using Graphic Novels to Teach English Majors in Bangladeshi Universities

: The paper examtnes the existing misconceptions about gr"pni" novels and explains how this medium of art can be used to i"aih graduate students maioring in English Literature. Graphic novels can be a great aid for students who ate pursuing degrees in Engtish, yet stntggling with language acquisition' The lack of voiabulary is one stttmbling block which can be averted by the illu,strations of a graphic noyel that both exemplify the context and contextualize the narrative. The inclusion of graphic novels in ,syllabi Qcross the globe, the paper argues, can be replicated in our local universities.

thirty pages, graphic novels can be as long as six hundred pages and are published and bound in book form with quality paper as opposed to comics. Because many teachers in Bangladesh are quite unfamiliar with graphic novels, upon discovering that graphic novels are actually comic books (though far more serious), they very often tend to suffer from the following misconceptions, that comics and graphic novels are for children. they are all firll of violence and explicit sex, are only about superheroes, arefor reluctant readers, and that they aren't "real" books. It is also true that many people tend to confuse the tenn "graphic novel" with a genre. They fail to realize that "graphic novel" is a term that describes a medium, not a genre. And just like any other medium, graphic novels have a variety of genres, such as: While most people in our country, if asked, will admit they have no idea what a graphic novel is, they will be able to name at least one or two comic books, llke Archie or Tintin. Most children will be able to identifiz at least one superhero. It is no surprise that they equate the fbrrnat with children's books.Just like audio books, videos, and television, sequential art is simply another way of telling a story, with different demands on the reader, and is not a genre. People tend to view graphic novels as a genre and this is why they may assume they are the same as comics and perhaps dismiss thern with this in mind (Brenner,ZOO ).While comic books may have started off as no more than modem day morality plays about the war between good and evil, they have evolved. Art Spiegelman's Mqus: A Survivor's Tole (1986)was arguably the first graphic novel to reach a wide audience, including people who were not already comic book fans, when it was first published in 1986. Its mixture of aesthetic quality and narrative sophistication established an audience for practitioners of so-called "adult" graphic novels and also for autobiographical storytelling in a sequential art style (Gluibizzi, 2010).It was only after Mqus, based on Spiegeiman's father's survival of Auschwitz, went on to win the Pulitzer Prize in 1992 that graphic novels began to be accepted as 'real' literature. In 2006, The Royal Society of Literature, Britain's oldest literary society whose fellowship boasts some of the most eminent playwrights, novelists and poets in the world (Tom Stoppard, Seamus lleaney, Harold Pinter, and Doris Lessing are among the culrent fellows), devoted the front cover of the annual RSL magazine to two graphic novelists, Posy Simmonds and Raymond Briggs, who were made fellows of the so"iety the first graphic novelists to receive the honor. Neil Gaiman, winner of the 199 1 World Fantasy Award for the Sandman issue, "A Midsummer Night's Dream," is listed in the Dictionary of Literaty Biography as one of the top ten living post-modern writers. Erudite, allusive, complex and ambitious, TheSandructn is undoubtedly the flnest writing the mainstream comic book industry has ever seen. This epic comic series is a revolutionary series that helped establish comic books as a serious literary format.Comics finally emerged as a medium worthy of study in and of itself, with the establishment of both undergraduate ancl graduate programs in comics at the Savannah College of Art and Design (Stunn, 2001).
f-oaay it has become commonplace to hear critics from the literary and afts worlds celebrating graphic novels as accornplishing critical reorientation of their respective fields. tvte-anwhite, comics scholarship has taken off from within the comics' world, with Will Eisner's Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices and Scott McCloud's (Jnderstanding Comics: The Invisible Art, both comics works that engage academic readership of the medium. Graphic novels have today not only earned their place as a respected literary form, but are now the strongest sector of growth in publishing in the US. It is interesting to note that some of the better-known graphic novels are published not by comics companies at all but by mainstream publishing houses (Pantheon, for example) and have put up mainstream sales numbers. Persepolis, for example, Marjane Satrapi's story whictr relates the events of the Islamic Revolution in lran through the eyes of the author as a young girl, has sold almost 500,000 copies worldwide so far.
We have only to iook at our own students in Dhaka to realize this undeniable tr-uth.
One would be hard put to find more than a handful of students in any university or college who do not have a Facebook account or own a cell-phone. A decade or so ago as teichers, we only had to compete with television. Nowadays, we have to constantly compete with Facebook and YouTube for students' attention. Teaching methods that mayhave been tested and true then can no longer make that claim (Huq, 2013).
Having grown up immersed in technologies such as the Internet, iPads, tablets and cell phones, most of today's undergraduates are "digital natives" and therefore enter our "lur.roo*.
with different experiences, expectations and leaming styles than previous generations of students. The way they view the world is very different from those of other generations.We must accept that 2lst century students, whether in Dhaka or Dallas, are screen addicts and that they learrr differently and therefore we need to look for newways to motivate, engage, and inspire them. As teachers we need to hamess the wealth of visual media available to us and incorporate them into our teaching (Huq, 2013).
Today's students and classrooms are becoming more diverse and unique each day.
In an increasingly visual culture, the boundaries of the concept of literacy itself have been expanded to account for multiple intelligences and skills important in the 21st century (Beers, Probst, and Rief, 2007).ln fact, according to the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), twenty-first century readers and writers need to: . Recent studies have shown that roughly 80% of undergraduates studying in universities in Dhaka have a pre-intermediate English language proficiency level (there are one or two universities which do not fall into this category). The English majors, whether studying Language or Literature, are only slightly better.Expecting students with such a limited grasp of the English language to read, comprehend., analyze, let alone critique on the literary classics, or any of their prescribed texts for that matter, comprehensively, is no more than wishful thinking at best.To most Bangladeshi students, English is a foreign language. Everyday English is hard enough for them; the language of Shakespeare well nigh unintelligible. It is to be expected that these English language learrrers will become reluctant readers. Therefore, the obvious question urir"r, how can we present serious literature to a generation of students that is intensely visually aware but often reluctant to read? (Huq,2ol3) According to Eisner (19g5): For the last hundred years, the subject ofreading has connected quite directly to the concept of literacy; . . . Leaming to read . . . has meant learrring to read words. Recent research has shown that the reading of words is but a sub set of a much more general human activity which includes symbol decoding, information integration and organization... Indeed, readingin the most general sensecan be thought of as a perceptual activity. The reading of words is just one manifestation of this activity; but there are many others the reading of pictures, maps, circuit diagrams, musical notes . . . ." Bill Templer, in "Graphic Novels in the ESL Classrooms" (2009) refers to S.
Canagarajah who"has noted new paradigms in EFL teaching, reflecting a conceptual shift from'treating competence as rational to developing it as multisensory [...] from communication as solely verbal to multimodal or polysemiotic [...] These conceptual shifts porlend significant changes to the way we practice language teaching."'In his book, Every Person a Reeder (1996),Dr. Steven Krashen states that free voluntary reading is an effective way to foster reading improvement. He goes on to cite several studies that show that students who read for pleasure will naturally progress in the amount and level of reading that they engage in. With regard to comic books in particular, I(rashen notes that "middle school boys who did more comic book reading also read more in general, read more books, and reported that they liked reading better than those who did less comic book reading." In 2005 he went on to say that there was growing evidence that plenty of readers of graphic narratives become better readers in general, so comics and graphic novels can serye as a "conduit to harder reading" (Krashen,2005). Though there are many reasons why our English language learrrers are struggling, it would be fair to say, that because our students have little or no background knowledge of the language they are studying, along with its unfamiliar vocabulary, which they do not use in their lives outside of the classroom, they find English language learrring to be a de-motivating experience, which has no connection to their reality. However, research has shown that graphic novels and comics are effective in helping English language leamers (Carter, 2OO7).
Graphic novels can not only help improve reading development for students struggling with language acquisition, as the illustrations provide contextual clues to the meaning of the written narrative, but also help to understand overall concepts and themes, even if they have not yet mastered all the relevant vocabulary. Taking all this into account, graphic novels can be extremely effective in ESL classes because: They are visual ...they facilitate and support visualization of complicated text and content. Visual messages alongside minimal print help ease frustrations of beginning or stn-rggling readers (Gorman, 2003); They are relevant ... they allow the reluctant or emergent reader to emotionally connect with the text; They are manageable ... theyreduce the overall text load, decreasing student anxiety and lowering students' affective filter; They are engaging ... they capitalize on the success and engagement of the format and itspopularity with students; They are positive ... they increase student motivation and desire while promoting positive associations with reading. (Li:u, 2004) found that "the reading comprehension of the low-level students was greatly facilitated when the comic strip repeated the information presented in the text." They are 21st century ...they promote the development of 21st Century Literacy skills; a a a a a a They are comrnunicative ... they also serye as a format for student language production (student authored comics and graphic summaries); They are brain-based ... they access one of the ways the brain learns best, through visual processing (60,000 times faster than text); and They are cross-curricular ... theyoffer opportunities to teach content across the curriculum (history, social science, etc.).
Graphic novels are also beneficial for our students because they can see how colloquial English is actually used and thereby expand their vocabulary skills and understanding of slang and idiomatic expressions.
Teachers may also find it useful and motivating to use graphic novels in writing instruction. According to Morison et al. (2002) in their article "IJsing studentgenerated comic books in the classroom," "constructing a comic book requires students to determine what is most important from their readings, to re-phrase it succinctly, and then to organtze it logically." This same article provides step-by-step instructions for students to create their own comic books based on a variety of subjects and provides research-based evidence for success. They go on to say that, "Writing comic books and graphic novels can help students with story mapping. organization, re-phrasing, character development and editing."As O'English (O'English et al., 2006) puts it, graphic novels can also be beneficially used for writing instruction. When students read graphic novels, they become familiar with tone, mood and especially dialogue techniques, which can be transfemed to their own writing.Teachers can even get students to use comic making software like Comic Life and Strip-Generator to do assignments on topics such as: . While there are many graphic novels that are true to their comic book predecessors, written about superheroes, science fiction and fantasy, many have also been written about history, including past and recent wars, politics, civil rights, and more personal issues such as abuse, disabilities and family relationships (Gorman,2002 The solution is to use teaching strategies that ensure students gain understanding (Bull & Anstey,2006). Through the use of graphic novels, students can make associations between the images and the text to help simplify the reading process and aid comprehension. Imagine the difficulties our students face when they read Kafka's Metamorphosis for the first time. Getting through that first page, visualizing what is happening is almost impossible for most of our students, but if they were to be given visual clues, they would definitely find it easier to comprehend.
It also cannot be denied that sometimes the sheer volume of prescribed texts is what intimidates and pushes our students towards generic 'study guides.' At the same time, because more graphic novel titles can be taught in the same amount of time one would have to spend teaching lengthier print only texts, students can be exposed to a wider variety of stories and genres that keep them engaged in reading. It is important to note that students actually 'read' graphic novels, and they do not need to rely on a study guide to provide them with summaries. As Bakis (2011)  o Graphic novels challenge weak and strong readers alike; o Students must exercise more skill (reading images and text), not fewer when reading graphic novels.
Many readers, when confronted with solid pages of text, become intimidated and overwhelmed and just give up. Getting our students to read graphic novels will at least ensure that students will have an understanding of the texts in their entirety. Graphic novels allow for a new approach to diction, in-ragery, syntax, structure, and language. For example, many graphic authors frequently emphasize words by making them boldface, italic, or underlined, practices applied sparingly in traditional texts.
Graphic novels also substitute figurative imagery with the images themselves, but the interplay of what is written and what is drawn makes for an important point of analysis. Often, graphic novelists exploit the dual expressions of text and visuals to create puns, irony, and paradox. Syntax also becomes an examination of both sentence structure and panel and object structure (Cohen, 2008).
Overall, students can not only discuss the same topics and practice the sarne skills they would have used in classic literature, but they also develop new media literacy skills involved with understanding the comics medium and graphic novels(Monin, 20 l 0 One of the common arguments against graphic novels has aiways been that literature is not just about the text, it is about imagination and that if the pictures are doing all the 'imagining' for the reader, then there is no point in reading literature. However, it is a fact that good graphic novels actually require more imagination on the part of the reader, because in this case, the reader not only has to read and intelpret the i*ug"r presented in the panels, but needs to further imagine the action taking place between the panels. Unlike prose, where frequent amounts ol exposition are necessary, quality graphic novels leave much up to the imagination of the reader where inference ii a critical skill. The reader has to not only interpret the images, but then infer infor-rnation frorn the wa.vs in rnhich the images and text work together to communicate a message. The images provide the comprehension supporl needed to ensure that students can do the work of irnagining everything else that is happening. As we can see from the first three panels of the third issue of Alan Moore's I4/atchmen, without any text, the panels wouid simply depict a man hanging a sign, pushing back from the extreme close up in panel one to a medium shot of the same action in panel three. With the text, however, the panels develop a complicated interplay of different elements. There are three distinct types of text here: the text boxes, the speech balloons, and the sign and clothing text. The text boxes contain nar:ration from a pirate comic book, which we discover a panel later isbeing read by a teenage boy at a newsstand. The language and shape of the text boxes indicate their distance from the principal narration, but the parallel text provides an ironic commentary on the main scene.The speaker behind the speech balloons is indicated in the third panel: a newsvendor expressing his fear and anger about the cold war. Some words are in bold, giving a sense of spoken emphasis and volume. Finally, the sign text is an instance of text as image. While the "Fallout Shelter" text simply mirrors the nonverbal icon on that sign, the "Missing Writer" sign in the third panel gestures toward another part of the narrative (the writer tums out to be a character, introduced several issues later). The "NY" under the apple on the wolkman's jacket places the scene quickly.
More important than any of these three in isolation, however, is how they all work together. The horrifying imagery of the pirate story gives a mediated image of the potential destruction of nuclear war endorsed by the newsvendor's dialogue, while the likelihood of such a war is given iconic reference through the fallout shelter sign.A lot of people perceive graphic novels as just "frozen films." rlowever, the difTerence In fact, in many ways, comics require more thinking than mere prose. A quality comic contains text and images seamlessly interwoven. More thinking is involved because the reader has to actually 'study' the complement of words and images to make meaning. The most significant difference of a comic is that the text is both written and visual. Every part of each frame plays a role in the interpretation of the text, and henoe, graphic novels actually demand sophisticated readers.Graphic novels and comics push beyond the boundaries of illustrated books to the point where illustrations and text are equivalent, each driving the other, rather than the illustrations supporting or attempting to explain the text. Text in comics can serve as dialogue, narration, sound effect, commentary, clarification, image, and more. between films and graphic novels is that the action in the latter takes place inside illustrated panels as well as in-between the panels. With a film, the audience sees only what the director wants to show. With a graphic novel the audience actively personalizes the experience by, say for example, imagining the voice of each character.
They can linger over images and revisit any image or text. They can go to the end before they start at the beginning or they can jump from page to page. A movie forces the viewer to sit passively and watch that world unfold, but the graphic novel actively engages the reader/v iewer.
There are many graphic novel adaptations of classic literature, from Beowuff'to Moby Dick (Gonnan,2OO3). Yet, asMcGrath (2004) states, the graphic novel is not just like the old Classics Illustrated series, an illustrated version of something else. It is its own thing: an integrated whole, of words and images both, where the pictures do not just depict the story, they are parl of the telling.Not only are these entertaining to students, but they also provide the same stories without the intimidation often found from such lengthy and complicated classics. By using these and other graphic novels, teachers can still follow the curiculum and cover the same required concepts and standards while maintaining student interest and excitement in the classroom. Some educators rnay feel that graphic novels, as nontraditional texts, may take away from time that could be spent with more accepted books. Little (2005) states that the most prominent reason for teachers' reluctance to use graphic novels is, "most teachers either don't know what comics do, or aren't familiar enough with the medium."Based on the author's conversations with faculty from difTerent institutions and personal experiences at numerous conferences, interestingly enough, the greatest resistance to using graphic novels seems to come from literature teachers.Yet a good literature class should not exclude anything that can foster reading, writing, listening, speaking, and critical thinking. A literature class devoted entirely to one type of reading or one genre is probably, in most cases, a poor idea, If the goal is to understand literature, then you necessarily must include multiple media forrns and a variety of genre and styles in your curriculum (Bakis,20l1).This resistance seems to stem from an unfounded apprehension that graphic novels will somehow be used to replace literary texts. Hou.ever, graphic novels should not be seen as a replacement for prose but instead should be taught alongside or as supplements to traditional texts.
There is another misconception that comics or graphic novels do not have enough rare vocabulary or enough text to beneht students. The reality is, however, that graphic novels or comics include close to 2Ooh more rare vocabulary than a typical chapter book for children and 4Oo/o more than a typical conversation between a child and an adult (Krashen, 2005).It should also be noted that there are a huge number of comics out there that have as much, or even more text, than many prose-only books that our students are reading. For example, the "Death of the Family" Batman story arc has over 690 pages with word counts ranging from between 50 to 250 per page, which is actually more words than many classics.Today, graphic novels are considered to be valuable resources at institutions of higher leaming. Randy Duncan and Matthew J. Smith have written the book on how to teach the history, impact, importance, and cultural significance of comics at the university and college level. Their book, The Power of Coruics, delves deeply into the teaching of comics at the higher level and offers other professors a strrrcture for setting up their own intensive comics courses, whether they are an introduction to Comics or something more specific. The Power of Comics is a good introduction for undergraduates if they know nothing about the meciium, and it is also a useful tool for graduate students because it is an introduction 1o the past research.
Graphic novels today are used across the curriculum in ways we never thought possible -they are used in science, math, business, medicine, history, journalism, economics, statistics, law, archeology, and even philosophy. Researchers at the University of Toronto recently starled using graphic novels as a teaching tool to communicate the ethical and emotional complexities of illness, disease and trauma to medical students. "Carloons and comics were dismissed as a trivial medium, but rve realize now they are extremely sophisticated," says Allan Peterkin, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto.
Jeremy Short, professor of management and Researcher of the Year in 2010 for the College of Business at Texas Tech University, has written and introduced graphic nor.el textbooks as teaching tools in his courses. "Textbooks are just plain boring," said Short. He said that he wanted to create a textbook that would get the necessary points across while keeping students engaged. Atlqs Black: Managing to Succeed was his first attempt at a graphic-novel textbook; it covers, Short says, all the bases of what his students need to learrr, while telling a story in panels about a college student named Atlas and his friends. It is interesting to note that the Atlas Black series is being used in undergraduate and M.B.A. classes.
In Economix: I[ow Our Economy Works (and Doesn't Work) in Words and Pictures, Michael Goodwin expiains the progression of Westerl economic theory in the context of political history, and brings a lively visual sensibility to this intensely abstruse subject matter without condescending to the reader or dumbing the ideas down.Logicomix: The Epic Search /br Truth, written by Doxiadis, Papadatos, and Di Donna and The Stry/f o.f Life: A Grctphic Guide to Genetics and DNA bySchultz, Cannon andCannoq are both science graphic novels that have received rave reviews and accolades, and have been used in education from the primary school level to graduate courses.
Indeed, recent studies have shown that a science comic book used in addition to traditional instructional materials could improve student learrring and content knowledge at both introductory and advanced courses, particularly in the case of nonmajors (Hossler, 2011).It cannot be denied that, today, graphic novels are major players in itre literary world. They are extremely popular in libraries, have entire sections in chain bookstores and are reviewed and discussed by many mainstream newspapers and internet sites, including the New York Times, and Amazon.com. Closer to home, the Malaysian government recently honored Lat, author of Kampung Boy, who pioneered the genre in Southeast Asia, by bringing out a set of commemorative stamps. th"." days there are very few reputed universities anywhere in Europe, North America or Australi a that do not offer courses in Comic Book or Graphic Novel Studies. Yet in our country, educators barely know they exist. By excluding graphic novels from our curricula, as educators we are missing out on an opportunity to reach all our students, reluctant or otherwise.It is high time that we, English teachers, realize the value of using these exceptional academic tools and incorporate them in our classes regardless of whether we are teachers of Literature or English Language Teaching 6ff).nnglish departments in Bangladesh should seriously consider using them not only as teaching iools for English Language Learners, but also include them in 20th century novel courses, and hopefully in the not too distant future introduce courses on teaching the Graphic Novel itself.
As historian Paul Buhle (2007) obserwes: "The possibility that the lowly comicformat could become a vehicle for non-fictional versions of the big stories as well as the personal tale marks a turning point of sorts, for scholars with an inclination in that direition, but perhaps also for generations of students to come." Perhaps the panel below from Scott McCloud's (Jnderstanding Comics: The Invisible Art describes the future of graphic novels in Bangladesh best: r.,,,-,il