5 Ways to Use Manga And Other Graphic Novels In The Classroom

A lot of us love to read cartoon strips, comic and manga, plus nowadays we can easily download them from the net or buy them in any bookstore. And guess what? Today teachers can utilize this genre in classroom teaching especially literature, as proposed by Adam Sexton, there are five fun ways to use them in the classroom.

1. Examine the relationship between words and images on any page of a manga or graphic novel.
a. What information is conveyed to the reader strictly by means of an image or images? (The ways in which characters and settings look, for example, and the things characters do in those settings: the story’s dramatic action)
b. What information is expressed strictly by means of words? (Characters’ speech and their thoughts – vs. their feelings, which we can often see in their facial expressions and body language)

2. Choose one scene from a manga or graphic novel adaptation of another work. (Recommended: the famous balcony scene from the Wiley title Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet: The Manga Edition and the text of the play it is based on.) Compare the original and the adaptation. Ask students what storytelling effects are best achieved by means of…
a. Words?
b. Pictures?
c. Words and pictures (manga/graphic novels)?
d. Motion pictures (film)?
…and why?

3. Ask students to think of three effects unique to the manga/graphic novels/comics.
(Examples: thought balloons, breaking the frame around an action-containing panel) Are there things that only books and movies can do?

4. Ask students to pick a short scene from a novel, short story, or play with which the class is familiar, and adapt it as a mini-manga. Students can pair up, with one student choosing the words to include (cutting from the text is not only allowed, it’s necessary!) and another drawing the pictures.

5. Screen a film (The Road to Perdition, Ghost World, The 300, Persepolis) adapted from a manga or graphic novel. What has been gained in the transition from one medium to another? Has anything been gained?

There you go, teachers, a new approach to literature teaching and learning. I’m sure kids love this, but I would like to remind you that viewer discretion is advised on all four films, and that you should carefully choose and adapt materials for this approach. Good luck!