After 40-some years of reading comics, I think the impossible has happened: A state school superintendent in Maryland has become a vocal advocate for comics, according to yesterday’s Baltimore Sun.
The success of a supplemental reading program, fueled by comics, comic strips, and graphic novels, for third-graders conducted last year at a handful of elementary across spurred state school Superintendent Nancy S. Grasmick to expand the use of all three in middle schools. To that end, the state has worked Disney and Diamond to create kid-friendly kits for 200 classrooms.
Of course, there are traditionalists like the president of the International Reading Association who says, “I don’t think that is where I want my 9- or 10-year-old child spending their time in school.”
However, that comment — dripping with elitism — misses the larger issues, says Susan Sonnenschein, an associate professor of psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County who studied the use of comics in eight schools. “I wouldn’t want to replace books with comic books, but why is it either or?”
“We never said this program would supplant our regular basic reading program, but it could provide a huge motivation for some of our students,” says Grasmick, who has served Maryland longer than any other state-appointed official anywhere else in the United States.
BTW, the industry did have an “in.” Grasmick was a fan of Archie comics back in the day…
And, on the subject of comics and kids, my pal, the Junior Mad Scientist, tapped me on the shoulder about a graphic novel he read recently, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, that may be well worth your time, and your child’s…
May 4th, 2007 at 11:23 am
That is so great! I am really happy you published this entry… this made my day.
May 4th, 2007 at 11:36 am
I hope someone at Scholastic is sending her copies of Bone as we speak.
And someone at DC is sending her Watchmen, a Contact with God, and Seasons of Mist for the middle and high schoolers.
What would Marvel send her?
May 4th, 2007 at 2:40 pm
Most high schools would NOT be able to use any of the titles suggested, for too much mature content. Schools have to be conservative about materials – they already face challenges from many parents about the prose books that are required reading. And right now the Maryland program is only going to expand to middle schools. Even Ultimate Spider-Man is too much for some middle school students. I’m on several library listservs, and you wouldn’t believe the complaints public AND school libraries get from parents. I do agree that Bone is a great story to use, and Scholastic already has a teaching guide published for that. I would much rather see Kampung Boy by Lat, Buzzboy by John Gallagher, Runners by Sean Wang, and some other very cool, well-done indy comics being used in schools.
May 4th, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Is Classics Illustrated still around?
May 4th, 2007 at 4:56 pm
I am a researcher in language acquisition and literacy. I have been writing about and promoting comic books in school (and outside of school) for 20 years. I have an entire section about comic books in my book, The Power of Reading (now in its second edition), which includes the research, and have done some research on comic book reading. See for example the paper with Joanne Ujiie showing that middler schools who read comics read more, like reading more, and read more books than those who read comics less (on my website, sdkrashen.com). And I have presented the argument for comics to thousands of educators around the world in a number of presentations.
And here is my biggest claim to fame: I once had lunch with Stan Lee, and he paid. (It was amazing. Stan Lee is the real thing, completely dedicated to comics, the characters (he told me that his favorite character is the Silver Surfer), and very interested in helping children become more literate. He has certainly done his part.
At age 65, I’m still a dedicated comic book reader.
May 4th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
I noticed that if you click on my name, you get my website. Please don’t write me there. My e mail address is skrashen@yahoo.com. Thanks.
May 4th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Stephen, I use your book as a resource in my graphic novel workshops for libraries. I quote it a lot, it’s been very helpful to me.
As for the Classics Illustrated, there were several incarnations of the series; in addition to the original old comics I grew up reading, First Publishing had one series (a few of those are being reprinted by NBM); then there was a digest-sized series in the later 1990s. But there’s no currently-published Classics Illustrated series now. Several publishers have tried to do their own classics adaptations; the latest is Abrams – their Manga Shakespeare series just launched in the US with Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet this month. They will supposedly be releasing other classics adaptations soon. YKids, a Singapore-based publisher, has a series of classics adaptations aimed at elementary school readers, and Barrons has a series aimed at upper elementary/middle school readers. Simon & Schuster had released the Puffin Graphics line in 2005; so far the books have not sold very well, although some are quite well done. And Stone Arch has its Graphic Revolve line of classics adaptations for reluctant and struggling readers in upper elementary and middle schools (I’m one of the library consultants for some of the upcoming titles in this series).
May 5th, 2007 at 1:54 am
About classics: Rosen Publishing Company has a series, featuring biographies and special topics, aimed at school age children, but they are complex and probably better for adults who want a quick survey of topics such as Cortez’ invasion.
I have a footnote on classics comics in Power of Reading. Here it is:
Although classic comics are probably more acceptable to parents and teachers, there is evidence that they are not all that popular with children. Wayne (1954) asked 297 seventh-grade students to indicate which comic types they preferred; each student was asked to choose four from a list of 15. Classic comics ranked ninth out of 15. When are asked which comics they prefer, without a list to choose from, classic comics are never mentioned (for a review of these studies, see Witty and Sizemore 1954). Michael Dirda, in his reading autobiography, shares his enthusiasm for comic books, but tell us “I never really cottoned to the earnest and didactic ‘classic comics’ … Who would pick up something called The Cloister and the Hearth ….?” (Dirda, 2003, p. 56).
May 6th, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Comics is a fabulous resource of reading for young people as well as adults. Comics are not easy to read, and people must do a lot of inferring when reading comics. For me, it is a great source of political commentary, and I found this to be true even when I was a young person. So, hooray for comics. During free reading times in my classrooms, my former students read comics as well as magazines, and of course books as well. Comics provided an entree to read a books for many of my students.
May 23rd, 2007 at 11:59 am
There is truly huge potential for using comics and graphic novels in teaching English as a foreign language, especially at the elementary & intermediate level. Stephen Krashen has stressed that in his FOREIGN LANGUAGE EDUCATION. THE EASY WAY (1997, pp. 24, 44-46) — ‘comprehensible input’ that learners can learn to love. But my experience over many years teaching English as a lingua franca in Europe and Asia is that the ELF profession has not woken up to this. Even in Extensive Reading, with all its ‘graded readers.’
My Thai university students would really take to manga in English at an affordable price, nothing around. Not in the libraries, or the market. Or maybe Stone Arch comics, but at a lower readability level. In fact, all they read in Thai for pleasure is Thai comics. I’d like to see comics written in Special English (Voice of America, 1,500 core headwords) — a stripped-down plainer language most ELF learners, especially from working families, kids & adults, could enjoy and understand. Or comics in Ogden/Richards’ BASIC 850, a brilliantly simplified form of English for global communication (www.basic-english.org)that needs to be put back on the radar screen of ELF teaching.
THINK: comics for the ‘social majorities’ around the planet, in easy English, low cost. That’d be a great boon for literacy education in lingua franca English, and free reading, esp. in the Global South.