Uses of Comic

Books in Teaching
English
Mirela Rotaru
Teaching nowadays

• Reluctant readers?

• Classroom content
 Relevant
 Engaging
 Meaningful

• It’s not enough to get their attention.

The secret is to maintain it.
Sequential Art

•are the shortest type of comic

Comic strips •have a short cast of characters
•have stories that are stand alone.

•have an industry standard of 22 pages

•each issue contains a story that is part of a
Comic books larger narrative
•large cast of character

•It is not as authentic as western comics

Manga •It is considered easier to read
•Very popular among female audiences
Sequential Art

Graphic novels
•intended for older audience
•complex plot and characters
•plot spans over a number of
issues

Watchmen
V for Vendetta
300
1602
Fables
Sandman
Misconceptions

Comics are
• superficial and only suitable
for young children

• not real literature

• just superhero stories

• a bad influence

• imagination limiters
Why comic books?
Students say:

• Engaging content
• Attractive visual format
• Relevance to their interest and their way of life
• Fast paced and easy to read
• Humor
• Heroes
• Pop culture themes
• Real-world language
• The “coolness” factor
Why comic books?
Teachers say:
- youth culture in the classroom.
- cater for different learning styles
- motivation
- bridge from everyday conversational language to
academic language
- relevant images help learners acquire language
more easily
- enhance creativity and imagination
- visual aids stimulate speaking
- complex ideas in very little amounts of text
- play well to the modern teenagers’ media
consumption habits
Advantages of using graphic novels

• GNs can be used both for struggling

readers and for advanced students.

• Great variety of materials

• Gradable tasks
What can we teach / practice?
• Grammar
• Vocabulary

• Comprehension skills, especially

inference
• Complex reading skills
• Sequencing events – coherence,
cohesion
• Storytelling
• Writing skills
What can we teach / practise?
Literature – develop Culture and civilisation
critical literacy •Gender roles and
•Perspective and point of stereotypes
view • Social dynamics
•Reliability of the author •Moral issues
•Motives •The superhero fascination
•Cultural comparison
•History
•Politics
•Human condition, etc.
SPEAKING

Pre-reading activities – analysing the visuals

Role playing activities

Describing and comparing characters, places

Predicting outcomes

Debates
READING

• Reading and analysis of the visuals

• Reading for gist / detail
• Attitude
• Feelings
• For extensive reading/voluntary
reading we can offer alternatives –
similar assignments using different
stories, whichever students find more
appealing
LISTENING
• Listening materials from films
• Identify the character
• Intonation, attitude

Watchmen – prison scene

Watchmen - Rorschach's Opening Scene

(.. and I'll whisper no.)
Writing
Teaching Punctuation, Paragraphing, and Outlining

Suggested activity – panel with images and text but no

punctuation marks.

Outlining – each panel represents a paragraph, the

narrative text at the top becomes the topic sentence.
The details are found in the visuals and in the dialogue.

SUGGESTED ACTIVITY Removing the introductory lines

from a few panels then matching them with the right
panel / asking them to write their own.
WRITING
SUGGESTED ACTIVITIES for creative
writing
• alternative endings or accounts on what
happened before or after the story
• background stories to some of the
characters
• filling an interval in the story that is not
depicted
• rewrite a traditional text as a dialogue in a
graphic novel (team project)
• create their own comic strips or stories
Resources
•Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art by Scott
McCloud
•Comics and Sequential Art by Will Eisner

•Eek! Comics in the Classroom!

http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/profdev/
profdev105.shtml

•USING GRAPHIC NOVELS FOR CHILDREN AND

TEENS
A Guide for Teachers and Librarians
•http://www.scholastic.com/graphix/Scholastic_Bo
neDiscussion.pdf

•http://www.teachingcomics.org