For the past few years, a growing chorus of educators has been singing the praises of manga, graphic novels, and comics. Integrating graphic content into curricula is not a new education trend, nor is it a passing fad. So how can teachers use graphic content to challenge and engage students? Try these tips for planning stimulating lessons.
Kids love comics. Any frustrated teacher who has repeatedly reprimanded students for reading comic books in class can attest to this fact. Some teachers see comics as merely classroom distractions, but there's more to the genre than meets the eye.
Despite resistance from teachers, administrators, and parents, some educators strongly support incorporating graphic texts into teaching and learning. Comic-loving educators argue that manga, comics, and graphic novels can engage students in learning new languages, boost literacy, enhance student vocabulary, and teach 21st century competencies. Educators use a variety of strategies to integrate graphic texts into different academic and nonacademic environments.
Mad About Manga
Featuring intricate artwork and complex narratives, manga is the Japanese style of comic art. In Japan, which has one of the highest literacy rates in the world (the CIA World Factbook places it at 99 percent), manga is wildly popular with adults and youth alike. The Guardian reported in an April 2009 article "Japan Looks to Manga Comics to Rescue Ailing Economy" that the traditional (print) manga market was worth just more than 400 billion yen in 2007.
In his book, Manga High, Michael Bitz, cofounder of the Comic Book Project, explores the lessons he learned working with a passionate group of manga-loving teens at New York City's Martin Luther King, Jr. High School (MLKHS). Bitz, a faculty member of Columbia University's Teachers College, created the Comic Book Project to engage students who attend high-needs schools that do not have the resources to provide art instruction. Through the Comic Book Project, which has been taught both in class and as an after-school club, students plan, write, design, and produce original comic books based on themes that connect to their everyday lives. The Comic Book Project distributes the books and also organizes events where participants can present their work to the local community. Since its 2001 launch, the program has touched more than 50,000 elementary, middle, and high school students across the nation.
In 2004, Bitz went to MLKHS with the intention of replicating the successful project using the established Comic Book Project curriculum and lesson plans for making traditional comic books, but he discovered an eager group of African American and Latino students already captivated by Japanese manga. Bitz observed how the students enthusiastically collaborated on brainstorming, writing, designing, and producing their work.
Collaboration is key to the success of the project, Bitz says: "When kids are working on a comic project together, they're sharing ideas; it's like an idea incubator. They share skill sets. One person might be a really advanced writer; another might be a more skilled artist. And if they can pool those skills, the comic book really starts to come to life. Also we want to teach problem solving, we want to teach compromise, and a creative project is a good way to do that."
Bitz watched a disruptive student blossom and develop as a leader among his peers within the group. He also observed students who were struggling to keep up in their language arts classes pore over each sentence of their stories, continually refining punctuation, syntax, tone, and grammar. The manga project's engagement factor kept students who might have wandered aimlessly after school in an educational setting where they were guided by positive peer influences and led by a dedicated teacher and mentor. And they were learning, Bitz notes.
"In creating a comic, you have to do an extraordinary amount of planning," Bitz says. "You have to think about what the plot is, who the characters are, what the tone of the comic book will be, the sequence, what the characters learn, the conflict and a resolution—pretty much everything that would apply to a narrative generally. Also, all the core components of English language arts—like spelling, grammar, punctuation, sentence structure—that we're trying to hammer into kids are critical to the life of a manga or a comic book because kids want them to be correct, because the story comes from them. It belongs to them. It's their voice."
Working on manga built the students' language arts and visual arts skills and also provided an exciting opportunity for them to connect with Japanese culture, Bitz observed. "For the kids [at MLKHS], they had never been to Japan, they have no Japanese kids in their school, but there's this whole level of cultural exchange in terms of learning about Japanese society, art, and literature. There was a real engagement in all things Japanese that, if it weren't for manga, I think that they would never have been interested in otherwise," Bitz says.
Lesson Plan Tip
It is important to note that there are several different genres of manga. Unfortunately the medium as a whole seems to have gained a reputation for glorifying violence and exploiting female sexuality, as this type of manga has been a popular export to Western markets. Despite this, many other forms of manga are certainly widely available. For educators interested in using manga, researching appropriate sources and addressing the concerns of administrators, parents, and even students is important to the success of the project.
Plan a project that allows students to work collectively or individually to create and produce manga. Also consider holding a school or community event where students can display and discuss their publications, which can motivate students to do their best work and be proud of the final product.
Engaging Students with 'What Happens Next?'
In the 2004 English Journal article "Using Graphic Novels, Anime, and the Internet in an Urban High School," Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher describe their experiences teaching a 9th grade writing course at a diverse, disadvantaged high school in San Diego, Calif. Frey and Fisher, who are both teacher educators at San Diego State University, found that many of their students loved graphic novels, comics, anime, and manga.
At first, Frey and Fisher explain, they were concerned with "the predominance of violence and sexual images in many graphic novels," but they were able to find classroom-appropriate samples by Will Eisner from his graphic novelNew York: The Big City to serve as instructional tools for the writing workshop. Using the text as a shared reading, doing a think-aloud strategy, and discussing word choice and vocabulary in the text, they saw students start to develop the ability to understand "shades of meaning" and grasp how to vary word choices and convey multiple ideas in one or two sentences, Frey and Fisher say.
Next, the teachers gave students short excerpts from graphic novels to use as writing prompts, giving students five minutes to develop a story ending. Over the course of the four-week unit, Frey and Fisher "began to see more evidence of complex sentences and multiple ideas in students' work."
For Frey and Fisher, taking the time to plan meaningful writing exercises using a medium and content that excited their students proved worthwhile.
"Having begun with the idea that graphic novels were comic books at best and a waste of time at worst, we now realize the power they have for engaging students in authentic writing," the authors say. "These forms of popular culture provided a visual vocabulary of sorts for scaffolding writing techniques, particularly dialogue, tone, and mood. Our students became not only better writers but also more knowledgeable consumers of ideas and information."
Lesson Plan Tip
Use short sections from graphic novels as writing prompts for students. They can discuss their short essays in small groups to see how their stories are both different and similar. Students' own experiences, cultural norms, and perspectives will inform how they create meaning and develop their own unique stories from the same images. These exercises can be powerful learning tools because teachers can help students understand the choices they are making about the construction of the narrative and also help them understand how they are translating visual information into written language.
Also read Frey and Fisher's lesson plan "Teaching Literary Devices with Comics" for English language arts grades 6–12 at www.teachingcomics.org. The lesson teaches students to "identify literary devices used in texts, such as metaphors, mood, tone, plot structures, symbolism, irony, etc. [and] incorporate identified literary devices in original writing."
Learning the Language
As a college student studying Spanish, Stephen Cary found reading in his second language exhausting, frustrating, and extremely difficult. For Cary, things turned around while on a summer trip in Mexico when he picked up a stack of comic books. Cary, who is now a second language learner specialist, explains in his book Going Graphic: Comics at Work in the Multilingual Classroom that reading comics in Spanish actually improved his ability to comprehend text, pick up idioms, build confidence in reading in a second language, and communicate more effectively in a foreign country.
"The visuals reduced the amount of written text I had to tackle and provided comprehension clues that made learning Spanish vocabulary and structures easier," Cary writes. "I was also picking up colloquialisms and pop culture knowledge I could immediately put to use in my Mexican travels."
Cary turned to Spanish language comics because he had always been a fan of the genre. "Superman made me a reader. Dick and Jane tried their best, but they couldn't give me what The Man of Steel offered: a good reason to read," Cary says.
In his experience as an educator, Cary has found that integrating comics into the curriculum helps students, especially those struggling to learn a foreign language. "Comics provide authentic language-learning opportunities for all students, regardless of a learner's second language proficiency level," he says.
Cary outlines several lesson plans for working with comics in his book. One activity, Take-A-Stand, requires students to read and analyze editorial cartoons and use them as models for creating their own cartoons editorializing about personal experiences, family, school, or the local community.
Lesson Plan Tip
Have students work individually or in teams to analyze editorial cartoons, which requires them to look deeper than the literal meaning to decode inferences, symbols, metaphors, word plays, and more. Students may also have to research current events to fully understand the cartoonist's references. Teachers should discuss what makes the cartoon funny, how the cartoonist conveys humor, and what makes it a relevant commentary. Next, students can create their own cartoons, considering the elements they outlined earlier in their analyses.
Connecting the Dots
Bitz notes that, for many students, there doesn't appear to be much overlap between their lives inside and outside of the classroom. "There's a real disconnect between what kids do in school and what their lives are like out of school, and it really doesn't make sense that it is that way," Bitz says.
Taking advantage of students' interests will stimulate learning and help them connect to academic lessons in a new way. Using graphic content can engage students in learning across content areas, particularly when projects allow students to illustrate their own lives or see their communities from a different perspective. With research and planning, educators can tap into dozens of ideas for integrating graphic texts into classroom or after-school activities and help students bridge the gap between entertainment and achievement.
