Graphic Books for Diverse Needs: Engaging Reluctant and Curious Readers

Abstract

Involving today's adolescent in the joys of reading is a challenge in a hyper-mediated, fast paced world of informa tion. Just getting a teen to stop racing from activity to activ ity for a few minutes of quiet reading can be difficult. Adolescents are constantly occupied by the mall, movies, jobs, and their cell phones. One genre that is gaining academic respectability can help engage adolescents in reading: the graphic novel. The graphic novel, basically a "comic" in short book length, appeals to diverse readers who have come to expect visuals in the texts they encounter in their world. Graphic novels can offer well written and exciting stories, unusual information and ideas, new points of view, and stimu Librarians/media specialists have been especially enthusi astic about graphic novels. See, for example, articles by Stephen Weiner (2002), Michael Lavin (1998), and Lora Bruggeman (1997) in various library journals, advising on the emergence of graphic novels for library collections. Other scholars explore graphic novels as artifacts of popular cul ture. Ultimately, both the written text and graphics of good graphic novels are worthy of reading and study, and students are drawn to them. The graphic novel is short, has interesting pictures (some in color and some not), usually offers dialogue and action with little narration or description, and comes in paperback lating art work.

Teaching Vocabulary with Graphic Novels

“…According to various scholars, graphic novels can provide the motivation for reluctant and struggling readers to read (Schwarz, 2002), aid for general readers (Öz & Efeoğlu, 2015), support for comprehending the presented information in the text (Christensen, 2006), opportunities for students having different learning styles (Seelow, 2010)), the development of visual literacy (Brozo, Moorman & Meyer, 2013) and the stimulation of critical thinking (Jacobs, 2007). Much of the research up to now however is mostly descriptive in nature, indicating a need to explore the effects of graphic novels with quantitative analysis on the aforementioned benefits.…”

“…The use of graphic novels has been gaining popularity in educational circles for their ability to help visual learners (Brozo, Moorman, & Meyer, 2013;Murakami & Bryce, 2009), to motivate reluctant and struggling readers (Schwarz, 2002), to develop higher order thinking skills (Miller (2005), to address students having different learning styles (Seelow, 2010) and to provide rich context for increasing comprehension of the reading texts (Brenna, 2013). In addition to the above-listed benefits, graphic novels can be used creatively for other purposes, including vocabulary instruction.…”

“…Graphic novels can provide the motivation for these reluctant and struggling readers to read (Schwarz, 2002). According to Miller (2005), graphic novels help students to develop reading skills in a comfortable way and provide opportunities for developing higher order thinking skills.…”

Using Comics to Communicate Legal Contract Cancellation

“…Definitions of graphic novels may vary but they are generally described as longer, bound comic books (Yang 2008), whereas McCloud defines comics as juxtaposed pictorial and other images in a deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer (McCloud 2009). Comics has long been considered to be a very beneficial medium for teaching, especially for visual learners, due to its combination of text and images that increases comprehension (Hasset & Schieble 2007) and has also been highly recommended for reluctant or struggling readers (Schwartz 2002), with the added ability to reach out to a wider variety of readers as they easily deal with topics of cultural diversity and other important issues (Ruggieri 2002).…”

The truthful messenger: visual methods and representation in qualitative research in education

“…This approach was not without victoriesor challenges -but remains an area of active exploration in my research with pre-service teachers. While graphic novels appear in the educational research literature, those appearances are restricted to their use in literacy instruction at the K-12 level (Norton, 2003;Schwarz, 2002aSchwarz, , 2002b. These studies typically do not distinguish between graphic novels and 'comic books' and focus on reading rather than creating the texts.…”