Hello Everyone!! I hope your day is going well! Have you started reading comic book/strips since the readings?
I know for sure my roommates have! Two of my roommates are huge, huge, HUGE, comic book fans. Our room is filled with Superman symbols, countless batman comics, and I don't even know how many superhero merchandise is lying around here. In fact, if you are to watch my group's video "The Necklace", you will notice Janet is reading one of my roommate's Batman graphic novels when she sits in the "park".
For them comic books are amazing and they make a story come alive. They say the art, characterization, and pure kick-assery makes comic books and graphic novels really fun to read.If we could take that and translate it to what we are teaching, imagine how interested kids would be.
As for me, I actually started looking into how graphic novels and comic books can be useful in an English classroom. Carter brought up some good points but I wanted to do some more researching. And I did.
My first instinct to tracking down something useful for English in the graphic novel section was to look for something related to Shakespeare. The biggest opponent to Shakespeare is the language. Most kids I talk to, and even some of my classmates, detest Shakespeare because the language is too difficult and they don;t get it. Well luck was on my side and I stumbled upon this little beauty here: http://www.grammarmancomic.com/scripts/download/romeostory.pdf
It is the famous balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet done in a comic book style. I like this for a few reasons. 1. It is pleasing to the eye. 2. It uses the style of comic books to its advantage. Notice how the speech bubbles changed when emotion is added. Even the words are bolded when they are needed to be stressed or carried with emotion. 3 (And my favorite) It keeps the Shakespearean language in its exact form but it reads like normal language.
My second instinct lead to find something related to Young Adult Novels, as well as, the books we read in high school. Examples include Brave New World, The Great Gatsby, Tom Sawyer, Of Mice and Men, and all the other books.
Below is a link for a compilation of comic strips for The Great Gatsby. They're funny, witty, and bring up some good points about the book.
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/books/assets_c/2010/04/gatsbysm-thumb-465x1984-33961.png
(Double click to enlarge the strips)
Of course avoided the language and some of its crudeness, comic strips such as these could be useful in the classroom. Having students illustrate something about the book that they deem worthy of discussion or just something they felt passionate about the book can be a great way to really get students invested in a book.
All together, graphic novels can be a great asset in the classroom and the examples I provided show that they can actually be useful and interesting. What do you all think?
Until next time, take care and have fun and remember....
~Add a little Streiff to your life~
-Joey S.
I loved the comic strip of Romeo and Juliet! it was perfect! I am not sure if I would have students an entire graphic novel version of a classic text or Shakespeare play, but I would definitely have sections like this one so that the students could see how the words could be brought to life while reading them.
ReplyDeleteHahahah! I love both of the links. They made my day. I think a graphic representation of a scene from a story could really help connect students to literature because the get the chance to be witty and funny while secretly learning something! I think this is a wonderful idea and I have had a professor utilize graphic representations and I liked the assignment so much that I poured my hard work and artistic ability into my work and my professor ended up using it in an article of their own and now it is pending publication!
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