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Kim Nguyen
Mrs. Weber
Advance English ¾ (5)
April 26, 2014
Simple Joys Underestimated
Many people do not view graphic novels as a necessity in high school. They take it for what it is-“a combination of printed words and pictures used to tell a story or convey a message” (Teaching With Graphic Novels)- and often do not consider the many uses graphic novels has to offer. Graphic novels may not present literary challenges like regular novels but they provide more information on the visual scale.
Many consider graphic novels comparable to little kids’ comic books and it is very true that they are similar in how they both contribute plenty of illustrations, however, graphic novels aren’t specifically made for children. Just like how literary books have different comprehension levels for all ages, graphic novels offer a variety of reading levels similar to literary ones. Through the artistic variety and detailed imagery, graphic novels convey strong, obvious messages to readers that exceeds what words can only describe. Graphic novels can assist in many difficult concepts in classrooms that teachers, or even books, just cannot provide an explanation for. For example, in
Stassen’s Deogratias A Tale of Rwanda, it presents the notion of how the people of
Rwanda suffers from many diseases, particularly poisonous ones and shows explicit details of the harsh conditions that the people there have to deal with. Whereas in

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books, it can only give you a visualization based on what you imagine. Tough subjects can also be handled in a “user-friendly” way. In Deogratias A Tale of Rwanda, there is a lot of violence and sex throughout it but the images helps clear up misconceptions that might be hard to figure out in the literary text. They also convey different messages by using a visual medium. Some might say that creativity is lost in these novels but that’s a false assumption. Different graphic novels has its own artistic ingenuity that varies depending on the artist’s talent. The arts in these books can inspire young minds to become more imaginative and originative.
When presented in a classroom, these novels usually stimulates excitement in students. Or at least, this is what happened in Mrs.Weber’s period five class when it was granted the opportunity to read the unique genre. It was really pleasant to change things up a bit and experience a story in a totally different way. If students are more interested, then they will be more attentive in the novel. This will result in the students absorbing more of the information and remembering it for a longer period of time because they might find it more intriguing. These novels are extremely fast-pacing so a student could read greater amounts of these books and gain more information. It does not waste a person’s time in