Graphic Novel Text Set

Introduction

The following texts would be used in my urban 10th-grade ELA classroom, after learning from a questionnaire I collected from my students in the first week of school that when given the choice, over 70% of students would choose to read a graphic novel instead of a traditional, text-based novel. Other important information I gathered from this report was that many students reported not reading a book in their free time since elementary school, and 40% admitted that they have never read a whole-class book assigned to them in full. I have used this same questionnaire for the past several years of my teaching, but it has not been until recently- maybe the past five or so years- that students have shown this much reluctance to "traditional" texts, as well as such a strong interest in graphic novels. This year specifically, over half of the books students chose as their all-time favorite text fell in the graphic novel/anime/comic genre. With this data, I am planning my next unit, which is going to be centered around graphic novels. We will begin our time learning about what graphic novels are, how to read them, the various formats they can come in, and some of the current societal discussions around their use in high school classrooms. After this background knowledge and context has been provided, I will guide and scaffold students through a whole-class reading of a graphic novel, and students will complete supplementary activities so that they build the skills necessary for independent comprehension and analysis of this style of a text. The unit will conclude with students reading a graphic novel of their choice and completing a project that creatively demonstrates their individual reading experience. 

Print Texts

• 1. Bronte, Charlotte and Greg Powell. Jane Eyre: The Graphic Novel. Classical Comics, 2008.
• Summary: Artist Greg Powell's illustrations breathe new life into Charlotte Bronte's 19th-century classic novel, Jane Eyre. This graphic novel abridges and condenses governess Jane's story of passion, betrayal and self-discovery into 132 action-packed pages, hoping to intrigue and inspire a new generation of young readers and comic lovers. 

• 2. Flannery, Mary Ellen. "From Fringe to Mainstream: Graphic Novels in the Classroom." National Education Association, 2016.  From Fringe to Mainstream: Graphic Novels in the Classroom | NEA

Summary: This National Education Association article gives readers an introductory view of the societal attitudes about graphic novels and the controversy around their value in students' reading lives. The author, while addressing critics' concerns, supports the ways in which graphic novels spark unique, diverse opportunities for young people to engage in a graphic novel's words, images, and structure, even allowing space for a middle school ELA teacher to share his positive experiences with graphic novels.

Quantitative Measure of Complexity: Storytoolz places this article at an average grade level of 9.9, which almost perfectly aligns with the 10th graders I am planning to share it with. I mostly agree with this analysis since there are few words that I believe will be challenging for students, and the sentences tend to follow fairly simple structures.The information in the article is divided into short paragraphs, with one heading that marks the transition in subject matter (from providing contextual information about graphic novel controversies to recommending a variety of graphic novel to young readers). 

        

Qualitative Measure of Complexity: Using Core's Informational Text Analysis rubric as a guide, I determined this text to be Moderately Complex. As I began to explain above, the article contains mostly simple sentences, contemporary language, and a clear purpose of informing readers about, and persuading them to agree with, the diverse value that graphic novels bring to young readers. In terms of text structure, the author includes one heading ("Gene Luen Yang: The Genius of Graphic Novels") and two images to support the reader's mental organization and understanding of the topic at hand- YA graphic novels and how educators feel about them. While these text features are not essential, I do see value in the first image, which highlights four popular YA graphic novels, in demonstrating the diversity and aesthetic appeal that graphic novels bring to young readers. 

The knowledge demands and conventionality levels of this article are mostly moderately complex since while most of the information about graphic novels is provided in the text and/or assumed to be common knowledge for my 10th-grade students, there are a few discipline-specific aspects I would need to explicitly address with my students. For example, the idea of a novel being "challenged" or "banned" may need some further contextualization so that students understand the difference between the two actions, as well as their recent relevance in some increasingly-conservative communities. The author also begins to address some discipline- and genre-specific aspects of graphic novels that students need either taught or reviewed (depending on their prior experience working with graphic novels in an academic setting), especially when the author poses hypothetic questions for students to consider such as: "Why would the author have a series of small-panel illustrations on one page, and a full-page illustration on another? What happens in the white space between panels?... What’s a better way to convey mood: With text or with pictures?" (Flannery). 

    Vocabulary: fringe, bellwether, blacklist, panel, gruesome, snowbound, vessel 

Reader and Task: This article would serve as a valuable introductory material in the graphic novel unit, serving to activate any prior knowledge students may have about graphic novels and get students thinking about a major contemporary question, "Should students be reading graphic novels in school?". Rather than treating this text as something for students to simply read and summarize since the text itself is only what I believe to be moderately complex, I would pair this article with a more complex task (creating). After reading this article and gathering any additional resources about graphic novel controversies, students could write an argumentative letter to their librarian, either requesting them to keep graphic novels stocked in the school, or get rid of them altogether. Students will use evidence from the article in combination with their own experiences/opinions about graphic novels to persuade their librarian to take action. We could even have students submit their letters to the school librarian and have them either come to our classroom and respond to our arguments or write a letter to the class that we later read and discuss. This can help motivate students to complete the reading and task, as well as empower them since they know that their voice matters and has a place in the school community. 

In terms of reader relevance, my students will most likely resonate with this article's message because of its focus on empowering teens to keep reading graphic novels. The data I collected from my students about their reading habits indicated that they enjoy reading graphic novels, and some of them listed titles that they enjoyed that either show up in, or are very similar to, the graphic novels recommended/pictured in Flannery's article. The article also begins to work towards the anti-bias education goals (Identity, Diversity, Justice, Action) stated in Teaching Tolerance's Diverse Text rubric, especially when English teacher and graphic novel advocate Beth Sanderson argues that “There is a lot of missing text today. Some kids aren’t seeing themselves in books—and other kids aren’t getting to experience what [their peers] experience. We often talk to our students about reading books where the characters are nothing like them!” (Flannery). All voices featured in this text speak to the importance of providing students with diverse texts that depict characters from a variety of backgrounds, and my students will hopefully recognize and appreciate this as they interact with the article. 

Multimedia Texts

• 1. "How I Write a Graphic Novel: Script Format // Authortube [CC]". YouTube, uploaded by Ampiro Ortiz, 8 January 2021. 
• Summary: Created by graphic novel and comic author Ampiro Ortiz, this video serves as an introductory guide to bringing your comic ideas to life (and most importantly, print!). Ortiz guides us through the process of drafting, writing, illustrating, and deciphering the key decisions every comic creator has to make an effective graphic novel/comic that engages readers. 

• 2. Gann, Brad, et al. First Woman: NASA's Promise for Humanity. NASA, 2021. NASA - First Woman

Summary: First Woman, published exclusively digitally by NASA, is an interactive graphic novel that gives readers a multitude of opportunities to immerse themselves in Callie Rodriguez's journey to the moon. Readers can download a free app to activate the revolutionary XR technology that allows them to take a digital walkthrough of Callie's adventures and become a First Woman mission specialist. 

Quantitative Measure of Complexity: Storytoolz places this graphic novel at a 4.6-grade reading level. While this number initially shocked me since it is a significant grade level lower than my students', the text alone does paint a pretty simple picture for students. The comic format lends itself to short, conversational language that should be quite easy for readers to follow and engage with. However, I think the text becomes more complex when you take into consideration the interplay between text, images, color, and space, as well as the interactive components on the website/supplementary app. These factors present more room for student analysis and interaction that will appeal to, and potentially challenge, those above the 4th-grade level. 

    

Qualitative Measures of Complexity: I would classify this text as moderately complex on Core's liteature rubric after taking into consideration the amount of subject-specific vocabulary (science/astronomy), the necessity of the illustrations to the reader's understanding of the text, and the shifting storylines that readers must follow to understand the text's overall meaning (how one's background impacts their future, in both positive and negative ways). The dialogue and text are, in terms of conventionality and structure, only slightly complex since phrases are often short and conversational. However, for readers to fully comprehend the space mission-centered scenarios like those on page spread 4-5 and 36-39, they will need some subject-specific background knowledge. The characters also occasionally speak Spanish in flashbacks to Callie's childhood, so those who don't speak it may need to seek out a dictionary or translation tool. 

    Vocabulary to address: spectrometer, Mission Control, Mission Operator, aptitude, "que linda", ill-advised, puffer, queries, solar flare

The nature of graphic novels require its readers to analyze the relationship between text and illustrations, which brings up the overall complexity of the reading experience. There are certain points in First Woman where illustrations are used in isolation to carry the plot along or portray the text's deeper meaning, so readers must be conscious of these. This is especially clear in the novel's conclusion, where Callie shows concern for her and her colleague's well-being through words, ("Lunar Outpost--- something's going on. The descent stopped. I'm no longer moving... Hello? Is anyone there?") but the "full picture" is revealed through the illustration when we see that RT is floating off behind her into the darkness, unresponsive (Gann et al. 40). We are given the full context of the situation, and it leaves us as readers with much stronger feelings of shock, worry, and anticipation of what's to come for Callie and her team. 

Lastly, while the purpose and theme(s) of the text are fairly straightforward and identifiable, the storyline jump-style organization and knowledge demands place the text into a moderately complex bracket. The novel jumps between different points of Callie's life (her childhood through college) to show readers the various steps she had to take before being the first WOC on the moon; readers must use context clues and changes in the illustrations (Callie is younger, the settings are different, characters from her past appear, etc) to decipher the different storylines. Additionally, the layers of Callie's experiences may be both familiar and unfamiliar to readers. Callie grows up in a working-class family and learns a lot about STEM through working with her father, a mechanic. Later in the story, however, Callie's experiences going to NASA space camp, working on research team at MIT creating artificial intelligence, and her mission to the moon, are quite uncommon and readers most likely don't have all the necessary background knowledge and experience to understand these endeavors.

Reader and Task: This would be an enticing text to present in a book talk to students as a possible independent choice text for their summative assessment, especially my reluctant or struggling readers. The general simplicity and accessibility of the speech used in the novel will benefit students who may struggle with reading comprehension, and students will have not only illustrations, but also NASA's supplementary materials (audiobook on SoundCloud, online videos, QR-coded explanations, mobile app, etc.) to have a supportive, immersive reading experience. Students are increasingly interested in using technology to support their learning and make it more relevant, so motivation may increase when the interactive components of First Woman are introduced. Due to the simplicity of the text, students will be encouraged to show their engagement and understanding of First Woman through a more difficult task, such as creating or evaluating (the two highest on Bloom's Taxonomy scale). Students could write an analysis or review of one of the graphic novel's supplementary features, detailing the extent to which it did or didn't enhance their reading experience, or create some sort of multimodal advertisetment to get more people to invest in the NASA's Promise for Humanity graphic novel series. To complete these projects and have a thorough reading experience, however, students may need some support and independent research to activate some of the knowledge needed to understand the scientific components of Callie's story and the virtual "world" of First Woman, (although some of this information can be found through the interactive components of the graphic novel like the QR codes and mobile app). 

 

In terms of relatability and relevance, I would consider this text quite appealing and appropriate to promote to the students in my classroom. One of the major features of this story is that the protagonist, Callie Rodriguez, is the first woman of color to go to the moon, and while going to the moon is a quite rare experience, the journey that Callie took to get there will most likely resonate with and hopefully inspire many of my students. At the beginning of the novel, the authors address the discouragement that Callie feels when she tells her parents that her dream is to go to space, but "none of the astronauts look like us," but her parents are quick to remind her that "times have changed," and there are more opportunities than ever before for woman and people of color to work in the space industry (Gann et al. 9). As students continue reading or listening through Callie's journey, they see that through hard work and perseverance, she was able to make her dreams a reality and didn't have to lose any piece of her identity to do so. This inclusion and messaging align with several of the criteria listed in Teaching Tolerance's Tool for Selecting Diverse Texts, some of the major being the representation of diverse characters through their speech and illustrations, the authors' positive attitudes towards inclusion, the opportunity for students to see lives and experiences different from their own, and the connection the text has to students' interests and concerns. STEM is a field that is rising in popularity for many young people, so students may see themselves in young Callie and feel inspired by her journey to the moon. Other students who have ambitions for their future that are outside of STEM can also learn from Callie's story that dreams can come true, and while it may seem discouraging that people who look like you aren't always being represented, you can be the change you want to see. 

Culturally Relevant Texts

• 1. "Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel." YouTube, uploaded by FaberandFaber. 17 November 2020, (80) Long Way Down: The Graphic Novel - YouTube
• Summary: This book trailer-style video gives viewers a multimodal introduction to the graphic novel edition of Jason's Reynold's wildly popular YA novel Long Way Down. With moving images from the text in comination with Reynold's gripping voiceover of the story's first several pages, viewers are sure to want to pick up the graphic novel for themselves and see where the protagonsit Will's quest for revenge leads him. 

• 2. "A Guide to YA Comics." Fierce Reads. 13 July 2017, A Guide to YA Comics - Fierce Reads

Summary: A Guide to YA Comics is a "choose your adventure"-style flowchart that helps users determine which YA graphic novel to read next based on their interests and preferences. All users begin at the same starting point but are pointed in the direction of a personalized recommendation based on which of the two premises/descriptions sounds most intriguing to them as a reader. 

Quantitative Measure of Complexity: According to Storytoolz, the text blurps in this infographic are suitable for an average grade level of 5.8. This is well below the level of my students, and I agree that students in fifth grade and above could reasonably work their way through this infographic's text to receive a recommendation that is accurate to their reading interests. There are, however, genre-specific terms and references that would require some explanation or further background knowledge. Most importantly, though, is that users may struggle with the format of this infographic style more than the text itself, and the various lines and images may cause confusion or overwhelm them.

    

Qualitative Measure of Complexity: Using the CORE Informational Text rubric as a guide, I would rate this text moderately-very complex. It was a bit more difficult to pinpoint exactly where this text falls on the scale since while the language itself is conversational and simple in structure, the author also makes use of figurative language and irony to create a "playful" tone that, while I'm assuming is supposed to intrigue young readers, may end up causing confusion and challenge for them. For example, phrases like "Everything in the world is terrible- that's what makes great books,"Classroom and locker drama- those are my OTP," and "It's always great to read a book full of dystopic conformity" assume a level of genre-specific and pop culture language that not every adolescent student may have, and the knowledge demands may confuse students more than help them. 

    

The structure of this text is fairly inferential and sequential, as long as students have been exposed to flowcharts before or have a short lesson from their teacher how to navigate them. The lines are color-coded and connected to the text boxes for readers to follow as they make their choices, and there are images at the end of each line to represent the YA comic recommendation for the user. These images are the result of the text's purpose- to help readers find a YA comic that matches their reading interests- and therefore are essential to the text and the reader's understanding of the outcome. What seems initially like a fun, colorful, multimodal way to recommend a book becomes more complex when you break down the various intricacies of its text, structure, and knowledge demands. 

    Vocabulary to address: realism, marvels, OTP, virtual reality, dystopic conformity, catastrophes

Reader and Task: This text can serve as a supplementary tool for students when we reach the end of the unit and students are asked to independently read and analyze a graphic novel of their choice. Students can use this text as a guide as they begin to narrow down and select what graphic novel they will read. Not only can the flowchart help them find the exact novel they want to read, but it can also give them a direction to continue their search. For example, students may enjoy apocalyptic sci-fi novels but have already read the option(s) listed in the flowchart; they can now search somewhere like Goodreads for books similar to The Wrenchies. Students, regardless of how many graphic novels they have read, may be motivated to use this flowchart since it is a practical tool for their upcoming assignment, and can also have the luxury of referring back to it at any point in the future when they are feeling overwhelmed by the vast amount of YA graphic novels in print today. 

The flowchart provides 20 YA graphic novels for adolescent readers with various backgrounds and reading interests, making it a diverse tool that I believe my students will find helpful. The conventions of this style of text make it so users have a personalized, choice-based result by the time they are finished, though it is difficult to ensure that every student's interests or identities are going to be represented in at least one of the novel choices. I have only read one of the 20 recommended novels so I cannot speak to them as entire texts, but the inclusion of novels like Pashmina by Nidhi Chanani and American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang under the text blurb "Give me something diverse! My favorite books explore cultural identities" indicate that the creators are sensitive to the need for stories about diverse identities and experiences. Other topics explored, such as "classroom and locker room drama," "video games," "reading," "magic," and "superheroes" appeal to adolescent readers and will hopefully catch the attention of my students, who come into the room with a variety of experiences and interests.