How Beyond Colored Pages ties in to Balancing Literacy

After spending a decade in public education, I found there was a divide between what was considered academic or appropriate reading for middle and high-school-aged learners regarding the type or genre of literature they engage in. Of course, we want students to read on grade level. However, removing genres or types of literature simply due to a bias or disapproval is not furthering literacy effectively.

This didactic approach to literacy unintentionally conveys to young readers that their interests are invalid or have no meaning for them in the long term. That's not to say classic and contemporary literature does not have a place, but to highlight that there is room for student choice and student interests.

When I would give my students a choice between a selection of books or even have them pick their own reading materials, I saw higher engagement and faster mastery of skills. To test this, I used my master's thesis to gather data, evaluate learning, and find patterns within student reading lives. In addition, a survey was sent to evaluate educators' viewpoints and time spent on student-choice reading activities.

Figure taken from The Impact of Student Choice by Cailyn N.Dougherty, 2020.

After evaluating the data, I found that students were interested in mystery (17.3%), realistic fiction (15.4%), fantasy (12.6%), and graphic novels (11.7%). The top two reading interests were genres we included in our curriculum through books like "And Then There Were None" by Agatha Christie and "Salt to the Sea" by Ruta Sepetys. This left fantasy and graphic novels as areas for us to implement or provide more opportunities for students to engage in.

Reflecting on the educator survey results highlighted the underlining negative bias toward graphic novels. One educator stated “I feel it’s beneath their intellectual abilities”. This bias is dangerous, especially when research supports the use of graphic novels as they provide opportunities to engage in, on average, 53.5% rare words per thousand, compared with an average of 30.9% rare words per thousand in children’s books, and also higher than the adult average of 52.7% (University of Oregon). This isn't even the only research study highlighting the value of graphic novels and similarly constructed books used in the classroom for all learners and all reading levels. But I digress...

As my reputation for graphic novel advocacy grew, I found more educators who wanted to include graphic novels and other reading materials (scripts, magazines, and online articles) in their classrooms as student reading opportunities. A lot of them just weren't sure how to get started.

This made me think about how to bridge literacy, graphic novels, and the classroom. From there, I created Beyond Colored Pages to share recommendations for graphic novels and manga for students, educators, and anyone seeking to engage in reading. And while this portion focuses solely on the academic side of things, Beyond Colored Pages focuses on recommendations and research to use as needed.

Sincerely,

Check out our recommendations using the link below:

BEYOND COLOR PAGES RECOMMENDATIONS