A Novel Approach to Learning: The Graphic Novel’s Growing Popularity in Education

by Alison Oehmen

Almost since their inception, comic books and graphic novels had a large following, particularly among young people. In recent years, not much has changed in this regard, as the graphic novel sections have become some of the most trafficked and fastest-growing areas in many libraries . Graphic novels and comic books have likewise gained wider use in academic circles. Why are these changes taking place? The answer lies in a new generation of teachers and librarians, a broadening use of the comic-book format across multiple genres and the evermore technology-centric focus our society has adopted.

As far as libraries are concerned, this trend is developing as they attempt to stay current and attract younger generations of readers. For decades, comic books occupied only a marginal space—if any space at all—on libraries’ shelves, since popular opinion generally dismissed them as frivolous and uninformative. However, as greater populations of comic book readers reach adulthood—and consequently become the newest group of librarians and teachers—the comic book’s standing in the literary world is steadily improving. In fact, these materials are increasingly regarded as valid tools with academic and artistic worth.

Another contributing factor towards the upsurge in graphic novel representation in libraries is the movement to digitize. While most graphic novels remain available in physical book form, the comic book community has quickly jumped on the technology bandwagon with new innovations like Comics Plus: Library Edition, a service that specifically makes graphic novel and comic book downloads available to customers through library websites. As students become increasingly comfortable and partial to reading via resources like ebooks, this innovation serves as yet another way for libraries to make reading more palatable for young, tech-savvy people.

After all, the comic book is not just a domain for superheroes anymore. Now people can find comic books and graphic novels that run the gamut of different genres, from classic literature to history and biography to mystery, horror and romance. Even from a demographic standpoint, comic books have expanded their reach, coming out with titles geared towards everyone from kids and teens to adults. Consequently, comic books and graphic novels have become attractive to new audiences and provide new ways for teachers to present and students to absorb information.

Therefore, some educators have started integrating graphic novels into their curricula and finding favorable results with readers of all abilities. One Kaplan survey, for example, reported that a third of ESL instructors utilize comics to teach new English speakers. Moreover, teachers of English-speaking students find that graphic novels help them to reach struggling or reluctant readers yet also challenge more confident ones. Where the density of a heavy prose novel might deter a less advanced reader, the visual impact of a graphic novel piques their interest and enthusiasm. By the same token, graphic novels can also provide the level of plot and structural complexity necessary for a more sophisticated reader. According to Stephen Weiner, director of the Maynard Public Library in Maynard, Massachusetts, and an award-winning writer on the subject of graphic novels in modern society, “researchers concluded that the average graphic novel introduced readers to twice as many words as the average children’s book.”

However, this is not to say that the comic book’s foray into more academic circles doesn’t have its critics. For the considerable strides it has made towards mainstream acceptance, the graphic novel still strikes many as an unorthodox, and therefore controversial, tool. Furthermore, because the educational use of graphic novels is still a relatively new methodology, curriculum support is not as widespread as for more traditional materials. One pair of authors, Allyson A. W. Lyga and Barry Lyga, has published a resource entitled Graphic Novels in Your Media Center: A Definitive Guide to address this concern by providing lists of age-appropriate and edifying graphic novels to use in the classroom. Other resources have popped up to aid in the comic-teaching process, including No Flying No Tights, which is a website staffed by librarians and teachers, and “Using Graphic Novels with Children and Teens,” which is a downloadable PDF guide by Graphix, an imprint of Scholastic. Finally, even within the Common Core State Standards, graphic novels are suggested as sample texts; they are mentioned in both standard 5.RL.7 for grade 5 and the range of text types for grades 6–12. Nevertheless, as with any literature, the question of which comic books would be academically suitable and relevant remains a contested issue.

As this story of the academic graphic novel continues to develop, one wonders what this could mean for the trajectory of modern learning. With the call for new approaches to instruction for modern students, we could very well see the implementation of the graphic novel as a scholastic tool become an even more widespread practice soon enough. Whether or not this will happen remains to be seen, of course, but I know I will be interested to see how things unfold either way.

Did You Know?

Although the first smash hit from the comic book world came in 1938 with the introduction of Action Comics #1’s enduring Superman character, the United States’ first major graphic novel, The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, was published nearly a century before, in the 1840s.