Hello classmates,
This is Jordan, whom you may remember from our class introduction. Something that I did not think I mentioned (but will become readily apparent throughout the semester, no doubt) is my love for comic books. I've been reading them since before I could read and believe them to be one of the most significant yet criminally underrated art forms of the past eighty years. And I'm not talking about artsy-fartsy graphic novels, like Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis or Alison Beschdel's Fun Home. Those are brilliant books in their own right, but I'm talking about the kind of characters people dress up as at nerd conventions. Spider-Man, Hawkeye, Superman, Swamp Thing, Batman, etc. While I could easily write a thesis on this (and other people already have. See Grant Morrison's Supergods, an excellent book) we are all interested in comic books' educational value. If people generally dismiss comic books as the toenail clippings of pop culture, then you can bet they rarely, if ever, have considered their educational value. But I believe they offer educators in English limitless potential for educating students not just in the art of English but about the world they exist in.
Enter Watchmen, published in 1986, created by the comic book dream team of writer Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons. You may be familiar with it from the 2009 film adaptation, or from knowing remotely anything about comic books. It is considered not only one of the best comic books ever written, but one of the best books ever written. No, really. Even Time Magazine said so. It is listed in their 100 best books ever written, and there are many (me included) who would argue it to be among the best 10. It describes an alternate world where the Vietnam War was won by America, thanks to a superhuman god named Dr. Manhattan created by a nuclear reactor incident, and the wake of other "superheroes" who followed after him and existed before his creation in the early 60's. The book serves as a wonderful and instantly gripping analogy for understanding Cold War culture as well as our own pop culture. It's an excellent teaching tool for challenging students to think about social responsibility, how we treat our own celebrities, how much power and trust do we place in our government, and an excellent platform for debating philosophical theories on ethics such as Utilitarianism, Role Ethics, Deontology, and more. But I'll save the sales pitch. I instantly thought of Watchmen for our unit plan project. It's an excellent choice to engage the modern reader. But a question struck me.
Would I even be allowed to teach it at all?
The comic book pulls no punches. It is unapologetic and upfront about its world's harsh violence, its characters' sexualities, psychoses, bigotries, fears, and desires. I was concerned that some people may look at it and see only a comic book, and not the vast profound purpose it was created for in the first place. Yet recently teachers have begun to make bold choices in what they teach their students, and they should. Our students' education, I believe, ought to be challenging, and sometimes force students to think outside of their comfort zone, or to face real life issues that may never be apparent in their school lives. Watchmen is a book everyone should read, and holds great promise for our American students. So I decided I would do a little research on banned books in American schools, to make sure I would be able to teach it one day.
I soon found a neat website called www.bannedbooksweek.org Besides including events and recent news concerning the freedom of our students' rights to read, it also contains an exhaustive history of banned books throughout our country. I found that many classics faced opposition, some in large amounts, such as J.D. Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye (1951), which was removed from classrooms nationwide upon publication for being “unacceptable,” “obscene,” “blasphemous,” “negative,” “foul,” “filthy,” and much more, I am sure. In today's school culture, it should be noted, it is unusual not to read this novel, though there are still many school boards around the country that face challenges all the time. Of course, the success of these challenges depends on the culture of the specific school and the community surrounding it. Other books, such as Cesar Chavez's The Words of Cesar Chavez (2002) faced opposition in certain areas of the country. The Words of Cesar Chavez was banned in Tucson, Airzona upon publishing and faced challenges in other parts of the Southwest, a frightening prospect considering that many of the immigrant workers who Cesar Chavez fought likely had children in the very same schools. They also banned several other books on racial issues in America, and you can read more about this here http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/node/162. Very scary.
The website also includes a geographical map of bans, which can be found here http://www.bannedbooksweek.org/mappingcensorship. There are many cases, far more than I can recount here, but just click around for a little bit and you can get an idea about how certain communities might react to certain themes in books. It's worth noting that, according to bannedbooksweek, most challenges to teachers' decisions aren't successful, though they do tend to result in the school board assuring parents by giving them more control in future student reading.
I did some more digging around and found this interesting article written by a Colorado English teacher and her response to having her books challenged in class.
http://www.ednewscolorado.org/voices/voices-teaching-controversial-texts
I recommend giving it a read. I think she offers some good advice to take into our first years of teaching.
I recommend giving it a read. I think she offers some good advice to take into our first years of teaching.
Today more than ever I believe teacher's possess the flexibility to teach texts they believe are important for their students. Challenging and mature texts such as Aldous Huxley's A Brave New World, Kurt Vonnegut Jr.'s Slaughterhouse Five, and Joseph Heller's Catch-22 are becoming more and more common in high school educations. I know I read some of them.
So what does this all mean for my Watchmen unit plans? They're happening. I have faith not only in this wonderful book but in my abilities as a teacher to convey the powerful messages and incredible educational value this book possesses. If it is challenged for some of its more mature themes, then I believe in my ability to defend them and convince those concerned, be they school administration or parents, that they are worth teaching. It would seem that the fight for a good education must begin with securing the right tools for the job.
First and foremost thank you for this contribution to our class, which should not only help us begin to think critically about our unit plans, but just as importantly, should lead us to some very interesting and thought provoking discussions about teacher autonomy, book selections, teacher responsibilities, etc.
ReplyDeleteYou have already succeeded in convincing me that this book warrants reading and that in the hands of the right person, could be taught in ways that elicit students to think about their humanity and their place in the world. I was not just convinced by your sound argument and thorough research about the book but by your deep understanding of the book itself. If I can have all of you walk away with at least one pivotal teaching practice from this class it would be to really know every piece of reading that you assign to students. Granted, when thinking about a novel for a unit, the practice of knowing it well does not seem too farfetched but we should really know and reread every piece we expect our students to read. Only when we have thoroughly studied the material will we be able to predict where our students could have difficulty and thus build in to our lessons thoughtful strategies that would scaffold the material. Generic scaffolds are, not surprisingly, mostly ineffective.
That said, I highly encourage the rest of you, myself included, to peruse the website on banned books and think about banned books you may have read in high school. I’m a huge fan of J.D. Salinger and have assigned Catcher in the Rye, not purely because it is a provocative novel, but because it is expertly woven literature, that at once engages and entices the reader with its risqué style. For those of you who have read Salinger, or at the very least, are intrigued by his eccentric disappearance from public life then I suggest you read the link below:http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/09/06/movies/salinger-a-documentary-by-shane-salerno.html?src=dayp&_r=0
I’m very much looking forward to your unit plan Jordan and to the great work I am sure you will create using this novel as the epicenter.
Hi Jordan,
ReplyDeleteI never crossed my mind that comic books could be used as educational tools, and I think that in the hands of the right teacher, they could be engaging while still being pedagogical. However, I have conflicting feelings on banned books. On one hand, I don't see why books regardless of their content, should be banned at all. I also believe that teachers should have the flexibility to teach the texts they believe are important and challenging. On the other hand, not everyone has good judgement and it could be harmful if teachers don't use discretion. Also, because you said that the comic Watchmen is "unapologetic and upfront about its world's harsh violence, its characters' sexualities, psychoses, bigotries, fears, and desires", a question came into my mind. What grade level/age would you want to teach this to? I do think that for children under a certain age, it would be inappropriate.
Respectfully,
Amanda
Hello Jordan,
ReplyDeleteI really admire your passionate proposal! We read Persepolis in my gender studies class and I thought it was a brilliant approach to such heavy material. A comic book/graphic novel would engage students who are more intrinsically visual like myself. I'm considering Paulo Coehlo's The Alchemist for my unit lesson plan because I feel passionate about the enlightenment that book has brought so many people worldwide. I agree that a book selection should challenge students to unpack new concepts and issues. I'm excited to see how you approach your Watchmen lesson!
Hi Jordan,
ReplyDeleteVery scary, indeed. I took a look at the link you included about banned books non racial issues in America. It all reminds me of Farenheit 451. When I initially read the book in high school, it struck me as absurd and unrealistic, but as my education has zeroed in on current educational practices and after reading your stirring commentary, I realize just how the book reflects what our curriculum and by extension our society could quite possibly erode to. I think in order to avoid this decay, teachers need to think outside of the box like you have and defend their decisions with the same passion that you have about Watchmen. Who knows, maybe just telling our students that some of the texts we assign to them are or once were banned will entice them even more to read. If students tend to rebel, let it be against a list of banned books rather than against you.
-Gabbi