The Rise of the Graphic Novel

We live in a world that is bombarded with visual stimulation in everything we do. And perhaps the biggest group of people this affects is high school students. A study done in 2010 showed that teens spend an average of about 7.5 hours a day interacting with different forms of media such as watching TV, listening to music, surfing the Web, social networking, and playing video games. 7.5 hours a day! That is more time than is usually devoted to sleep! All of these activities use visuals, at least to some extent. Teens today have access to visual stimulation at their fingertips - especially because most carry a smartphone with them everywhere!

This abundance of stimulation has pushed traditional text-only literature to the back burner. Teens today have lost interest in reading these books because they are "boring" or "hard to understand." They are not part of the genre that high schoolers are so used to being around, and therefore, they lose interest. Most teens express the idea "why bother with reading if we can find the information quickly and it is in a format I am more used to?"

So, is it any surprise that there has been a rise in popularity of graphic novels among this age group? It gives them a visual representation while reading text. It is in a format that they are used to, which makes the themes and ideas more available to them. It isn't "boring" or "hard to understand" in the same way that traditional text-only books are.

But, sadly, the study of literature has not caught on to this idea! In a high school English classroom we rarely see the accommodation for this new craze that is hitting teens today. Many teachers fear the idea that teens are loosing interest in literature, but so many of them still teach only the "classic" literature. Teachers need a way to remind students of the value of great books. They need a way to capture the attention of their students and show them the value of literature at the same time. This is where graphic novels come into play. Graphic novels provide a way for students to gain the visual stimulation they crave while incorporating themes and plots found in more traditional literature. By bringing these texts into a classroom, teachers are able to bridge the gap between a visually stimulated world and the text-only books that are often taught in today.