Allowing Students to Create Graphic Narratives - When & How?

Prior to this week, my only experience with storyboards was in watching the bonus sections of Pixar DVDs as animators pitched story ideas or explained deleted or rejected scenes. I was mesmerized by the way these still pictures were brought to life by the people who are telling story and how the full range of emotion can be conveyed through these images.

I had a lot of fun creating my own storyboard for this week's bulletin board post and in reading through the others on the board. Many of the stories were touching, funny, and familiar - and I was really impressed with how many of us were able to use pre-made characters with pre-set expressions to create stories with a personal feel. I was impressed with the storyboards that used actual pictures as well - those storyboards had a completely different feel from the others that surprised me. And while both of the digitally generated storyboards looked great and were very impressive, I had a great time drawing mine by hand. I really enjoy using stick figures because of how much they leave open to interpretation - yet, somehow, they are also so expressive. All in all, I think this is an experience that many students would enjoy as well.

And in class today, we discussed how graphic novels and comics can be used in the classroom and I asked a question in the chat that I wanted to expand upon here: is it appropriate to ask/allow students to create their own graphic narratives in the classroom or should students be thoroughly versed in the more traditional written narrative before they are allowed to explore this form of expression in school?

While I absolutely believe that students should be exposed to graphic novels and comics in an academic setting, I am not convinced that it is always appropriate to ask students to produce their own graphic narratives. In my experience, many students still struggle with the basic format of the written narrative - just creating a flowing, sequential narrative is difficult for some students (many of whom are used to a more stream-of-consciousness storytelling that they might use in their day to day lives). As I thought about my limited experience in telling a story in graphic form, I recognized that some of my former students might have struggled with the demands of this somewhat limiting format. As Laura said in class, creating graphic narratives might be an "advanced" skill... for those who students do not recognize the unique challenges and demands of the format, it's possible that they may find themselves (as Portia experienced) spending more time and effort on the images themselves as opposed to the story they are meant to tell.

I believe that we have to expose our children to all the various ways that we communicate with one another in the 21st century. There is no doubt that they will be required to be able to decipher messages that are being communicated in all the various ways we have discussed in the class so far. However, I also believe that we must make them more than proficient in the basics of communication - in my estimation, writing and speaking - before we start to ask them to create in different formats, especially when we want to assign grades to their efforts.