Graphic Novels and the Future of Education

In the same way that stand up comedy provides a useful model for thinking about lecturing, graphic novels provide a useful model for education as well. But, whereas stand up comedy only provides insight into lecturing, graphic novels provide insight into writing educational books and presenting educational content. Further they provide insight into presenting both in class and online. 

There are three ways in which the format and design of graphic novels can be applied to education:1) better books, 2) better lectures and presentations; , and 3) more compelling content in distance education classes.We have already seen the beginings of this move toward better books. For example, Icon Books has an "Introducing" series of books which present some pretty serious content in a graphic novel format. For example Introducing Philosophy: A Graphic Guide is, as the title says, an introduction to philosophy. I have read dozens of these titles and their graphic novel format allows the reader to come up to speed very quickly in a diverse range of topics. The last one of these I bought, which was only a couple years ago, did not have the title addition "A Graphic Guide" which suggests that Icon books is becoming more aware of the power of the graphic format, at least for sales.

One could easily argue that these "Introducing" books do not provide the depth that one needs to really become an expert in an area. And, I would agree. But that is not the point. As fields get deeper and deeper, we find that experts become silo-ed with a deep knowledge in their field but little understanding of adjacent fields. I believe that education in the future will require a general understanding of a wide variety of fields either in conjunction with or even without deeper knowledge in a specialized field. And the graphics novel format will help facilitate that.

Graphic novel design will also lead to better lectures and presentations. In the past five years or so we have seen a flurry of new books on presentation skills which condemn mind numbing linear PowerPoint presentations and raise the bar of expectations for people who do presentations. Much emphasis in these new books is placed on narrative reasoning or story line. Most books emphasize the importance of story but few provide much detailed information about how to create story lines. This is where the design theory of graphic novels comes in. Some of the biggest names in comics such as Will Eisner and Scott McCloud have written amazingly insightful works on how to design graphic novels. To be fair, they are focusing on comics. But, both readily recognize the potential application of this media in other areas. I would wholeheartedly agree.  Just like it was a small step from stand up comedy to better lectures, it is a small step from comics to better presentations.

Finally, the design techniques of graphic novels will lead to more compelling distance education. Just like Sesame Street realized decades ago, you can't teach anybody anything if you cannot, first, keep their attention. This is already a problem in classroom education but it will worsen when education is delivered in distance mode. At least in the classroom students don't have distractions (assuming that they aren't playing with their laptops or iPhones). But, at home where they are recieving instruction over the Internet the pedagogical content is competing with television, streaming video, music, kids crying, friends coming over and all manner of compelling distractions. Anyone who thinks that video recording of classroom lectures will serve this audience probably ought to get out of education and find a field they know something about.

Lectures and Stand Up Comedy

I am going to digress to make a point that will tie in nicely with and bolster the point of the next post. So, bear with me as this will probably sound like an unrelated digression.

I have been lecturing to classes for many decades. When one 'takes' classes they see a professor or teacher at a moment in time which is too brief to see any patterns with regard to teaching or lecturing. But, when you teach for some period of time those patterns become obvious, perhaps painfully obvious.

Professors, not unlike other performers, experiences ups and downs in their profession. Some times teaching is as good as life can  get. Other times it borders on the unbearable. For example, new professors are often buoyed by the experience of being in front of the class. Being the expert while gaining the respect and admiration of the students is a pretty heady experience. But, at some point, the novelty wears off and the new professor experiences doubt. Maybe he doesn't know as much as he though she did. Maybe there are students in the class who know more either from other classes or from life experiences. In some classes the chemistry is amazing. In others it is poisonous. Some times you can't wait till class begins. Other times, you would do anything to avoid it if you could.

It was in one of these slumps that I had an epiphany. I had been a bit off and I had just had a nightmare class. Everyone who teaches knows exactly what I mean by the nightmare class. There are students in the class who don't want to be there. There are others who shouldn't be there. There are no motivated students that you can use to perk the class up. It is a dreary and difficult situation. Fortunately, it does not happen very often.

But, it was in one of these slumps that I was up late at night watching stand up comedy on Comedy Central. The epiphany was that teaching and stand up comedy had a lot in common. The comedian cannot rely on the energy of the audience. While it is nice if the audience loves the show, the comedian must be energetic even if the audience is asleep or abusive. The comedian must make each joke fresh even if that joke has been told a hundred times before. Similarly, the professor cannot rely on the energy of the audience. The lecture must be energetic even if the class is half asleep. And ideas must be offered as though the professor just thought of them in order to keep the lecture fresh. There are more parallels, but the point here is merely to show that one can get inspiration from the oddest places and you never know when a format used in one area can be applied to advantage in an other.

When I stumbled on to graphic novels, I had a similar epiphany. The format of graphic novels can be applied to great advantage in education - first in in-class lectures and ultimately to online education. I have used the stand up format to great advantage in improving my in-class lectures and I am sure I can use the format of graphic novels to take things to the next level.

Learning to Draw and Learning to Write, Again

In the last post, I heralded the future potential of graphic novels. And I will continue on this theme in future posts. But it is easy to to sit back making proclamations about the future. The question is - are you will to put your time where your mouth is? And my answer is - yes I am. I am going to learn how to write graphic novels. I doubt very seriously that I will ever write The Great American Comic book. But, then, that is not really what I am after. I want to learn this skill so I can apply it other things.

Many years back I decided that I need to learn how to write. I am sure I have told this story elsewhere in this blog. So I will just hit the high points here. I enlisted a group of friends, students and colleagues who I put on a listserv and promised to send out a chapter every week. I used some of the people on the list as the basis for characters in the story. The result, after several online novels, was that I had honed my writing skills considerably. Although I never published any fiction, which was not really my intention, I did seriously boost my writing skills. And those skills have paid off in all the writing that I do including this blog. In addition, I am better at storytelling which is an important skill in blogging, lectures, and even academic presentations. So, it was well worth the effort.

But, traditional writing, both fiction and non fiction is very different from writing for graphic novels. I am not prepared, at this stage to articulate those difference. However, I will at some point. But, those writing skills will become very important in developing more compelling lectures and presentations. And, I hope to carry them forward into the world of distance education which is badly in need of something.

But, it isn't just writing. I have to learn how to draw. Initially, I am not very ambitious here. I will see how it goes. If I can learn how to draw simple clip art I will call it a success. This alone is worth the trouble as 'borrowing' clip art from the web may become a problem in the future if I develop classes online from which I derive revenue. There is free clip art but it looks cheesy compared to custom clip art that is drawn specifically for a situation. If I can develop these skills and want to take on more challenges, I will create a cast of characters which I can use in producing educational materials. If I get really ambitious, I might use these skills to write educational books.

If you are astute, you might be thinking - there are a lot of professional artists and writers out there. How can I compete with them. That is an important question. But I do have an answer. First of all, most graphic novels are created by writers and artists. That is two people working in collaboration. I think I can learn to do both. Can I do both as well as the professionals? No, but then I don't need to. I have another advantage as well. I can provide content. So, I become the single person - writer, artist and content provider. And there are precious few of those. Further, as far as I know there are none in my areas of expertise. So, this seems like a good bet.

A Circuitous Path to Graphic Novels

I am somewhat obsessed, at the moment, with graphic novels. But, before I just blurt out all the reasons why I think this medium is important I want to explain how I got here. After all, this blog is supposed to provide some insight into being an academic. And the ways in which I stumble around intellectually, finding good ideas along the way, is certainly part of that.

This story begins last summer on a walk I was taking with my walking meetup group. We were chit chatting as we walked and sharing information about television series shows that we found worth watching. One of the shows that came up was The Walking Dead, a show about an apocalyptic world in which people were constantly defending themselves against zombies. I was intrigued by this show for some reason. I am not normally a fan of zombie shows but several people claimed that it was way more than a zombie show. I asked around after the walk and found that a lot of people felt the show had some dramatic value. So, I watched a couple episodes and couldn't decide whether or not I liked it.

Several weeks later, I happened to be in a local used book store. As I was checking out, I saw a thick volume on display at the checkout counter, with the title The Walking Dead. I asked if it had anything to do with the TV show and landing up spending the next half hour coming up to speed. I absolutely love these kinds of encounters. The guys working at the used book store were excited to be asked about something they knew a lot about. And I was excited to get answers to all my questions. Usually, I just wear people down with questions and leave with more questions unanswered than answered. But, sometimes you encounter people who love to talk about what they know and know a lot. When this happens on a topic I am interested in, it is sublime.

It turns out that The Walking Dead was a graphic novel series from the mid 1990's. And the thick volume I was looking at was one of two compendium volumes. I don't know this for a fact, but my guess would be that the compendium was published due to the increased interest created by the TV show. But, for me, it was evidence of a huge gap in my knowledge. I knew next to nothing about graphic novels. And finding the hole I began to wonder what else I was unaware of.

So, I began pulling the thread as I always do. I randomly bought a few graphic novels and read them. I looked up 'graphic novels' on Amazon. I perused the Graphic Novels section at the library. Slowly I began stumbling on something very interesting. Although there are lots comics out there of varying quality, there was also a strain of profound artistic and literary thinking. I came across some authors such as Will Eisner and Scott McCloud who not only created comics but whose level of critical depth approached the depth found in more conventional forms of art and literature.

I realized (largely thanks to Scott McCloud's work) that the graphic novel paradigm had potential far beyond what had been realized thus far. Not only was there as yet untapped potential, but that potential looked very much like the future. And then, BANG! BOOM! KAPOW! I saw the light.