From Visual Literacy to Literary Proficiency: An Instructional and Assessment Model for the Graphic Novel Version of Kafka'sDie Verwandlung

Abstract

This article argues that instructors can effectively implement visual and multi‐modal methods often used in beginner and intermediate courses as effective building blocks to develop skills of literary analysis. The article presents aspects of a mini‐curriculum based on Die Verwandlung, the graphic novel, and examples of student work and feedback from a 200‐level graphic‐novel course. Corresponding to the format of a graphic novel that combines pictorial and visual information, items in the curriculum consistently incorporate methods to build visual literacy to move students toward verbal literacy. The article contributes to language pedagogy in explaining the use of graphic novels in the language classroom to develop literary analytical proficiency. Field‐tested examples demonstrate ways students learn to use illustrations and literary products to support higher‐level analysis. The article suggests that carefully crafted questions can emphasize the visual exploration that has typically gone into reading graphic texts, but has less frequently been associated with building skills of literary exploration.

A Look over the Wall: Using the Graphic Novel drüben! to Teach Linguistic, Literary, Cultural, and Visual Skills

“…Even though the reading protocols proved that most of the students understood Schwartz's language and occasionally composed eloquent comments in writing, the class discussions did sometimes drag. This most likely had to do with the fact that the students felt a bit overwhelmed by the double burden of abstract analysis and production in their new language, a phenomenon Kutch () touches upon as well. To alleviate this double burden in future classes, I will provide more Redemittel to scaffold in‐class discussion.…”

“…A growing number of foreign language instructors is promoting comics and their most prominent sub‐genre, the graphic novel – a non‐serialized and often complex book‐length comic narrative – as powerful pedagogical material. Instructors have used comics to teach complex linguistic phenomena (Broersma, ; David‐West, ), literary concepts (Hallet, ; Kutch, ), reader response‐theory (Burwitz‐Melzer, ), genre categories and the specificity of different media (Bridges, ; Schwarz, ), critical literacy (Chun, ) as well as cultural and historical insights (Cerri, ; Hecke, ; Nijdam, ). Comics also dovetail with the institutional ideal of an integrated foreign language curriculum that aims at teaching both linguistic proficiency and non‐linguistic skills from the very beginning such as metalinguistic concepts of genre learning, cultural literacy, literary skills, and critical literacy (see the 2008 issues of Die Unterrichtspraxis and German Quarterly ; Paesani, Allen, & Dupuy, , as well as Swaffar & Arens, , for a multiliteracy framework).…”