ResearchDocument

RESEARCH DOCUMENT
Sheiley Hong Xu, a professor in the department of teacher education
at the California State University in Long Beach is a strongly feelts they
help build complex reading skills. Bridging literacies is something that
has been tried to be achieved for educational purposes. Using them
has resulted in motivating students to learn, enhanced students’learning
and even provided more opportunities for those who struggle with
literacy tasks.
There are many graphic novels that have been used in classrooms to
teach not only about a genre but about life values and the history of
the world. A great example would be Persepolis, which is a popular
novel, which acts as a memoir of a girl growing up during the Islamic
revolution in Iran. The book brought about awareness related to
prevailing islamic stereotypes and also brought about fair thinking and
choices.
Other books worth mentioning that have found their way onto school
bookshelves would be Maus and American Born Chinese.
Persepolis Graphic Novel
Front Cover
Adding on the development of reading skills, the need to understand
and learn a new language comes out of reading them too. Manga
(a type of japanese comic), has gained popularity over the years
amongst young children, making them want to learn the language
itself so they can continue reading upcoming comics and issues of a
series rather than wait for them to be translated into the appropriate
language.
Looking at an in depth view of their importance to teach grammar
related issues, students who have difficulty with visualizing while
reading a book, such types of books have been proven to provide a
graphic sense that approximates what good readers do as they read.
According to Rachael Sawyer Perkins, a teacher at en elementary
school in California. She goes on to say cartoons are an effective
way to teach outlining skills and also shows children how every panel
represents a paragraph of the book. To quote her, “the narrative text
at the top became the topic sentence of sorts, communicating the
main idea of the paragraph. The details were found in the visuals of
the dialogue.”
Graphic Novels has become a new pillar and foundation in educating
children and others today effectively. I have tried using cleverly designed
and illustrated artwork along with monologues and dialogues,
to produce a graphic novel that aids the campaign ‘Health Grenade’. It
could have the potential to reach a large number of kids and even be
incorporated in schools to promote healthy eating.
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