Comics in the Classroom
By Adam Umak
The obvious challenges of increasing student achievement at West 40 are not isolated. Across the nation, educators are striving to close learning gaps for students. This all-points push to increase student achievement primarily stems from legislation contained in the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001. The legislation calls for all schools to make yearly gains in reading and mathematics. School progress is measured by annual state testing. The overall goal is for all students to reach grade-level proficiency in reading and mathematics by the year 2014. If adequate gains are not reached on yearly benchmarks, a building can be labeled a "failing school," thereby increasing scrutiny and offsetting projected achievement benchmarks. Topical and controversial since its introduction into American life, the NCLB legislation and its immediate implications for education have been felt in all areas of public education, especially at the grassroots level in the classroom.
Reaching grade-level literacy and likewise accelerating high-achieving students is no small task. It is not difficult to imagine an aloof, shutdown, and removed teenager. Current brain-based research vindicates what teachers have known all along: teenagers thrive on living in the moment and by seeing immediate positive results.
Understandably, sitting at a desk for sixty minutes several times a day can be a deterrent to excitement. Researchers, academics, and master teachers, too, have joined the cause to promote active engagement in all aspects of classroom dynamics. In her book Secrets of the Teenage Brain, Dr. Sheryl Feinstein states that student attention is a prime gateway into curtailing teenage lethargy and ennui. As an instructional strategy, student brains can be engaged in seconds by something completely new and unfamiliar. The practice of novelty in the classroom can easily lend itself to higher-order thinking skills. On a surface level, teenagers may perceive comics as summer movie blockbuster plots with super-powered thrill-seekers parading in tights. However, as Feinstein further argues, a deeper approach to content may yield more constructive and tangible results.
Feinstein contends that because the teenage brain can multi-process and create new synapses when actively engaged, teachers can engage brain-based learning strategies and create new assignments that promote higher-order thinking skills. This develops and conditions the brain to more readily process abstract reasoning. Take, for example, the many tactile processes of creating comics: scripting, editing, penciling, inking, coloring, and lettering. Essentially, two narratives are being told to the reader. Although familiar to comic readers, this breakdown is essential for instructional decisions as an educator. The first narrative is the one told by the writer; the artist uses sequential pictures to tell the second story in graphic form. These aspects of the medium are ripe for analysis, synthesis, and deconstruction for students. On academic and curriculum-based levels, prediction, constructivist inquiry, character and plot analysis, thematic content, research aspects, and narrative techniques are all nuanced aspects of reading and writing that comics inherently contain. Classroom novelty and higher-order thinking skills can be promoted easily with the inclusion of comics.
Importantly, although they live in a world of high-stakes testing, teachers across the country are not singularly test-minded. The use of comics and graphic novels triggers a twofold rationale for educators: teachers can use comics for the obvious reading components and for broader intrinsic purposes not measured by scores or statistics. Indeed, while the scores of state tests may be the official bottom line, another goal, one that arguably must happen before reading scores rise, is making the reading experience for students enjoyable and pleasurable.
Canadian teacher Scott Tingley is perhaps one of the most vocal supporters of the use of comics in the classroom. In the last few years, his third-grade classes have written reviews for Art Spiegelman’s Toon Books, drafted new stories for Mouse Guard, and performed using DC Comics’ Tiny Titans title as a script.
Look up your favorite comics (Superman, Black Cat) or topic (Artist Interviews, Reviews)