Literacy Expert Stephen Krashen: " For Me It Was Comic Books"

Click here to listen to USC professor, literacy expert, and, oddly, current rabble-rouser Stephen Krashen talk about language acquisition , pleasure reading (or narrow reading), and academic discourse. Right before the 21 minute mark, he begins talking about his love for comics and respect for their importance in his own literacy development:

"For me... it was comic books, and I gotta confess, it's still comic books.... Batman, Superman....What a wonderful foundation that gave us for higher levels of literacy, and we treated it as literature...."

He then talks about having Stan Lee taking him to lunch -- and paying! :)

Continuing on, he says, "I've never gotten over comic books. There's nothing like a new graphic novel."

His basic thesis is that language acquisition, especially academic language acquisition, is best facilitated by lots of reading in the forms and genres that you love best.

Krashen's synthesis on many studies and writings on comics and reading in The Power of Reading should be among the first things comics-and-literacy scholars read, in my opinion.

Monnin Talks to InsideHigherEd.com about Comics and Literacy

Click the link embedded in this post's title to hear my friend and colleague Katie Monnin, a professor at the University of North Florida, speak on comics and education. InsideHigherEd is a website that explores issues of working and teaching in academe and also hosts job positions announcements, so you can bet it gets some good traffic. So, Katie's words should reach a large audience of hopefully receptive ears and may be the first words some visitors will have heard regarding the connections between comics and learning.

George R.R. Martin Talk Comics and Reading Circa 1981

Another story of an accomplished adult who learned to read through comics! Hotcha!!

PBS's TV Program *Need to Know* Talks Literacy/Reading Strategies

Watch the full episode. See more Need To Know.

Feb 12,19, 2011: "Black Comic Book Day"

From the Press Release:

Saturday, February 12, bookstores in Chicago, Atlanta and Detroit will host Black Comic Book Day to celebrate and make more widely available the work of African-American comic book writers and artists. In Chicago, four racks permanently dedicated to African-American comics have been placed at venues around the city, including one in the DuSable Museum. New York holds its Black Comic Book Day on February 19, at the Hue-Man Bookstore and Café in Harlem.

While these inaugural events are being held during Black History month, the display racks are permanent, dedicated additions to the stock offered by the hosting bookstores.

Black Comic Book Day is the brainchild of artists/writers Turtel Onli, father of “The Black Age” comic art movement, and Jerry Craft, creator of the award-winning Mama’s Boyz comic strip, distributed by King Features Syndicate since 1995. The idea developed as the duo brainstormed ideas to promote their work along with that of the many other talented artists and writers in the African-American community.

Onli and Craft believe that these events will have many benefits, such as encouraging reading and providing heroes for young readers to emulate from the African-American community.
“The only reason I, and most of my friends, read regularly was because of comic books,” Craft said. “I still remember the excitement of running to the corner store and seeing the new issue of Spider-Man waiting for me. Reading comics helped build our vocabularies.

The bold is mine, but here's another testimonial to the power of comics in literacy. For more information about events, click here. There are some pretty major names involved!

The Vancouver Sun Reports that Bill Vander Zalm Learned to Read Through Comics

From the article, which also mentions Michael Bitz:

Archie, Donald Duck and Superman opened the doors to a language and a culture the young boy, who emigrated from the Netherlands after the Second World War, knew nothing about.

“Comic books were a way of escaping into another world, like TV,” said Vander Zalm.

“They helped me learn to communicate and to make friends. Those were big things.”

Vander Zalm is a former premier in Canada.

Article on Reading Comics Aloud to Your Kids

Before my son was old enough to enjoy words and pictures, I always though it would be a little cheesy to read comics aloud to a group of students, but now that I routinely take on the voices of however many characters are in a panel of Brave and the Bold or Calvin and Hobbes, I'm not as opposed to the idea as I used to be. Indeed, I think it helps build literacy skills in beginnning and emergent readers by priming some interpretative and illustrative work in the wee ones' brians.

Peter Gutierrez has some reasons why it's a good idea over at Dr. Rick's Blog. Apparently this is the first article in a series Peter will be writing, so check in often.

(thanks to RM for drawing my attention to this story).

School Library Journal Article Tackles Ways to Make Libraries More Boy-Friendly

Another article mentioning comics as a means of getting boys interested in reading and hanging out in places full of books.

It's interesting to note that there is a "boy crisis" in terms of literacy and libraries that some feel comics can help resolve, whereas in the industry, especially in the comics shop, there is a "girl crisis" regarding how to get female readers to feel comfortable in places full of comic books.

An analysis of the two arguments and their nuances would be highly intriguing and enlightening, in my opinion. That'd make one hell of a thesis or dissertation or article or book.

Partly so, I think, because there would be evidence to suggest "it really has come to this," i.e. the gender perceptions are that high-brow reading and places that support literacy have become girly and female-centric and places considered, even if wrongly, to be bastions of low brow reading have become equated with boys or an adolescent version of masculinity.

What are the ramifications for such gender-intwined notions of reading and literature and literacy?

The Beat Posts on Boys and Literacy

Got quotes and everything. Neat article exploring gender, gendered readings, boys, literacy, and how comics should/shouldn't fit in with those constructd.

This Week's NCTE Inbox Mentions Article on Manga Quoting Peter Gutierrez

The article is from the AARP Bulletin and is entitled "Drawn Into Manga." Peter holds court pretty well.

What was I just saying?

"The battle has been won" proclaims The Beat regarding this article from The Telegraph where a researcher extols the virtues of kids learning from comics. My thoughts? Well, read a couple of posts below this one for my take on those who say the battle has been won.

"And if you really consider how the pictures and words work together to tell a story, you can make the case that comics are just as complex as any other kind of literature," says University of Illinois researcher Carol Tilley.

Why The Beat suggests people will listen to her over the scores of previous and current other researchers, I don't know. I wouldn't be opposed to it happening, though! :)

Click this post's title for more of Dr. Tilley's findings.

Trial-And-Error Seems to Boost Learning

From the ASCD daily e-mail newsletter:

Students learn more effectively through trial and error in answering questions about challenging material, according to researchers who found that getting answers wrong actually helps learning. Their research revealed that students perform better if they try to answer questions about a textbook passage before reading it. For example, students should try to answer questions before reading a textbook chapter, then read the chapter and answer them again during and after reading.

Literacy experts among us will think of pre-reading, post-reading, and during-reading strategies and research on grammar and writing when they read this. I find support for how I do my classes, which often have "do it and let's see how you do; then we'll offer commentary and let you go from there" sort of tasks and assessments.