The Pedagogical Power of Graphic Novels in History Education
How We Can Reach Untapped Audiences and Build Bridges to Knowledge
Teaching History Through Graphic Novels
Once lowbrow entertainment, graphic novels have become high art for modern storytelling. Audiences across multiple age groups enjoy graphic novels for their variety of topics and genres. One of the most critically acclaimed graphic novels is Art Spiegelman’s Maus trilogy. Maus is the memoir of Spiegelman’s Jewish father and his experience living in Nazi-occupied Poland. According to a Comic Book Legal Defense Fund survey, Maus is number one on the top ten list of most-read comics in the classroom.
Maus is just one case of using visual interpretation to reach a broad audience. Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon illustrated The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation, the 585-page report published by the 9/11 Commission in 2002 and praised by the late comic book legend, Stan Lee. Each chapter of the book is named after the corresponding section of the report. The dry source material becomes a gripping saga bringing to life events leading up to the 2001 terrorist attack.
Creating Powerful Stories from Primary Sources
The first chapter of The 9/11 Report recreates a minute-by-minute timeline for each hijacked plane. The feeling of chaos and uncertainty exists within the story just as it did on the day it happened. The 9/11 Report combines character dialogue with information resembling fact sheets and white paper reports. The plot is interspersed with building layouts, organizational charts, maps, and political leader portraits which serve to strengthen the reader’s understanding of the catastrophe unfolding. Jacobson and Colon succeed in translating a voluminous source document into an unforgettable narrative. This is impressive considering the book is only 130 pages, most of them illustrations. With so much text to choose from, every inclusion is deliberate and purposeful.
Reaching and Educating New Audiences
The 9/11 Report set the precedent for similar concepts such as The Mueller Report which currently has three illustrated adaptations. The Patriot Act is another lengthy report suited for graphic treatment since so many Americans living under those laws never read them. Other possibilities are The Taguba Report (a source document that this author-artist physically and conceptually used for an art piece) as well as what is colloquially known as the John Yoo Torture Memos which legalized the use of enhanced interrogation techniques at terrorist holding sites. These are three examples of important historical documents from the Global War on Terror which could reach a broader audience in a new format.
Original art shown above by Jen Woronow/The Jaunty Crow. Contact the artist/author for inquiries about purchasing this piece.
That audience includes a younger generation of readers, those who were not even born on the day the planes crashed into the towers. For them, 9/11 and subsequent events lack relevance or context. Now that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are over, we must present this history in an engaging way which makes sense to those learning about it for the first time.
