers of writing (and writers) such as myself and my fellow teacher candidates have a responsibility to give students an eclectic range of options in our classes that will help prepare them for real world learning and success.  We also have a responsibility to help students view themselves as writers in a world where being a reader and a writer is a key to survival, let alone success.  It is my belief—as I continue on this path of discovery—that teaching critical reading and writing of fiction and non-fiction through graphic novels is an avenue that can lead to positive outcomes in terms of student success.  More immediately, it can lead to the development of confident, competent, and engaged readers and writers for today’s world.  

Memo 4--Comics and the Common Core

Although it was suggested that I explore more aspects of teaching Persepolis in my I-Search, I have decided that it would be more beneficial to take my research in a somewhat boring but highly practical direction this week.  I am currently reading Teaching to Exceed the English Language Arts Common Core State Standards, a self-explanatory text by Richard Beach, Amanda Haertling Thein, and Allen Webb, that has been of great use to me in learning about the Common Core Standards that schools in Rhode Island are currently using.  As I thought about teaching comics in the classroom, I considered the fact that I would eventually have to justify my choices to someone in a decision making position.  I feel that investigating the teaching of comics at the secondary level in terms of the CCSSs will give me the tools I would need to really use graphic novels in my classroom in the future.

In Part II of this Common Core text, seven aspects of the standards are outlined.  For my purposes, I would like to focus on the second and third aspects.  The second is “Reading and Writing Narratives, Drama, and Poetry,” and the third is “Critical Analysis of Literary Texts.”  I believe that comics or graphic novels like Persepolis can lend themselves to both of these aspects of the CCSSs. 

The chapter on “Reading and Writing Narratives, Drama, and Poetry” includes a specific section on responding to and creating narratives, and it is this section that I latch onto most when considering teaching comics in schools.  Teaching graphic novels, as I’ve discussed previously, opens up a space for creation that other forms do not.  One thing that I find exciting about the Common Core State Standards is their emphasis on writing.  The great thing is that they do not specify what form writing should take—rather, they consider audience and ability to convey desired information as most important.  This is where space is created for comics or graphic novels to come into the mix. 

Critical Analysis is also something that I think comics/graphic novels lend themselves to more than people may think.  As I discussed last week regarding Persepolis, there are various types of critical analysis from which you can approach any literature, but particularly graphic novels. Learning to look at literature through different critical lenses is not only an important aspect of the Common Core Standards; it is also an important life skill which leads to students’ future success.  The ability to change your perspective based on the needs of a particular piece of literature translates to success in the real world, which, I believe, is one of the goals of the Common Core Standards at their heart.   

Seeing that teaching with comics is not only beneficial to students but also potentially sanctioned by the current standards system for Rhode Island has definitely validated my research in a reassuring way.  

Sidetracked--A Photoblitz Mini-Project

"Photoblitz" Assignment: Everything in my House Seems to be Green 

I am taking this moment to step away from my I-Search project to investigate a new type of creating.

Below you will find five photos taken during my exploration of the "photoblitz" assignment.  For this assignment, we had twenty minutes to take a set of nine photos with themes such as "a photo that makes use of converging lines" and "a photo of two things that do not belong together."  Following these photos you will see a short reflection regarding my experience during the short project.  

Start time!

Photo Choice #1:  "A photo that is abstract."

I really love this picture.  Guess what it is, anyone?

 Photo Choice #2:  "A photo of something at an unusual angle."

For this photo, I decided to get an idea of what my dogs and cats see when they roam around the house on a daily basis.  It smells funny down there.  

Just kidding. 

Photo Choice #3: "A photo dominated by a single color."

Some fake sunflowers in my sister's room gave some unexpected brightness to this project.

Photo Choice #4:  "A photo that expresses a human emotion."

This is a photo of our gas fireplace, and it made me think of two human emotions--anger and passion. The two are often connected. 

Photo Choice #5:  "A photo that represents the idea of 'openness.'"

This is my yard.  If you look very closely, you can see a few of my horses down there.  I am very lucky to have been raised here, and looking out the back of my house definitely gives me a feeling of openness.

End time!

Experiencing the Photoblitz Assignment

I chose to complete the Photoblitz assignment in my home, as it is filled with interesting spaces and knick knacks to explore and photograph.  Looking back on the project, I am pleased that I chose to complete it at home, but I do think it also would have been very interesting to explore a public place that I may have been unfamiliar with.  I certainly learned a few things during  my experience.  

First of all, I learned that everything in my house is green.  This was not something I had noticed before, but there is definitely a motif of a soft olive-like green color that my mom apparently loves.  

Second, I learned that I was not entirely clear as to the definition of converging lines.  I had to look it up after I had started taking photos.  

It was also interesting to find that the project went much more quickly than I expected.  I really expected to be scrambling to find the "right" photos in the twenty minutes I had, but I found that I moved through the project with much more ease than expected.  I really enjoyed taking abstract photos, and I was very happy with my final choice, as I mentioned above.  On that note, I often took several pictures for each assigned theme and I chose my favorites when I was finished.  I had the most trouble finding "an unusual shadow" to photograph, because it was rather cloudy when I completed the assignment--there were no shadows to be found!  The weather was not something I expected would affect my work, but there you have it.  

Overall I enjoyed this assignment.  There were moments of frustration, and there were moments when I felt less "artistic" than I would like to be.  I had to remind myself that that isn't what this assignment was about.  It was more about thinking on your toes and being inventive.  I tried my best to aspire to those things, and I hope everyone finds some value my post.   

Memo 3b--Examining Persepolis as a Primary Source Text

This week I chose to continue delving into primary sources in terms of my I-Search.  Rather than investigating tools used for teaching graphic novels, however, I looked into a specific graphic novel that is “canonized” in some ways as a graphic novel “worth teaching” in schools.  Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, is an autobiographical graphic novel that was originally composed in French, and it tells the story of Marjane as a 10-year-old girl in the midst of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in the early 1980’s. 

Persepolis is beautifully written and illustrated, and for those reasons alone it is certainly worth teaching to students as a work of literature.  I feel that the novel could also be useful, however, for several more specific and more curriculum-based reasons.

The autobiographical form is something that I feel receives too little attention in schools.  What better way to introduce the autobiography as literature than through something as approachable and non-threatening (in terms of actual verbal language) as a graphic novel?  For this reason, it would also be useful and interesting to introduce the idea of students writing their own autobiographies.  Every student has a story to tell, whether they realize it or not, and I feel that composing their own autobiographies (or even smaller autobiographical vignettes, memoires, or short stories) in the graphic novel form could be very engaging and very authentic for students who are so rarely given the opportunity to tell their own stories.  Giving students the agency that comes with sharing their story in writing is a reward in itself.

Additionally, Persepolis can make for a gateway into teaching fiction writing and storytelling in general.  The narrative form is still present in an autobiography—there are autobiographies written without narrative structure, but they run the risk of lacking a certain appeal for students.  Graphic novels to teach the storytelling and narrative processes seems almost obvious when you consider the shared importance of time and space in the graphic novel and in fiction.

Another interesting and apt approach to teaching this particular graphic novel in the classroom would involve reading the text using different critical lenses.  It would be particularly interesting to examine the experience of a young girl dealing with sexism and religious and governmental change in a revolution that occurred in the past while comparing her experiences to those of the students themselves. 

Examining Persepolis as one of many specific texts to introduce in the classroom has flooded my mind with new ideas and considerations for teaching graphic novels as interesting and diverse literature in the classroom.  I am beginning to consider how I could use this novel and others to help students not only read different literary forms but also write in them. 

Memo 3a--Connections to Course Texts--Teaching Narrative Writing with Graphic Novels

In her chapter on Narrative Writing in Teaching for Joy and Justice, Linda Christensen says that “students who learn to skillfully employ the elements of fiction in their narrative writing come to the study of literature with a better understanding of how authors construct stories and use literary tools.”  It is my endeavor of the day to spend a little time peeling back the layers of this statement to examine it in pieces in terms of teaching and learning writing using comics and graphic novels. 

Narrative writing is something that seems to scare a lot of students—myself included.  It requires a certain level of creativity or general writing ability which many do not see themselves as having been born with.   It is this myth which connects creative ability to something that is innate rather than learned or constructed which makes fiction writing difficult for many students.  By breaking down the writing of fictional narratives into “elements,” as Christensen describes here, students can build a new confidence in their abilities.  I believe (as do many others who have written on the subject and about whom I have previously written) that having students study graphic novels and create their own is one vehicle through which students can explore and express their creativity through writing.

Understanding “how authors construct stories and use literary tools” is a piece of this puzzle as well.  Texts like Abel and Madden’s Drawing Words & Writing Pictures is one comic-based teaching text which breaks down the writing of graphic novels into elements as Christensen suggests.  It brings the act of writing out of the clouds and to the level of the students who can start from the bare bones and work up to the creation of their own fictional narratives.  Christensen describes the privilege placed on essay writing as well as the need to combat it.

While teaching writing through comics/graphic novels includes the creative pressure previously described to some extent, it also alleviates the pressure that comes with a student having only words (in fact, only English words) at his or her disposal.  Using a form which employs words and pictures to tell stories opens a new door, especially for English Language Learners. Placing emphasis on storytelling rather than on grammatical or mechanical crafting allows for growth in terms of creation of written work without the pressure of maintaining “correctness.”

Overall, the suggestion that more emphasis be put on narrative writing in school is a solid one, and I believe that comics/graphic novels are one avenue for developing student writing in this way.  Christensen’s stance is in support of and works well with mine in addition to complementing the specific teaching strategies used by comic writers and teachers like Jessica Abel and Matt Madden in Drawing Words & Writing Pictures.  

Memo 2-- The Tools of Teaching Graphic Novels

During my research this week, I have been investigating Jessica Abel and Matt Madden’s Drawing Words & Writing Pictures, a textbook-course in creating comics for comic artists, students, and teachers who wish to learn more about (and, more importantly, to create) manga, graphic novels, comic books and the like.
Madden is a cartoonist, editor, and translator who teaches comics and drawing at the School of Visual Arts, and Abel is a cartoonist and a writer.  The husband and wife pair wrote their textbook collaboratively and had it published in 2008.

The goal of Drawing Words & Writing Pictures is to set up what is essentially a full curriculum for anyone who wishes to create comics of any kind—they begin with single drawings that create narrative and move through the skills required to create complex stories with words and pictures in the comic style.  In total, the textbook is comprised of fifteen lessons that range from a focus on the logistics of comic writing to the narrative structures of a story.  Below are my “notice-ings” from my investigation into the text—things I picked up on while investigating Drawing Words & Writing Pictures as a textbook to be used in a potential classroom.

I was already intrigued as I investigated the first pages of this text.  As I expected, there is, almost immediately, a comic-style introduction to the text which is very reader- and kid-friendly, and it sets up the text itself as interesting and colorful—we know immediately that there will be more than black and white text and bolded vocabulary words here.  I love that.  We also meet the authors—I mean really meet the authors, in their illustrated forms.  This is rare.

The second thing I noticed was how slowly the initial chapters take you through the comic-making process. They emphasize the step-by-step nature as well as the drafting that goes into creating comics. They go back to basics, defining “comics” and some of the other necessary terminology.  They also use lots of examples!! For every point the authors make, they have a comic frame or a short strip to explain it further.

This is a big one—Madden and Abel make an important decision to speak directly to people who don’t think they can draw! This was huge for me, as I’m sure it is for so many students out there.  As soon as anyone mentions creating visual art, I tend to run for the hills.  Madden and Able make the prospect of drawing much more comfortable.  They give us permission to draw stick figures in the interest of preserving our desire to tell our stories!

The authors even show us an alternate “story arc” diagram that moves away from the traditional rising and falling action business—they emphasize the need for telling a story that is worth telling—that is, they emphasize the need for authentic storytelling.  At least, that’s how I encountered that point.

I am seeing so many windows through which a teacher can both write and teach writing using this book.  The authors’ emphasis on words and pictures as one in the same for telling stories can help to expand our conceptions of literature and create space for learning that wasn’t there before—space for a new efficacy among students in creating their own stories.

This is where I am beginning to see some magic in this topic—comic reading and writing creates a space for students with a wide range of abilities and interests to express their ideas through “drawing words and writing pictures.”