Does the use of comics and graphic novels within the primary literacy curriculum undermine the values of the classroom or do they offer opportunities for learning?
FutureLab
(2010) believes emerging popular culture should not be ignored, as it holds
such paramount importance in society and within children's lives. The report
further explains that teachers feel inadequately equipped, and lack confidence
in being able to assess new mediums of technology and communication.
In
addition, Comic books and graphic novels are
such new mediums of literature, and have been seen as aiding the child's
literacy attainment and awareness (DVLA/UKLA, 2005). They expand that exposing
the children to varying modes of literature, allows them to become critical
readers, and add more experience when inferring and deducing, as they have a
larger metaphoric bank of experiences, texts, images and layouts to draw
from.
In comparison, visual Literacy is seen as a threat to the
current standard english lessons, which aims to encourage children to
dissect language and recognise its many patterns, and themes (Millard
& Marsh 2001). The authors argue that comics include colloquial language which
should not be encourage or be used in educational settings, as children may
then hold it with high importance, and begin to imitate the language they
read.
Furthermore, when designing my own comic, I considered the
educational values it has, so that I could understand the implications for me
as a student teacher. I found that I could be more creative with the story
line, as the possible themes were endless and self initiated. Blair, H. A. and
Sanford, K. (2004) explains that this is particularly effective for boys, as they
can select a story that is of interest to them, and explore issues they are
unsure about. Secondly, I appreciate that the creative layout allows children to
include speech and though bubbles which, in my experience, children often
struggle with including such features in the parallel lines of their literacy
books.
In comparison, I acknowledged that the design of the comic
encourages children to focus on the aesthetics of their work, rather than the
literary content, although if used in conjunction with an art project, this
could work well.
Bibliography
Blair, H. A. and Sanford, K. (2004) 'Morphing Literacy: Boys
reshaping their school based literacy practices'. Language Arts. 81,
(6), July 2004.
FutureLab. (2010) Digital Literacy across the curriculum:
(sections3.1-3.4 Digital literacy in practice) (See online).
Millard, E. & Marsh, J. (2001) ‘Sending Minnie the minx
home: comics and reading choices’ Cambridge Journal of Education.
QCA/UKLA (2005) More than words 2: Creating Stories on
page and screen. London: QCA.
I found it interesting how you suggested using comics as a cross curricular lesson with art. This influenced me to think of how comics could be used in other subjects, for example pshe. I agree, i think comics can be used effectively to improve children's comprehension.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting you mentioned that comics can help the child's comprehension. However I feel that traditional stories are more effective with improving comprehension's skills. This is because comics are a form of being creative with a story, and are a tool of appealing to boys. However traditional stories allow for more complex meanings and more explicit linguistic devices are used.
DeleteThis is a very interesting discussion that is very similar to my own research and it is obvious that there is an ongoing debate about whether or not these texts should be used. I found it interesting how you linked your own ideas, and how you made your comic to link to educational benefits to the children and how this could be effective to their literacy development.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that you have the same views as me, as this emphasises the benefits of using comics and graphic novels. It would be interesting to know if class teachers have the same views as us, or if they have found issues in using such texts.
DeleteAs stated in my own blog entry, on my school experience the school were currently using superheroes as a topic across all of the curriculum. Therefore comics were a large part of this. They were used not only in Literacy, but also Art, PSHE, Citizenship and Science.
ReplyDeleteThis is interesting, and I would like to know if they proved to be beneficial to the child's learning in the other subjects? I have not seen comics used in science however can appreciate they may be good for eliciting ideas and discussion on processes or topics. They may also be a form of assessment, so that the children write about what they have learned in a comic.
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