I just finished watching last weeks episode of Girl Meets World and felt like discussing this topic. First, let me say that I love the Boy Meets World reboot, it is amazing and I especially love all of the nods to us 90's kids who grew up with the original show.
Let me recap this episode for you.
In this episode the students get a new English teacher. In walks this young woman who wears a leather jacket, has a helmet, and carries herself in an extremely positive way. (Reminding you of anyone yet?) Her name is Harper, yes after Harper Lee, and she has an unconventional way of wanting to teach her students. Her first book is a graphic novel, The Dark Night Returns.
The school principal walks by and is outraged that the students all have comics on their desks because it is not part of school policy. Nonetheless, she tells them to go home and read it anyway.
Back at the Matthew's home Riley, Cory and Topanga's daughter, and Mya, her best friend, are rushing through dinner so they can go do their homework. Topanga questions them and they start to tell her all about their new teacher. This is when Topanga mentions to Cory that the teachers sounds like a teacher they had once. (Have you figured it out?)
The next day in the classroom Harper is having the students say what they have learned about good vs evil from reading this graphic novel. The principal comes in and ultimately fires her. When Cory comes to her aid, he also gets fired. However, Topanga mentions that he isn't legally allowed to fire them without talking to the superintendent of the school. It took me a while to figure out who Harper was supposed to remind you of. She is supposed to be this generations Mr. Turner. Yes, that Mr. Turner. :)
The following day Cory and Harper are in a classroom with the principal who is gloating that he's pretty close to the superintendent when Cory mentions that he and Mr. Turner go way back. The reunion is heart warming and brilliant. We also find out that Mr. Turner is still involved in the Matthew's lives and Riley even calls him Uncle. By the end of the episode both Cory and Harper have kept jobs because the children will learn from them, even with Harper's unconventional teaching methods. You learn that she was using Batman as a way to get the children to realize good and evil before giving them To Kill a Mockingbird and she asked them to call her Harper so they could make the connection to Harper Lee.
I love that they used this episode the week that the sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird was released. Being a book lover I felt a strong connection to this episode.
Now to the question I asked at the beginning of this post. I truly do believe that graphic novels should be considered literature. As this episode of Girl Meets World shows, graphic novels can teach you about good and evil in a way that other pieces of literature may not be able to. I think that graphic novels can help people who consider themselves non readers be able to use a different form of literature that they can connect to.
Just because a piece of literature isn't a 300+ page novel and has the best writing in it doesn't make it any less valuable. Personally I have been getting more into graphic novels and plan to read more in the future. Graphic novels not only give you dialogue, but they give you pictures to help with the placement and descriptions that other literature may not be able to. In a single page of a graphic novel we can see the location, judge the feel of the scene, and meet multiple characters with barely any words. In other forms of literature it may take ten to twenty pages to achieve all that information and it still may not be enough to help some people connect to the story.
Overall I do feel that graphic novels can be considered literature and I love the idea of added some into a school curriculum, assuming they were thought out and a teacher could build a good lesson plan on it. I'm thankful for this episode of Girl Meets World because it may get children interesting in reading who may not have been before. Seeing that they can read something other than the required reading, may open their mind to more amazing stories.
Thanks for reading :)
Until next time,
G
