The Implementation of Common Core: Graphic Novels In the Classroom

The Common Core State Standards are alive and thriving in schools across the nation, and teachers are constantly looking for the best possible ways to implement these rigorous standards with student interests in mind. These standards set goals, or benchmarks, for students to reach at any specified grade level throughout their primary and secondary education; school districts, administrators, and teachers have the choice of deciding how students meet these standards. As a pre-service teacher who will enter the teaching profession, I examine how graphic novels can be implemented into the English Language Arts classroom by analyzing Maus, Persepolis, and Bleach through different schools of criticism and arguing how these texts can be complex. This study shows how graphic novels can be read in the classroom with theory and how the pictures and words lead to a deep structural meaning of the text. I decided to use graphic novels because they are a very popular genre of young adult literature. Teaching graphic novels can be a stepping stone for sparking student interests in reading and meeting the goals given by the English Language Arts CCSS. The intention of this study is to look at diverse texts in realm of the young adult literature and to provide ways in which graphic novels can be successfully implemented into classrooms to meet the Common Core State Standards