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This was a source that provided how well english learners performed when reading traditional text and graphic novels. This is also the statistic I will use in my essay in supporting the use of graphic novels in the classroom

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Reading Comprehension through Graphic Novels: How Comic Books and Graphic Novels Can Help Language Learners – MinneTESOL Journal

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In order to find potential tools, scaffolds, and differentiation to be employed by English Language (EL) and content teachers alike, a small qualitative study was conducted that found that English learners (ELs) displayed better reading comprehension and increased memory retention of the chapter eve…

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- Graphic novels are entering college level courses already
- GN's develop language and critical thinking skills
- GN's are visual literature not written, so its a different way to learn
- Students reading the traditional and visual text of Beowulf separately scored similarly when tested (75% visual average, 81% traditional average)

This source gave me an understanding that even in high school at an AP level, graphic novels still show that performance levels can be similar. While reading he article it helped me realize that graphic novels could be even better because that experiment was done with no previous years of experience.

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Chicago Tribune

CHICAGO: In honors English class at Alan B. Shepard High School, sophomores are analyzing Truman Capote's In Cold Blood with the help of another book filled with drawings and dialogue that appears in bubbles above characters' heads.

Capote in Kansas is what generations of kids would recognize as a comic book, though it has a fancier name - a graphic novel.

That honors students at the Palos Heights, Ill., high school are using it illustrates how far the controversial comic-strip novels have come in gaining acceptance in the school curriculum, educators say.

Once aimed at helping struggling readers, English language learners and disabled students, graphic novels are moving into honors and college-level Advanced Placement classrooms and attracting students at all levels.

They're listed as reading material for students in the new "common core" standards being adopted across the country, even though some naysayers still question their value.

There's no data on precisely how many schools nationwide use graphic novels. But no one disputes that in other markets the popularity of the comic-style books - adapted to classic literature, biographies, science, math and other subjects - is on the rise.

Karen Gavigan, an assistant professor at the University of South Carolina who has focused her research on graphic novels, points out that their sales have increased by nearly 40 percent over the past 10 years. And public libraries have seen significant increases in circulation after adding such material.

"A whole range of kids just love these," Gavigan said.

Fans abound in English teacher Eric Kallenborn's sophomore honors class at Shepard.

"It perfectly complemented In Cold Blood," student Kyle Longfield, 16, said of Capote in Kansas. He believes the story helped him better understand Capote's groundbreaking book about two killers and their brutal murders in Kansas.

Gavigan said graphic novels help students develop language skills, reinforce vocabulary and develop critical-thinking skills, among other benefits.

The comic book-style format goes back decades or even centuries, depending on scholars' interpretations. In the 1970s, the term "graphic novel" emerged when Will Eisner's A Contract with God stories were published, Gavigan said.

"Then Maus won the Pulitzer, and I think that changed everything," she said. "I think that gave a lot of credibility to the format."

Daniel Argentar, a communication arts instructor at Adlai E. Stevenson High School in Lincolnshire, Ill., along with a colleague, introduced the graphic novel Maus to some struggling freshman readers about eight years ago.

"People thought we were crazy," Argentar said.

The Holocaust-related book won a special Pulitzer Prize award in 1992, the first graphic novel to do so.

At the time, many Stevenson students already had read Elie Wiesel's Holocaust book Night, so Argentar was looking for an alternative that would appeal to students more attuned to the visual. Some colleagues didn't think the comic-book format of Maus was rigorous enough, Argentar said, but students liked it.

A website he and his colleague created to help educators teach Maus still generates calls and emails from around the country, Argentar said.

"You're always going to have the traditionalists say comic books aren't real literature, and I guess to a certain extent they have a point," he said. "But my point is that it is different literature. It is visual literature, and I'd be failing my kids if I didn't train them for all the visual reading they do today."

Graphic novels moved further into the mainstream when states began adopting the new common core learning standards that guide schools on what students should learn. The standards refer to "texts" as the medium through which literature and reading skills are taught, and can include picture books used in kindergarten or the graphic novels available in high school.

That might surprise some parents who may not be familiar with graphic novels in the classroom or who may be wary of this modern twist on literature.

Jennifer Williams' son Larry Lesniak is in Kallenborn's honors course at Shepard. She admitted to being "a little opposed" when Larry and his younger brother began reading graphic novels.

She remembers reading classics by authors Edgar Allan Poe and John Steinbeck when she was a high school honors student. She also recalls not liking some of the material she had to read.

So if a graphic novel can hold her sons' interest, "I'm all for it," Williams said.

Whether districts will increase their use of graphic novels is unclear and likely will depend on a buy-in from teachers and curriculum officials, experts said.

Kallenborn has used graphic novels ranging from a version of Shakespeare's Hamlet to Maus and Ultimate Spider-Man.

He joined two other teachers recently in a presentation at a National Council of Teachers of English conference. Their discussion included Kallenborn's experiment with senior Advanced Placement and honors students who were studying the epic Old English poem Beowulf.

Half the students spent nearly six hours on average reading the full traditional text. The other half, who read a Beowulf graphic novel, spent about two hours.

Both groups took the same 25-question multiple-choice test. Students who read the traditional text scored 81 percent on average compared with 75 percent for those who read the graphic novel.

The teachers' presentation raised the question: Is the score difference worth the additional time spent by kids who read the traditional poem or "would that time be better spent doing other things?"

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Schools embrace graphic novels as learning tool

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Chicago Tribune CHICAGO: In honors English class at Alan B. Shepard High School, sophomores are analyzing Truman Capote's In Cold Blood with the help of another book filled with drawings and dialogue that appears in bubbles above characters' heads.

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- Teaching a lesson in math or science is time bound, while comics are not, meaning that student can look back at the information in comics where as in person they have to get it the first time.
- Psychoanalysts looked at comics in the past (like Superman) and said that it didn't incite imagination for the reader.
- Today's comics have evolved to teach students in ways normal prose novels can't
- Ex: In Maus 1 and 2, Art Spiegelman uses a lot of symbolism in his images. Images of depression and the road's that Vladek had to take, while the country was under Nazi control.

I really liked watching this video, especially from an author we had used in our curriculum. I felt that a lot of what was presented made sense. Comics in the past weren't meant to be mind opening to different concepts, but to just help the current reader basic reading skills. Gene's example of Superman, showed that many comics were of just good vs evil. However, there are more and more authors today that use the visual medium to make a product that has the reader think more than absorb and forget.

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How Comic Books Can Make Kids (and Adults) Smarter | Gene Luen Yang

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- Graphic novels do not use complex vocabulary as a challenge
- Graphic novels can slow the progress of literacy due to it being considered an "easy" option
- They can help push people with learning disabilities (like dyslexia) to finish a book and feel proud in what they could do and maybe make them want to continue reading.
- Statistic: Students between ages 12 - 17 that read graphic novels more often have shown to perform much higher on English tests than people who read regular books.

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- Graphic novels still tell the story, just use pictures in place of long text descriptions of the scene
- Graphic novels are more interesting due to pictures, however they are just a stepping stone for utilizing knowledge from more advanced pieces of literature.

This website I think I will use as a slight counter argument for why books are better than graphic novels in my essay. While the website was short, it felt like the content there could be applicable for main talking points throughout my paragraph. However nothing stuck out in terms of being cited.

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There are some myths about reading that tend to be perpetuated relentlessly. One of them: That graphic novels don't count as "real reading."

However, teachers and literacy experts disagree with this. Graphic novels will improve your child's reading skills like any other book would, and they are fantastic choices for reading outside of class.

Here are three reasons you should encourage your child to read graphic novels throughout the year:

1. Graphic novels are full of text. Sure, they have drawings, illustrations, and sometimes photos, but they also have text that readers must actually decode, analyze, and comprehend.

With graphic novels, kids still must follow plots and character development. They must understand cause and effect, and they must learn about perspective. All of these things will improve their reading comprehension.

2. Graphic novels are engaging. Often, especially for reluctant readers, graphic novels add the extra support kids need to help them through a text. The combination of text and pictures can be particularly captivating, providing context for stories that kids might not completely understand otherwise.

3. Graphic novels are high-quality reading material. Just like traditional novels, graphic novels have exciting and complex plots, characters, and conflicts. The plots have twists and turns. Characters are developed and dynamic. Conflicts are presented, unwound, and resolved like they are in other texts. The only difference is that graphic novels have more images to support the development.

Introduce the great graphic novels below to your reader and follow along! We promise that you'll be drawn in to these books also. You can discover graphic novels and much more at The Scholastic Store.

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3 Ways Graphic Novels Benefit Reading Skills

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There are some myths about reading that tend to be perpetuated relentlessly. One of them: That graphic novels don't count as "real reading." However, teachers and literacy experts disagree with this. Graphic novels will improve your child's reading skills like any other book would, and they are fantastic choices for reading outside of class.

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When reading side by side through each section, I felt that this book came a lot quicker to me than the traditional text. Each image, while mostly colorless, helped me understand scenes in the traditional text that I had trouble understanding

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ERIC ARTHUR BLAIR (1903-1950), better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist whose best-known works include the dystopian novel 1984 and the satirical novella Animal Farm. He is consistently ranked among the best English writers of the 20th century, and his writing has had a huge, lasting influence on contemporary culture. Several of his coined words have since entered the English language, and the word "Orwellian" is now used to describe totalitarian or authoritarian social practices.

FIDO NESTI, born in São Paulo, Brazil, is a self-taught artist who has worked in illustration and comics for more than twenty-five years. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Rolling Stone, Playboy, Runner's World, and Americas Quarterly, among other publications. He has also collaborated on illustrating various book covers for a range of publishing houses.

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One of the most influential books of the twentieth century gets the graphic treatment in this first-ever adaptation of George Orwell's 1984.War is Peace * Freedom is Slavery * Ignorance is Strength In 1984, London is a grim city in the totalitarian state of Oceania where Big Brother is always watching you and the Thought Police can practically read your mind.

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Let me just start off by saying this book felt like a bore to get through. There are these long pointless descriptions of each scene that just makes the book feel longer than it needs to be. Because of this it leads towards my motivation to side with graphic novels, and defend them with the sources I have found