Graphic Novels as a Link to Critical Thinking
Students need to be taught to think critically. While this may be a bold statement, in the six years I have spent teaching, the observation is quite true. The education culture is so focused on preparing students for the high-stakes tests that they have to take that as teachers, we have less time to teach students how to think. As an English teacher in New Jersey, I have seen my students, like most around the country, asked to be able to complete reading comprehension tasks and write coherent essays in a timed writing situation, but they are not really asked to read those passages closely or reflect on their own thoughts. When I began integrating graphic novels into my curriculum, it was clear to me that not only do these texts excite students, but that they are major tools in strengthening students’ critical thinking skills.
This year when I began my unit on Maus I noticed a very real problem in my honors-level classroom. My students had a hard time reading and decoding the images before them. When I begin my unit, I have my students analyze pictures as a “do now” activity. I have them look at paintings by Monet and Picasso and we use literary terms such as mood and tone to focus on specific aspects of the individual paintings. This year, students admitted to me that this task was very difficult for them, and upon completion of this activity I began to see why. Reading images asks the viewer to strip away the layers and decide if there is anything within the image in addition to their first impressions. Having students look deeper into an image allows them to practice the decoding skills they will need for a book like Maus. This is a skill few students had ever really practiced before.
Traditionally, in English class, all a student had to do with an image was to create a narrative about the picture, never delve deeper into what the image was saying. When my students begin reading a graphic novel, their homework assignment is to select a panel that they feel is important to the story or theme and then really explain why that specific image is important. By having them analyze one image as they would an individual quote, the student is looking at the panel in terms of what it is saying and the role the panel plays within the story. This level of analysis is key in understanding a graphic novel, and by having students strengthen their image-reading skills, they are innately improving their critical thinking as well.
Once students have had a chance to practice their image-reading, they then need to work on their ability to make connections. A huge piece of critical thinking is seeing how ideas connect to one another. The same can be said for reading and interpreting a graphic novel. When students are taught how to write, there is a focus on transition words and when they read a graphic novel, they are able to see those transitions used visually. At the beginning of every graphic novel unit, I talk about Scott McCloud’s concept of closure. Bridging the gap between the panels is essential in following the narrative structure of a graphic novel. It forces the reader to not only interpret a single image, but also figure out how that image works in conjunction with a bigger picture. When reading Maus II my students and I spend a good amount of time analyzing the action at the beginning of Chapter 2. In this chapter, Art is reflecting on his success with Maus. As he experiences the stress that success puts on him, his character begins to shrink, and later in the chapter, after he leaves his therapy session, he begins to grow again. This section shows clear transitions between panels along with character development. By discussing the imagery of this section, students can analyze the connection between size and power. Analysis of the images as a whole leads to students’ understanding that a graphic novel is not just about the individual images, but the connection between image, word, and story.
Graphic novels are still a relatively new medium for classroom use, and several teachers I have spoken with are apprehensive about using graphic novels with their students. We have such precious little time to teach our curriculum, how can we justify spending time on a graphic novel when there is a wealth of literature that needs to be covered? What I have learned, though, is that either by using graphic novels in conjunction with traditional texts or teaching them as primary texts, student thinking is strengthened. The conversations that we have with traditional texts are ones that we can have with graphic novels as well. The literary terms such as symbolism, metaphor, and mood that we strive to teach can be taught by using a graphic novel too. Sometimes when students have a visual to hold on to, that concept is better understood and retained. After all, our students are entering an increasingly visual world, and if they cannot decode what they see, they are bound to get lost in the images.
Leigh Brodsky is a teacher at Watchung Hills Regional High School in Warren, New Jersey.
