Fifty years ago, comic books were blamed for the decline of literacy among American youth. They were also blamed for a corresponding rise in juvenile delinquency and teenaged promiscuity. Now, in the wake of Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus, comic books are being taught in schools: Maryland has just become the first state in the nation to institute a statewide comics curriculum.

Pilot programs are underway in some parts of Maryland. Fifth-graders at an elementary school in Harford County, northeast of Baltimore, are reading a comic book featuring Donald Duck and another about women in science. High school students in Carroll County are creating cartoons in art class and studying "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns" for an English course in mythology.

Several more Maryland counties will begin using the comic book-based curriculum in the spring, though officials have not determined which books it will use. The rest of the state's school districts will introduce the curriculum at the start of the next school year.

Officials said the project will target students from kindergarten to high school, including children who speak limited English.

"You see kids reading comic books, buying comic books, and they seem totally engrossed," State Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick said. "It looks like there's really some potential here." She said comic books are not meant to replace traditional reading materials but rather to be used as a supplement.

[...]

Many [comics] have moved beyond stories about superheroes. There are comic books on everything from the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to growing up with an epileptic sibling. In recent years, a surge has occurred in the popularity of manga, Japanese comic books that frequently have dark or apocalyptic themes.

But such scholars as [Charles Hatfield, who teaches a course on comics as literature at California State University at Northridge] are skeptical about the genre's value as a teaching tool.

"I think that comics can be a very strong lure for certain kinds of so-called reluctant readers," he said. "There's visual fascination to break up the experience of just reading lines of text. That's what many people like about comics, and that's what many educators dislike about comics."

To Hatfield, the skills needed to read comics are not the same ones needed to read traditional books. Reading comics requires an ability to piece together fragmented stories and a high tolerance for distraction, as words and pictures compete for attention, he said.

No studies have been done to measure the effect that reading comic books has on student achievement, said John T. Guthrie, a professor at the University of Maryland and director of the school's Literacy Research Center.

[...]

State officials said they are working with the University of Maryland Baltimore County to evaluate the quality of the comic book curriculum. But Guthrie said the only proven way to improve students' reading skills is to make them read lots of text -- which is often diluted in comic books.

"We want it to be legitimate," Grasmick said. "We definitely want to guarantee the quality of anything that is done."

Kids today already know how to process fragmentation; they are expert at drawing connections between visual and verbal cues; they are, in a way, always already primed to grasp the particular caption-oriented, shorthanded, highly visual form of the comic; their rapidfire popular culture ensures this. What kids need help with is developing the kinds of concentration, attention, and retention necessary for them to be able to read works of complexity and/or length--novels and poems, not to mention nonfiction essays and books. This need in turn is not even about, or not only about, aesthetics; it's not about shaping kids' taste or about laying the foundation for a life of literary pleasure--or if it is, it is only secondarily so. Mainly, it's about making sure kids get the analytical and reasoning skills they need, and that they begin learning those skills at an appropriate age. There are things you learn to do mentally when you read a long novel alone in several sittings; or when you puzzle over a poem to grasp its metaphors, its meter, and the way the form and content necessitate one another. Those things are subtle, but they are very real. They are also highly transferable. I'm just not convinced that comic books are good material for teachers who want to ensure that their students acquire more than the most elementary reading skills.

A hypothetical: You are a fifth-grade teacher, commissioned to get a group of disengaged, aliterary ten-year-olds interested in books (or at least in a book). You are determined to do so without resorting to comics. What story, or novel, or poem, do you assign? And how do you teach it?

Link via Bookslut.

I think it's a good move, as long as the balance is on the side of getting kids to read as opposed to getting them to read comics. Sunday schools have been using "illustrated Bibles" for quite a long time now to engross students more immediately in the story. I'd prefer it if it were a marginal adoption approach though -- ie, comicizations of established novels, rather than outright reading comics.
There's plenty of debate over the merits of different comics, and I can't see teaching them as appropriate in this time-- There's frequently not enough distance to tell the truly great from the merely good.

"Kids today already know how to process fragmentation; they are expert at drawing connections between visual and verbal cues"

I don't think so. Kids might think they already know how to process primarily visual information, but the close reading skills we value in literary studies still need to be taught. I recently sat in on a university course where one of the texts was a graphic novel. I pointed out some subtle visual cues that occur early in the novel, and none of the students had noticed them. We are inundated with visual information; teaching students to think critically about this information is crucial.

For aliterate 10-year-olds, I would assign a modern translation of Beowulf. I would also point them to contemporary adaptations (e.g. Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead and John McTiernan's The 13th Warrior), and discuss with them the ways in which subsequent generations rework centuries-old literary productions to make them fit contemporary needs. Most scholars agree that the text we have titled Beowulf was itself an adaptation in one medium (writing) of a work intended to be shared in another (speech). Thus, the text is certainly relevant to an age where digital technologies threaten to render obsolete the pleasures of paper and ink.

At the risk of sounding essentialist, I think many young boys would dig the battle scenes and the heroic feats typical of epics. For young girls, I would point out the important role that female characters play in the epic; for example, the celebratory feasts feature women who make important proclamations, and Beowulf's battle with Grendel's mother is much more difficult than his battle with Grendel.

Just my two cents.

Totally off hand, I'd say the "comic book" model is another result of the attraction to snake oil.

"I'm just not convinced that comic books are good material for teachers who want to ensure that their students acquire more than the most elementary reading skills"

On the contrary, comic readers tend to develop a more sophisticated vocabulary at an earlier age. But to answer your question about books to make 10-year olds interested in books, I'd suggest Tolkien's The Hobbit.

I have an eight-year old son and a six-year old son that love Greek mythology. I have a large library of books on the subject. My oldest child read through a children's version of the Odyssey and quickly asked to read more versions. I am sure 10-year olds could handle The Children's Homer.

I home school my two sons. Neither of my children, have much interest in "picture books". I have read aloud what I consider good books to them for years (old-fashioned fiction like the "Moffetts" and "The Hobbit") and have restricted their tv time.

I am always amazed at the junk that passes for children's literature these days.

My feeling has always been, "garbage in, garbage out." I don't think presenting 10 year olds with comic books is a way to prepare them for the real world. I guess they can always get a job at ComicWOrld...

BTW, they can always read comic books on their own - I don't think there is a restriction on the reading of comic books in most homes.

Why is it either/or? Comics, like it or not, are an important branch of American and world literature. I don't see a problem with teaching them from that standpoint.

What troubles me is the determination of schools to co-opt a traditional children's leisure activity and turn it into yet another regulated reading experience. Some teachers (not all, of course) have a positive gift for sucking all the joy out of reading itself, and they do it with every book they teach. One of the joys of comics has always been their outsider status.

Still, I think I've read that women in science comic. It's far more informative than most textbooks. One thing comics do teach is how to integrate words and pictures in a logical fashion, and to use conventions developed for that purpose. Today's textbook makers seem to believe in textual nonsense presented in visual chaos.

"There are things you learn to do mentally when you read a long novel alone in several sittings...." Oh, absolutely. I started reading "chapter books" to my daughter when she was four, taking my inspiration from Dick Estelle, the Radio Reader. The first one was The Hobbit and the second was The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It's the second that caused her strong desire to learn to read for herself. She wouldn't let me stop after a chapter but sometimes I would have to stop reading because my voice cut out. I still remember her saying, "Oh, no, Mommy! I have to find out what happened to Edmund and the White Witch!" and taking the book from me to try to force meaning from the words. I thought it was very good for her to have to remember the story line from day to day. I also stopped frequently and asked her to flesh out a scene that the books described briefly, or tell me what she thought would happen next.

Anyway, at seventeen, and having scored very high on the language portions of the SAT and ACT, she likes to relax with Dragon Knights which is a series of graphic novels. I totally agree with Maureen, that kids need something they do for fun without the teachers horning in.

Nick's Mama reminded me of another book that definitely would excite a ten-year old -- Edith Hamilton's _Mythology_. Having thought about it some more this morning, I'd also be optimistic about _Alice in Wonderland_ and _The Little Prince_.

As a lover of both literary fiction and comic books, I'd have to say that each serves a different need. Encouraging kids to read comic books will encourage them to read comic books, not to read books. I know plenty of people who buy fifty bucks worth of comic books a week and will also tell you that the last actual book they read was The Red Badge of Courage for freshman lit.

Well, I know of sophomore level college English classes that teach comic books. Oh, excuse me -- graphic novels.

I read comic books for fun, too. But I question their appropriateness as literature, particularly in the college classroom.

This is just more of the bullshit that comes out of education programs insisting that we not teach anything that the students might find alienating or different (save multicultural works, of course).

What could be less alienating than comic books? Hell, while we're at it, we might as well teach the films of Keanu Reeves. Oh, wait -- UCLA already offers such a course.

Of course, another plus in teaching comic books is that your average comic book writer is just as politically left as your average English teacher (see Conservative English Major, 11/2/04), you can be sure students will get the proper political cues, too. Did you all know that in the world of Superman, Lex Luthor stole the 2000 election from Al Gore? Nice, heavy-handed leftism.

Many of these points remind me of the old line about the guy who subscribes to Playboy "for the articles." What students read does matter. Webster's defines literature as "writings having excellence of form or expression and expressing ideas of permanent or universal interest." Does anyone really believe that comic books fall within that definition? Time spent with Batman and the Fantastic Four is time not spent with Huckleberry Finn or Ethan Frome.

Yeah, it should take a long time learning to integrate pictures with words, especially if you can't tell that when people speak, words come out.

Many comics are of high literary value. "The Dark Night Returns" for example, is not just a dark Batman tale. But most critics of it have yet to actually sit down and do a close reading. "Watchman" by Alan Moore is a great tale that requires knowledge of both comic book history and the Greek and Latin classics (as well as 1960s American Cold War rhetoric). "Maus" is a tale dealing with the holocaust in a way that emphasizes its horror while, paradoxically, making it more palatable. Plus, its shifting narratives and points of view within points of view are more sophisticated than most highbrow fiction could ever hope to aspire to.

Comics have advanced vocabularies (as Mark Evanier said, you can always tell which kids read comics: they are the only ones who know what invulnerable means) and are heavily allusive. Teaching kids to recognize allusion (not just references, but genuine allusion) is hard, but comics can do the job well. I could go on for twenty pages.

I think everyone should read Scott McCloud's "Understanding Comics" and Wil Eisner's "Comics and Sequential Art" before being allowed to say comics aren't worthy of study.

Admittedly, a large portion of comic books are useless - we could say the same for a large portion of the print fiction available today as well.

Most of the posters (and Erin as well, sorry) are engaging in straw man arguments - attacking the weakest members of the genre and ignoring the stronger members. Basically, y'all are (in essence) condeming all of fiction because Harlequin romances aren't (as a whole) the most literate books on the market.

There is nothing inherently wrong with comic books, and John Phelan argues this well, in my opinion. But the idea that the State of Maryland would find the comic book tactic which actually works for whatever the State wants it to do is dubious, if not c......, itself.

Anecdotally, I mentioned the idea to my 25 year old daughter. With the speed of light she responded, "Whats wrong with books?", which the State seems to have not considered as the problem, their books, if it is really a book problem they are even facing, comic books not being "books", in my use here.

I still say the State needs some Croton Oil to cure their addiction to Snake Oil, if the cure is even possible. Hey, let's try some comic books.

I've been a big comicbook fan my whole life. I credit reading Marvel at a young age for my fairly large vocabulary. (I won a spelling bee in 6th grade, too, b/c I spelled "grotesque" correctly -- it was the adjective used to describe a Hulk villain!)

I wrote a fairly large post about why I love comics some time ago. Check it out here.

I think both books and comic books should be taught. The problem is society still thinks of comics as aimed at the elmentary school market, even though the average age of a comic reader today is 24 or 25.

It's not an either/or thing (as said above).

"'Whats [sic] wrong with books?'"

Nothing's wrong with books, as the article clearly explains: "She [State Superintendent of Schools Nancy S. Grasmick] said comic books are not meant to replace traditional reading materials but rather to be used as a supplement."

I agree with John Phelan that most people probably have no idea what the comics industry is currently publishing.

Have a look at the work of Neil Gaiman, particularly his Sandman comics/graphic novels.

These are highly sophisticated books, aimed at adult readers, which draw on influences ranging from Norse and Greek mythology to Shakespeare and the Bible and a host of *literature* in between.

Neil Gaiman's work generally offers an example of *excellence*, whatever form he may present it in.

(Before being introduced to these, I was dismissive of comics too...)

Literature I might dangle in front of fifth-graders: 'Love That Dog', by Sharon Creech; 'Homeward Bound', by Diana Wynne Jones; Roald Dahl's 'Boy'; Benjamin Zephaniah's poetry; 'Holes' by Louis Sachar. Check 'em out. They're worth reading, however old you are.

And I'd read to them, in chunks, with nice juicy cliffhangers, or play them tapes or CDs - especially of Zephaniah, whose work I don't think I could do justice to, after seeing him. Questions: what do you think happens next? Why? Discussion - should he have done that? Can we follow the leads (all the other poems mentioned in Love That Dog)? Do we agree with the main character's assessment of...? Could we have a go at doing some writing like this?

But mainly: isn't this fantastically enjoyable, that we can sit together (or read on our own) and be sucked into a different and magical world...

The only reason that this news bothers me is that comics follow Sturgeon's Law with a vengeance: "Ninety percent of everything is crap." I would dearly love to teach a comics course, but not at a literature class; more as a hybrid art and art of storytelling class. I can name a great number of excellent pieces of comics art but, alas, most of them have already been mentioned. (Neil Gaiman, in particular, is an expert of the comics medium, using the intersection of words and pictures to create stories that you truly have to read between the lines to understand.) There are so comparatively few quality graphic novels (as opposed to books) that you encounter the crap quickly.

What makes this even worse is that this is aimed at improving literacy skills among those students who don't like to read, and most of the high-quality comics out there are aimed at adults. Not that they're pornographic, or even excessively violent, but that their subject matter is entirely uninteresting to the very group that this is supposedly aimed at, which means that they are likely to turn to superhero comics. I defy most teenagers, for example, to gain a great deal of sense from Mr. Punch, a dark rumination on childhood with so much subtext that the surface story isn't the real story at all. (I except geeks from this, since they're the ones who seek this sort of thing out. Hooray for geeks.)

Anyway, if you give it a decade or two, there might be a superfluity of material to draw from, but right now it's a bit thin to sustain a teaching practice.

Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics, Reinventing Comics
Neil Gaiman, Sandman (particularly the later books when he could do what he liked), Murder Mysteries, Books of Magic (first one)
Alan Moore, Watchmen
eh, I'd have to have the books in front of me to continue, but there's not a ton right at the moment. 'tis a sad thing.

And as for teaching ten-year-olds, I guess it would depend on what they've displayed interest in. Terry Pratchett would be fun, though, especially if you tied it into "how would you adapt this for the stage?" or somethings.

"comic books are not meant to replace traditional reading materials but rather to be used as a supplement" ghw

You have been reading too many comic books, thinking the impossible exists. Is the school day going to be extended?

More Snake Oil, please.

I read exactly one comic book a month: Powers, written by Brian Michael Bendis and illustrated by Michael Avon Oeming.

"You have been reading too many comic books, thinking the impossible exists."

Interestingly, that is exactly what critics of the novel said in England during the first generations of its existence. It is also the criticism that Puritans leveled against the stage from the Renaissance through the eighteenth century. Plus ca change...

I seriously doubt that the time it takes to read comic books is going to crowd other materials out of the curriculum, but the fact of the matter is that without more information none of us knows the total picture of what is (or is not) being taught.

I think graphic novels and comics could make an interesting addition to literary studies. We already teach poetry and drama in addition to prose literature- comics are just one more genre to study and learn from. They are no more "fragmentary" than reading stage drama that was meant to be performed.

Don't make the mistake of writing off comics as pure fluff- many do have real value. John Phelan's post makes this point well, and I concur that it is similar to judging all of prose fiction based on Harlequin romance.

If nothing else, classic comics are an indelible piece of Americana and are also valuable as art.

Some of Erin's comments smack of a bit of the elitism that seems to pervade English studies (based on her previous posts this doesn't seem to be a common habit of hers). The accepted canon of literature that gets taught in high schools is badly in need of overhaul. It seems that many teachers make several unfair assumptions about what makes literature "literature":
1)If it was written in 19th century England, it's automatically good.

2)If it is dull and impenetrable, it must be "deep" and therefore good.

3)If it contains any action whatsoever, it must be bad.

3.5)Even if there isn't any action, if the students enjoy it it must be bad.

4)If it's about racism it's automatically good.

5)Forcing students to read books that they don't like will make them lifelong readers and improve their literary skills.

These are a little tongue in cheek but my point is that it seems high school teachers often make the mistake of sticking so heavily to the accepted body of "stuff you read in high school" that they miss the value of more popular literature. The best English class I ever took covered the works of J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. I would consider these to be deeoer and more valuable than utterly dull and predictable works like "Great Expectations", "The Scarlet Letter", "Ethan Frome", and that most horribly overused work, "A Separate Peace". Yet most high school teachers dismiss writers like Tolkien and Lewis offhand as below the title of "literature" (apparently forgetting that Shakespeare and Dickens were once "popular literature"). This is a shame.

The best way to get students to appreciate literature is to show them that "literature" doesn't have to mean boring and hard to read books. We can't teach an appreciation for literature by assigning books that students won't read or will read quickly just to get through.

With that in mind, some of the better, deeper comics would add a lot of flavor to otherwise bland English classes.

Teach 10 year olds The Hobbit, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Beowulf- all excellent, and all meaningful.

I was a manic comics consumer when I was young. I don't think I read anything but comics until I was in my mid-teens. Yet, somehow I've managed to muddle through and become the person I am today. On the way, I read Melville, Pynchon and Shakespeare, got a degree in chemistry (with honors, ahem!), found a great job, and bought a house. Law school might be next. And I'm not even half way through my 30s. Please exlain how reading comic books let me down?

Does anyone know of a catalog where "graphic novels" can be ordered? I need to order them for our schools, and I can't seem to find a place to order them for first through 6th graders. Thanks for your help...email: ssuebell@yahoo.com