Now that the semester is completely over, final scores tallied and grades turned in, I can really reflect on my graphic narrative course from a proper perspective. But having already looked back these past two weeks on what I feel I did wrong and right, I thought the best way for me to measure my success as an educator and a comics advocate would be to look at the comments the students themselves made.
I know for sure I was successful in showing my students that there’s more to comics than capes and costumes. Students told me that the book reports really expanded their horizons. One woman who read Leave It to Chance has become a big fan of the book and is seeking out the hardcovers on her own. This same woman also listened with interest when one of the other students raved about how fantastic Torso was. That student was so enamored with Torso that he told me it was his favorite thing we read in class, going so far as to say, “you should read this story in your crime or history sections.”
There are other examples from the book reports too, such as the guy who read Y the Last Man and then made his other two friends in the class read it too. But what I think all these responses indicate is that these students really opened their minds and accepted that comics could do any number of different genres well, not just superheroes. More importantly, when they hit upon a story they liked, whatever genre it was in didn’t matter. It was all about how engaged they were in the story.
Of the books we read in class, the resounding favorite of most of my students was not a superhero book but instead the crime novel Road to Perdition. Perhaps it has something to do with the book being somewhat easy to follow; as one student wrote to me, “I liked the book because it kept me on my toes and I understood what was going on in the story. From the first chapter it was easy to read and very interesting.” This same student noted, as did others during our discussion of the book, that it was a real page-turner. It held their interest well, they said. They couldn’t put it down. All of these comments go to show that appealing to a person’s interests, no matter what those interests might be, is the clearest path to advocating comics.
This theory was also proven true in the fact that the comics we read that were the most about ideas and the least about story were also stories that really turned the students off. Of all the stories we read, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” was most often cited as the one they liked the least. One girl said it was boring and hard to follow. Another girl echoed these comments, adding that “if I can’t follow a plot, then I don’t want to be forced to read it.” One student obviously had a background in comics, since he suggested we read other Sandman stories, but as for this one he too felt it was a difficult read and that it just didn’t hold his interest.
In all of this, they revealed to me that they needed to be engaged and entertained just as much as they did educated and enlightened. Now I know for next year to pick another Sandman tale with a similar theme but more of a plot to go with it to make it more palatable to these newcomers to comics.
Still, there were stories we read that the students did not instantly warm to but which I think were still valuable. Even though half the class hated V for Vendetta, some of those who expressed their displeasure with it still acknowledged its depth. One woman said of the graphic novel, “V for Vendetta was confusing but interesting, hard to follow yet hard to put down. Love? Hate? I don’t know!” The same was true of the Doom Patrol tale “The Soul of a New Machine.” One girl even pointed out how strange it was that she liked the story the least when “I liked the discussion we had from this story the MOST.”
These comments show me that you can slip a little bit of the strange and “out there” (as this girl put it) into the classroom every now and then IF it fosters discussion. I mentioned a few weeks ago that I’ve felt recently that I threw too much at my students and didn’t have enough time to talk about some stories. One student expressed this very doubt in relation to “Cookalein,” stating that we hadn’t enough time in class to discuss its meaning in detail and she was left feeling the story had little value. This is a prime example that talking about the stories is important, because I’m sure, had we had more time to talk about it in class, the story would have been enjoyed more, or at the very least appreciated more.
Even when a story doesn’t interest everyone in the class, even when the class hates the story, that doesn’t make it invaluable as a tool for comics advocacy. Despite all those who disliked the book, I had one guy in the class tell me V for Vendetta was his favorite book we read, because he enjoyed the exploration of the philosophies within it. Another guy told me that Jar of Fools was not only his favorite thing we read in class but perhaps his favorite comic work ever because its symbolism displayed the subtleties of meaning possible in the genre.
So now that it’s all over, the lessons the class taught me as a comic advocate are multiple. I’ve learned to tailor selections I push on someone to that person’s interests JUST as much as I consider the work’s literary merit. I’ve learned that discussion is key, that unless you talk about what is read, works will fail to reach the reader that they might otherwise enjoy. It will definitely shape my future attempts at teaching this class AND advocating comics; maybe there’s something here you can draw from too.
