This week’s focus will be on Graphic Novels. According to Penguin Random House Australia (2017), “A graphic novel uses the interplay of text and illustrations in a comic-strip format to tell a story. Instead of relying on just text to construct a narrative, it uses graphical elements such as panels, frames, speech/thought balloons, etc. in a sequential way to create and evoke a story in a reader’s mind.” (What is a graphic novel?). Graphic novels are a great way to introduce larger and more complicated books to younger readers in order to keep their interest while helping their confidence grow. “Like picture books, graphic novels are not defined by their content, but rather by their form. They include multiple genres, both narrative, and nonfiction, although most graphic novels are narratives” (Glada, Liang, & Cullinan, 2017, p. 241). There are several differences between traditional children’s literature and graphic novels, and each has its benefits.
There are many key elements to graphic novels. Perhaps the most obvious is the way they are laid out and presented to the reader. Graphic novels are similar to comic strips in the way that they are designed. However, comic strips tend to tell a story over several books or volumes, whereas graphic novels have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Another element of graphic novels is its illustrations. Graphic novels rely heavily on their graphics and augmented text in order to portray the emotions of their characters. They tend to use big words to portray excitement in the reader. Another important element to graphic novels is that they use elements such as color, negative space, font type/size, and more in order to tell their stories. (Smith, n.d.).
Graphic novels are a great tool to be incorporated into any curriculum. The first and most effective reason to use graphic novels is as a stepping stone from picture books to chapter books for younger readers. A younger student may find chapter books to be daunting and overwhelming at first and by integrating graphic novels into your classroom library as alternatives, it may help some students grow their confidence towards chapter books. Another way to incorporate graphic novels into the curriculum is by focusing on the writing aspect in Reading and in Language Arts. By allowing students to study graphic novels and then asking them to write their own, it opens doors for teachers to give students a hand in their own education. Teachers can have students create their own graphic novel with a beginning, middle, and an end. They can ask the students to choose a theme or lesson to be learned or taught and require a certain amount of characters and backgrounds for them. The students will be learning but also having fun at the same time and being allowed to be creative in their art at the same time.
Graphic novels do a great job of keeping the interest of the children through the illustrations, the structure, and the way the characters address each other through thought bubbles instead of endless text on a page. The illustrations tend to be bigger and brighter in graphic novels than in traditional children’s literature and this makes reading them fun for students. The structure of graphic novels and its boxed format leads for a more creative reading method for students in which they have to rely on text cues and pictures to determine where on the page the story continues. Lastly, students find it more enjoyable to be engulfed in reading the characters' words through thought bubbles in real-time with their pictures instead of reading in the traditional sense and relying on clues from the text to help us imagine what a character is thinking or how they look or feel.
