Blog Post #4

      In discussing the topic of graphic novels, I find that people are often introduced to them at an early age because it helps them see the settings that characters are in without having to explain it through the text. Growing up I noticed that my classmates would often read Calvin and Hobbs but It didn't interest me because I found that visualizing the characters and their surroundings myself was one of the best parts about reading. I did however often read the comics in the newspaper every morning with my dad, it was a good way for us to hangout and gave us something to talk about and relate to our everyday lives. I just recently became more engulf in the world of graphic novels because of a college class I recently took. I think the class was called "World View Through Children's Lit" and this class allowed me to read literature from different cultures and allowed me to see their cultural settings that I wouldn't previously be able to visualize myself. Having more insight into the world of graphic novels I find them to be very helpful in the development of students imagination.
       Graphic novels would be useful for the secondary English language arts classroom because it encourages the students to read more diverse books that they wouldn't of previously read. Having pictures to help the students in their process of visualizing the characters and their surroundings would make information more memorable because they have something to picture in their head when they think about it. Non-fiction seems to be a difficult genre for students to grasp because it often doesn't have an interesting story line to it. For instance, if the students had a graphic novel about frogs with colorful pictures for the students to see they would be more apt to remember the information. I find this idea to be true for all ages, even as young adults in college we often having pictures with the PowerPoints that Professors use during lectures because it "puts at face" to the information we are learning and allows us to better store the information for later use.