Dr. Andrew Bourelle, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Writing and Creative Writing, and 3rd year American Literary Studies PhD student, Lauren Perry each contributed chapters to Teaching Graphic Novels in the English Classroom: Pedagogical Possibilities of Multimodal Literacy Engagement published by Palgrave Macmillan. Palgrave Macmillan describes this collection as highlighting “the diverse ways comics and graphic novels are used in English and literature classrooms, whether to develop critical thinking or writing skills, paired with a more traditional text, or as literature in their own right.”
In his chapter, titled, “Not Just Novels: The Pedagogical Possibilities of the Graphic Narrative” Dr. Bourelle argues that when instructors teach comic books/graphic novels in English classes they should also include graphic narratives, which he defines as short, stand-alone comic stories. When people think of comics, they either picture serialized ongoing stories, such as comic books, or they think of book-length graphic novels. However, there are many compelling forms of graphic stories that are often overlooked. Bourelle asserts that the short, stand-alone graphic narratives are to graphic novels what short stories are to fiction novels. Today, Students learning about fiction read both stories and novels. In the same way, Bourelle argues that students learning about comics and graphic novels should read both short graphic narratives and longer graphic novels.
Lauren Perry’s chapter, entitled, “Teaching the History and Theory of American Comics: 20th-Century Graphic Novels as a Complex Literary Genre” details methodology for teaching a 20th century American comics class that highlights comics history as well as theoretical and complex analysis of graphic novels as a medium.
