I don’t just mean I like to read; I also love the physical trappings, the glossy softcovers or old, worn, fabric-bound hardbacks that have been loved out of their dust jackets.  And of course, I love those yellowing pages full of words, and often nothing but words.

So to step outside my comfort zone, for this project I decided to look at a graphic novel and a web comic on its way to becoming a graphic novel, and to do my responses with visual art rather than writing.

Though I was initially a little dubious about my artwork, I found that it was pretty easy to use my drawings to respond in some way to what I was reading, though (at least for me) the visual component needed to be supplemented with writing.  If you look at my DeviantArt submissions you’ll notice there’s almost an essay to go along with most of them, explaining my process and my reasoning.  I think this is something that’s been drilled into me through my program– the need to provide a rationale for the choices I make.

However, I think a written reflection is the missing piece for many unsuccessful literature-based art projects.  As an example, I offer Aske and Embla, a piece I drew while thinking about re-writing mythology through American Born Chinese.  Without my explanation, though, there’s no clear tie to the original text, unless by chance you follow the same path of connections I did.

Giving students the opportunity to respond nonverbally is a great way to engage non-verbal learners, but in terms of assessment I think we need something more than the painting, the sculpture, the interpretive dance: a written reflection, or a structured verbal presentation, or even a Q and A with the artist can give us that elusive element of intention and process, which might make the difference between something thrown together without forethought to fulfill an assignment, and a meaningful response to literature.

On the other hand, the question of whether to use graphic novels in the classroom seems to me to have a self-evident answer.  Yes, I support including comics in the curriculum—as long as it’s appropriate.  Like anything else, it’s dangerous to include a graphic novel just for the sake of including a graphic novel.  Do some research.  Know what issues are going to come up—because American Born Chinese and Maus and Persepolis are a far cry from the Sunday funnies.

Though I believe it’s becoming less prevalent, the perception of comics as “something for kids” could be one of the greatest barriers to successfully incorporating them into the curriculum.  It’s the same problem we run into with films—you can’t use the movie version as a substitute for the original, but you can look at it as an alternative interpretation.  (In fact, common core standard #7 pretty much says you’ll have to.)  Looking at it that way, I’d definitely encourage students to read Maus alongside Night, or talk about the differences between the book, the film, and the graphic novel adaptation of Fahrenheit 451.

As long as we steer clear of making mistaken assumptions, I do think graphic novels have a lot to offer—not only to engage non-verbal learners, but to force us all to think a little more flexibly about what literature means, and how we “read” it.