Growing up, I was never a big comic book or graphic novel reader. In fact, I had never really read a comic or graphic novel until I got to college. The first one I read was Persepolis for my IAH class. After reading it I thought to myself: “why have I never read a book like this before?” I really enjoyed it. I like the fact that a lot of the set up information in the story, such as the setting/scene, was done so through illustrations as opposed to being written out. Although by having pictures less was left up to the imagination, I like the fact that I saw what the author wanted me to see.
In class, we read Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman. In reference to that, we talked about some of the benefits of reading graphic novels. One such benefit is that graphic novels may help get kids who are not interested in reading regular books interested in reading (Ide_GraphicNovel_with_Narration PowerPoint, 35). If a kid is not interested in reading regular novels, they may enjoy reading graphic novels more since there are pictures and the book is not completely words. Also, graphic novels may help students to increase their appreciation of art, as well as their “ability to critique art and writing”(Ide_GraphicNovel_with_ Narration PowerPoint, 35). By reading different types of literature such as graphic novels, students can develop the ability to understand and critique different literay works.
I think that graphic novels allow children to see that you can do so much more with literature than put words on a page! They are great ways for children to see that they can do a lot of things as far as books and that these type of illustrations are not just for comic books. They make reading a lot faster too. because they can see what going on there is less need for a description of actions which removes a lot of words making the books way easier to read to. I think graphic novels should try and be incorporated into some lit classes just to be something different to children. I think it would work well.
ReplyDeleteAs much as I didn’t enjoy reading Maus for class, I wish that some of my teachers would have used these different types of books while I was in school. My school did a good job preparing us for college, but they used the same old books that every school uses. I think using graphic novels would be a positive change for elementary all the way through high school students. They are visually and contextually interesting and can help strike interest in students that don’t like reading normal book format. I was really surprised to see that there is a whole shelf and area dedicated to graphic novels in the East Lansing public library. There are plenty of these books available and should be used in classrooms. I think this is one of the many examples of how teachers can use different genres and books to stimulate the enjoyment of reading inside and outside of the classroom.
ReplyDeleteI myself have never read a graphic novel and was not aware of what they were until attending this class. The only experience I have with reading books that include both images and text (other than children's picture books) are text books for school. While reading the text books, I couldn't wait for the picture because that was less that I had to read. I think children would enjoy graphic novels and they would be a good transition from picture books to short novels because they are still being challenged with the longer text of a chapter book, but the fun images still remain. I am interested in reading Maus now to see what graphic novels are like.
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