Essay

Amanda Farrish
Ms. Hayden
ENG 3Cc
March 24, 2010
Cartoon Mentors
Through high school, students learn to read and interpret Shakespeare’s plays. They usually get a dose of it in grade nine but don’t start to delve in it until around grade ten. All over the expansive world and also in different languages, people can read and learn about Shakespeare’s famous plays; now there is an easier, shorter, more visual way to read Shakespearean plays. It is called a graphic novel.
Many people are ‘visual learners’. Visual learners use images, pictures, colour, and other visual media to help them self learn more easy and efficient. By using graphic novels people will get a more sense and visual recognition on what is happening throughout the play. Graphic novels encourage reading for entertainment and are an excellent way to get reluctant readers to understand and begin to get interested books. When reading just the original play text of Shakespeare many children don’t understand what is going on, but when reading graphic novels the children can look at the pictures with the dialogue. When doing this teachers can ask what the student’s think is going on and why and most of the time they can have an accurate answer because of the expression and scenes of the pictures. Teachers can also discuss words and vocabulary and how they are drawn because many graphic novels use different fonts and sizes for different characters, for emphasis, and for different situations. Using graphic novels will help the school population to learn easier because now they can connect with the characters on another level of understanding.
The major setback to teaching with graphic novels is that most graphic novels can never get the whole story point across. Trying to tell a whole Shakespearean play shortened down into a graphic novel is quite a feat, yet there have been very, very few that have accomplished it. Shakespeare uses many literary devices in his work, authors try to work them into their graphic novels but it has changed so much that it often leaves out the more important details to the play, which in turn may confuse the student who is trying to compare the original to the graphic. Graphic novels are a condensed version of the original with pictures in them, because they have to condense it, not all ‘old English’ words or sayings may be used. In doing this to help conserve the story line, graphic novels are taking out the learning experience of the real Shakespeare style. Everything comes down to money in the end. If schools are going to start teaching with graphic novels they will have need to pay for as much novels as they need but also keep it to the bare minimum to conserve as much money as they can, and not all schools can afford such changes and will end up keeping to the original versions.
To the question of if schools should start teaching grade 12 college level students Shakespearean plays through graphic novels the answer is yes; only if it works. Teaching with graphic novels should first be put on trial to see if student’s grades improve. There are many advantages teaching with graphic novels that will help students later in life with explaining what they see and what they interpret. Graphic novels are also easier to read for students because they can interpret the expressions of the characters faces and teachers can talk with them after reading an act or scene. Graphic novels should be taught in schools so that students have a choice to experience a learning method.