Comics and Graphic Novels in the Language Class in Secondary Education – Ghent Uni Societal Value Fund
From January 2025 until December 2025 Eva Van de Wiele is working on a side project, inspiring teachers to use comics in language education.
Since 2017 the Netherlands has a “Graphic Novels voor de Leeslijst” , a selection of “literary comics” with which Margreet de Heer hoped to inspire teachers and pupils. The pedagogical advantages of comics in language education have been promoted by scholars (Amann & Walner 2022) and teachers. Lesson plans made by teachers for teachers focus on making comics or on approaching the literary aspects of graphic novels (Klascement). Still, comics appear in a plethora of formats and materials (zines, webcomics) and reach their diverse publics through diverse distribution channels. To help language teachers with a background in literary and linguistic studies, this project develops workshops and a webinar on comics as a medium, with attention for multimodality, publication format and implied audience. The corpus will provide teachers with a multilingual corpus (Dutch, French, German, English, Italian, Spanish).
Ben je taaldocent in het secundair onderwijs? Dan ben je misschien geïnteresseerd in onze volgende activiteiten op 30 april en 23 oktober 2025:
Deze studievoormiddag combineert een workshop over strips in de taalles met een rondleiding in de uitgebreide stripcollectie van de Faculteitsbibliotheek.
In anderhalf uur behandelt dr. Eva Van de Wiele in een workshop hoe je strips en graphic novels in de taalles kan gebruiken. Aan de hand van verschillende strips in verschillende formaten en verschillende talen, proberen we elke taaldocent inspiratie te bieden. Je leert ook de belangrijkste vaktermen en hoe je die in jouw doeltaal kan doorgeven aan je leerlingen.
Prof. Maaheen Ahmed neemt je aansluitend mee door de boeiende en uitgebreide Van Passen collectie van de UGent.
Chapter 2 of Shiamin Kwa, Perfect Copies: Reproduction and the Contemporary Comic. Rutgers University Press, 2023, which discusses the work of artist and comics researcher Gareth Brookes.
Ghent University invited its employees to join the Summer Academy project and provide children with an inspiring and socially relevant experience during the summer.
Together with passionate colleagues, we introduce third graders to our fields of expertise. This helps combat learning disadvantages during the summer holidays, give young people a positive outlook on wider futures with a focus on individual talents, wellbeing and networking. We contributed by giving young people a taste of literature, reading and creative practices.
What did the COMICS team do?
Eva Van de Wiele and Maaheen Ahmed offered an interactive workshop based on comics and children’s books at the summer academy in Freinetschool Het Tandwiel in Ghent.
The workshop started with a Kamishibai story, for which we selected Matthew Forsythe’s Pokko’s Drum.
Afterwards, we discussed the differences between picture books and comics, between solitary reading and chaperoned storytelling.
Then, with a lot of unbridled imagination, cut out material, markers, colours, scissors and glue, the children started to make their own stories in hybrid forms and formats.
Many thanks to Sofie Beunen (Diversity and Learning) for the materials and the workshops preparing us for this task. Happy to contribute again next year!
Clara Vilaboa presenting her research at KULeuven on 12 May as part of the ACME Speaker Series
Comics have consistently been associated with childhood and the child reader. Over the past decade, children’s comics have started receiving more attention from teachers, literary mediators and researchers (Tarbox, 2020). In the Spanish context, comics (including tebeos, comic magazines, comic strips, etc.) have had a significant effect on the children’s interest in reading, the development of their reading skills and their understanding of the world (e.g. Agüero, 2022; Ibarra-Rius & Ballester-Roca, 2022; Van de Wiele, 2022).
Elementary schools have collected comics in their libraries and classrooms for a long time, and comics have played a key role in the reading experience of several generations of children and adolescents (Ballester-Roca & Ibarra-Rius, 2019). It was not until recently, though, that the status of comics shifted from non-canonical to legitimate school reading, and that teachers and librarians began to actively promote comics in the school. Considering the literary and pedagogical value of comics, elementary educators have identified comics as key narrative forms for strengthening children’s literary education through the development of multimodal reading competence and the promotion of contemporary key skills (interculturality, critical thinking, etc.). Although this deliberate and structured integration of comics in schools is relatively recent, there are various studies that propose, document and analyse the use of comics and graphic novels for children in elementary school (e.g. Brenna, 2012; Chase, Son & Steiner, 2014; Dallacqua, 2019; Cabarcas, 2020; Pantaleo, 2020).
Framed in this intersection between comics and education studies, the project Comics and graphic novels in the literary education of the child reader, at the Universitat Autonoma de Barcelona, takes on a holistic approach to interpret the reality of comics as part of the reading ecosystem of the school, including different contexts (like the classroom, the library and the halls) and agents (such as the child as a reader, the adult as a teacher and the librarian as a mediator). To do so, an ethnographic, collaborative and longitudinal study has been carried out in a public elementary school in Barcelona (Spain), from which I will address the comic collection in the school library and the interaction of the child reader with this collection.
We have worked with three different corpora of comics: the school library collection, a temporary loan from the public library and a small collection of comics that have been used for classroom workshops. Focusing on the library collection, we can find two sub-collections separated by the research intervention: the existing and updated collections.
We initially identified 132 comics scattered in the school and classroom libraries. The majority of the collection consisted of children’s comics with what can be considered Franco-Belgian and Spanish classic comics, such as The adventures of Asterix, The adventures of Tintin, The Smurfs or Mortadelo y Filemón. There was also a noteworthy collection of the Catalan comic magazine Cavall Fort, as well as a small collection of children’s graphic novels, such as the Catalan Agus & Monsters or Bitmax & Co. When we discussed this collection, the interviewed teachers and librarian highlighted the need of updating it to include comics which are more appealing for the readers based on their aesthetics, themes and characters. For instance, a teacher pointed out that, often, readers in her classroom would not be as interested in comics as in other books because of the small text and less colourful illustrations that characterised the comics in the library. Likewise, the librarian pointed to the gender stereotypes in some of the comics and how these comics needed to be addressed by the teachers and reviewed as part of the school collection.
The initial collection
Part of the initial comic collection
Considering the perspectives and needs that arose regarding the comic collection, we designed, between teachers, researchers, families and a bookseller, a collection update based on the following criteria: the promotion of the lingua franca of the school (Catalan), the variety of themes for different interests and ages (from 3 to 12), the quality of the multimodal narration (text and images), and the adequateness of the ideas and themes (gender roles, social stereotypes, etc.). Following these criteria, the school acquired 39 new comics as a first contribution to the collection that will be enlarged in the future based on feedback from the students and teachers.
The update included a variety of comics and graphic novels for the child reader, which we have classified according to the language, format, theme and recommended age (see the Updated collection chart). Building on the analysis that Colomer (1998) and Medina (2019) make regarding common trends in children’s literature, we can reflect on the characteristics of the comics that were integrated into this elementary school. While we cannot define each reader’s preferences and these categories are based on recommended ages for the comics, there are perceivable trends influenced by the readers’ age and the reading skills and interests often associated with the age.
The updated collection of comics and graphic novels
Part of the update of the comic collection
Literature for early readers tends to accord great importance to the image and to meaning-making through visuals. Likewise, comics for first readers in this collection (3-5 year-olds) highly rely on visual narration, using short sentences and dialogues, or being often wordless. The iconic language is used to connect the readers to topics that are familiar or relevant to them, such as emotions and relationships (friendship and family). This is also done by presenting humorous and fantastic narrations that bring them closer to these topics by appealing to their imagination and playful attitude, often portraying characters who are anthropomorphic animals or animate objects that appeal to this imagination. These comics tend to play with format and mix it with that of picturebooks. As Gibson (2010) and Tarbox (2020) reflect, picturebooks and comics are flexible media that share many iconic-textual aspects and hybrid comic-picturebooks for young readers incorporate elements from both formats, as in the case of Monky, Clown or Amics.
In the comics addressed to readers in motion (“lectores en marcha”, 6-8 year-olds) we can see a bigger range of topics and genres, focusing mainly on fantasy but also including mystery, social reflection, information, traditional folklore and humor. Some comics start introducing complex topics, such as Els forats de cuc (the concept of black holes), and more complicated narrative structures and resources, as Casos celebres del detectiu John Chatterton (meta-fictional references). In these books, there is a balance between human and anthropomorphic animal characters – it is interesting to consider the case of Quan el glaç es fon, in which the main character is a polar bear and does not act like a human being. This enhances the realistic character of a comic that aims to spark a conversation about climate change, a hint to the beginning of an interest of the readers in social and real-life narratives. Concerning the format, comic series are popular for this group of readers because of their appeal to the readers’ interest in following a story through time but at a pace fragmented in volumes, which is therefore not too overwhelming.
Comics for autonomous readers (8-12 year-olds) cover all kinds of topics and themes. It is interesting to highlight the balance between fiction and realism since comics for this age range tend to introduce more realistic stories as readers become more interested in exploring their own and others’ realities. This is approached both through fantastic narrative and realist fiction. The interest in relatable stories is reflected in the predominant character type since most of the protagonists are people – at this age, readers tend to look for stories with characters that they can relate to, such as those in Smile! and El Deafo, or that go through a series of extraordinary events and adventures that are fascinating for them, as in This was our pact and Baika a la fi del món. In this case, the collection is dominated by graphic novels, which implies an interest of the readers in comic books that allow them to explore extensive and conclusive stories.
In general, this brief analysis of the collection reflects that comics for children are highly diverse in their stories, tend to experiment with formats and often present stories that aim to achieve a variety of functions, such as entertainment, learning and discussing. Since these comics are created for child readers, it is essential to consider their perspectives and stances regarding comics.
Various questionnaires, interviews and focus groups with the readers signalled a generally positive attitude towards comics and, in many cases, a preference for reading comics, graphic novels and manga over other literary texts. Those who considered themselves comic readers or who expressed a reading interest in comics pointed out that the most important aspects that influence this interest are the image (the illustration style, the colours and the line), the plot (regarding the diversity of themes and the “creativity” and “humour” in the comics) and the reading accessibility of the narration (due to a minor presence of text).
Regarding the collection of comics some readers mentioned the lack of comics for different ages and preferences and, in general, all readers expressed interest in increasing the collection with new comics, graphic novels and manga. While the adult mediators gave great importance to the values, topics and themes in the comics, the readers focused mostly on the lack of variety in topics and contemporary comics, leaving aside the values reflected on them. In fact, some referred to their enjoyment when reading comics that could be considered problematic due to their content (i.e. gender stereotypes). One of the older interviewed readers referred to comics in the collection as “too childish” and insisted on the absence of comics for his age and interests, which reinforces the school’s intention of having comics for all readers.
Frequent comic readers expressed a lot of interest in having collections of comics in the school library in order to follow their favourite series or to share these books with their peers in the school. In contrast, those who preferred text-only narratives (mainly novels) often mentioned that, if they were to read a comic book, they would prefer graphic novels as they were interested in extensive, conclusive stories. Additionally, some of the interviewed readers talked about the importance they accord to re-reading books and how having the opportunity to read comics in school more than once was valuable in learning to appreciate the visual details and meanings in the narrative. In general, the readers were eager to engage with the comics, which is something that both the librarian and the teachers reported since readers were continuously asking about the new comic collection in the classrooms and in the library.
Throughout this project, we have been able to document how teachers and other mediators are working to integrate comics into the school practice in a way that considers the readers’ needs and current interest in this narrative. Likewise, it has been an opportunity to document how readers actively enjoy these multimodal narrations that appeal to their interest in highly visual, complex and compelling stories regardless of their age.
As mentioned previously, comics have been studied from different educational perspectives (for instance, for multimodal creation or interdisciplinary learning) but there is a current need for more research focused on reading comics in the school (Kirtley, Garcia & Carlson, 2020). However, there is copious research on the importance of reading multimodal narratives in the classroom and their significance for developing critical, multicultural and multimodal reading literacies (e.g. Amat, 2010; Farrell, Arizpe & McAdam, 2010; Colomer, 2012). Furthermore, one of the aspects highlighted by this research has been the relevance of studying the different agents and spaces that take part in this process. In this sense, this case study illustrates a key condition for integrating comics as part of literary education in schools: it is important to update the comic collection but it is not enough unless we carry out actions that actively promote and give value to comics, putting the voices of the teachers, librarians and child readers at the centre of the educational innovation.
A table of the comics collection by Clara Vilaboa
References
Agüero Guerra, M. (2022). Representaciones de la infancia en el cómic: de la nostalgia al compromiso social. León: Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de León.
Amat, V. (2010). Compartir per construir: Aprendre a valorar àlbums a cicle inicial. Narratives gràfiques, 52, 32-41.
Brenna, B. (2012). How graphic novels support reading comprehension strategy development in children. Literacy, 47(2), 88-94. doi: 10.1111/j.1741-4369.2011.00655.x
Cabarcas Morales, Y. (2020). El cómic en el aula: una didáctica narrativa. Educación y ciudad, 38, 125-134. https://doi.org/10.36737/01230425.n38.2020.2325
Chase, M., Son, E. H., & Steiner, S. (2014). Sequencing and graphic novels with Primary Grade students. The Reading Teacher, 67(6), 435-443. doi: 10.1002/trtr.1242
Colomer, T. (1998). La formació del lector literari. Barcelona: Editorial Barcanova.
Colomer, T. (2012). Las discusiones infantiles sobre álbumes ilustrados. In Colomer, T., & Fittipaldi, M. (Eds.) La literatura que acoge: Inmigración y lectura de álbumes (pp. 87-118). Caracas: Banco del Libro.
Dallacqua, A. K. (2019). Reading Comics Collaboratively and Challenging Literacy Norms. Literacy Research and Instruction, 59(2), 169-190. https://doi.org/10.1080/19388071.2019.1669746
Farrell, M., Arizpe, E., & McAdam, J. (2010). Journeys across visual border : annotated spreads of “The Arrival” by Shaun Tan as a method for understanding pupils’ creation of meaning through visual images. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 33(3), 198-210. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03651835
Gibson, M. (2010). Picturebooks, comics and graphic novels. In Rudd, D. (Ed) The Routledge Companion to Children’s Literature (pp. 100-111). Oxfordshire: Taylor & Francis Group.
Ibarra-Rius, N. & Ballester-Roca, J. (2022). El cómic desde la educación lectora: confluencias, interrogantes y desafíos para la investigación. OCNOS: Revista de estudios sobre lectura, 21(1), 1-14. https://doi.org/10.18239/ocnos_2022.21.1.2753
Kirtley, S. E., García, A., & Carlson, P. E. (2020). With great power comes great pedagogy. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
Pantaleo, S. (2020). Elementary students meaning-making of the science comic series by First Second. Education 3-13: International Journal of Primary, Elementary and Early Years Education, 49(8), 986-999. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004279.2020.1818268
Tarbox, G. A. (2020). Children’s and young adult comics. London: Bloomsbury Publishing.
Van de Wiele, E. (2022). Building a glocalised serial for children: Corriere dei Piccoli (1908-1923) and TBO (1917-1932) [PhD thesis, Ghent University]. Retrieved from: http://hdl.handle.net/1854/LU-8759231
The Imaginary Wild West: Transnational Tropes and the Franco-Belgian Cowboys as a Tool of Self-Reflection (a lecture by Audrey Garcia, University of California, Irvine)
Narrating Uncertainty through Comics: Precarious Times and Ghostly Worlds in Citéville and Citéruin by Jérôme Dubois (a lecture by Rodolfo Dal Canto, University of L’Aquila)
Abstracts
The Imaginary Wild West: Transnational Tropes and the Franco-Belgian Cowboys as a Tool of Self-Reflection (a lecture by Audrey Garcia, University of California, Irvine)
This project focuses on the trope of the Western and the Western cowboy firstly as a tool for transnational exchange and also for exploring national imaginaries, specifically, projections of Franco-Belgian identity. In this study, the prominence of the American cowboy rises to the forefront as I present the cowboy and the mythological West to be a “safe space” for Belgian comics to explore their relation to power and its identity through a third party. Because the mythologized West is an adaptable stage found within the adventure genre, it has potential to convey localized ideologies. Cowboys’ unique openness results from the fact that the “American” cowboy is truly not American at all; cowboys popularized by cinema are based on Italian Spaghetti Westerns or are inspired by tales of Mexican ‘vaqueros’. Therefore, the cowboy is a figment of imagination rooted in idealism and a mythologized version of the American West. The inherent transnationality of cowboys creates a figure capable of becoming adapted by any specific culture. The transnationalism of cowboys and geographic distance of its setting allows the genre to be used as a tool of fantasy that removes itself directly while maintaining its Franco-Belgian characteristics. Furthermore, the ability for these figures to travel internationally allows it to open pathways for various social commentary and expansion into new iterations of the trope.
Narrating Uncertainty through Comics: Precarious Times and Ghostly Worlds in Citéville and Citéruin by Jérôme Dubois (a lecture by Rodolfo Dal Canto, PhD student at the University of L’Aquila)
In 2020, French cartoonist Jérôme Dubois simultaneously published a couple of comics for two different publishing houses: Citéville, brought out by Cornélius, and Citéruin, released by Éditions Matière. The former features nine short chapters set in a major urban center, Citéville: here the characters are victims of various forms of systemic violence, within dynamics that border on dystopia. Citéruin looks like the same comic, with the division into short stories with the same title, identical layout and framing, with one fundamental change: the streets of Citéville are deserted, completely devoid of human presence, and the buildings seem to have been abandoned long ago or struck by a sudden catastrophe. Jérôme Dubois’ double work shows different levels of precariousness, which turn out to coexist in a layered dialogue. On the one hand, Citéville shows through a grotesque style some characteristics peculiar to our contemporary times, such as job precariousness or the difficulty of building a future within dynamics that are as rigid as they are absurd; on the other hand, Citéruin stages, through a story told by subtraction, the existential uncertainty of humanity as a whole. Through an original use of tools proper to the comic medium, the author makes human presence coexist with his own absence, inviting reflection on the time and space we inhabit, and the ruin inscribed in them. The presentation will navigate through these intersections, analyzing the two texts using an approach that links the themes related to ecocriticism, posthumanism, and precarity with the formal strategies through which they are told, using a medium-specific approach.
12 May 2023 – 3 – 5 pm – KULeuven, Mgr. Sencie Instituut MSI, room 02.15
Comics in the reading ecosystem: Discussing children’s comics as part of literary education in the Spanish Elementary School
The lecture by Clara Vilaboa Sáenz (PhD student of Education and Literature, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona)
Abstract
Elementary Schools constitute a key context in the literary experience of the child reader as open, public spaces in which all children have an opportunity to encounter literature. This research project aims to analyse the literary and pedagogic value of children’s comics and focuses on the double impact that comics have as tools to promote reading and as strategies to develop the multimodal reading competence. To document and interpret the reality of comics in the reading ecosystem of the school, we have carried out an ethnographic, collaborative study on a public school in Spain (6- to 12-year-olds) that has focused on the needs, interests and challenges that appear when integrating comics in the school. Here, we have designed two main lines of action: the analysis of how comics are integrated and promoted from the school library and the analysis of the pedagogy implied in the promotion, reading and discussion of comics in a 4th-year classroom (8- to 10-year-olds). In addition, we have documented the perspectives of children, teachers, librarians and families to have a holistic perception of the role of comics in the school. This ethnographic study constitutes the core of the research project and has been complemented with a theoretical review of the research published on the intersection of comics and Elementary Education between the years 2000 to 2023. Thus, the project has allowed us to acquire a longitudinal and contextualised perspective of the role that children’s comics have in Elementary School.
Group discussion on Sugar, Spice, and the Not So Nice: Comics Picturing Girlhood
The group discussion will focus on chapters 1 and 9 of Sugar, Spice, and the Not So Nice. The book is available open access, and was edited by Dona Pursall and Eva Van de Wiele, Eva will chair the discussion.
On 30 September we are organizing at Het Pand a study day on transnational circulations and influences in comics. Through six case studies, we will look at particular ways of adaptation, domestication, repurposing, and other types of transnational circulation in comics, both in Europe and the Americas. Each lecture will be followed by a short reaction from a respondent, and a Q&A with the audience.
This is a lecture which was originally intended for the graduate and postgraduate students attending the AIPI Summer School 2021 Ricerca a fumetti. We warmly thank Prof. Sergio Brancato for his enganging talk.
Prof. Sergio Brancato (University of Naples, Italy) explains the context in which comics managed to address and thrive with the masses while scholarly attention was limited during the first half of the twentieth century. He chronologically guides us as an audience through the research done on comics in the twentieth century, mainly but not exclusively, from a sociological perspective.
SnIF unites early career researchers interested in studying and investigating Italian comics from an interdisciplinary perspective.
Its members are Dr. Dario Boemia (IULM Milano), Dr. Lorenzo Di Paola (Università di Salerno, Universita di Messina), Dr. Nicoletta Mandolini (Universidade do Minho), Alessia Mangiavillano (Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations University of Coventry, Dr. Giorgio Busi Rizzi (Universiteit Gent), Dr. Carlotta Vacchelli (Biblioteca Hertziana di Roma), Lisa Maya Quaianni Manuzzato (Communications Manager Wow Spazio Fumetto Milano), Eva Van de Wiele (Universiteit Gent).
Dr. Giorgio Busi Rizzi and Eva Van de Wiele presented their research on Italian woman comics artists during a virtual symposium organized by editors of Simultanea.
You can now watch the whole symposium here. Giorgio’s talk starts after 1 hour and 18 minutes, Giorgio partners up with Dr. Nicoletta Mandolini to discuss different theories of love and close read three comics. Eva discussed the investigation she did with Maya Quaianni Manuzzato on female comics artists born after 1980. They present the findings of their survey and close readings of some 21 contemporary fumettiste:
