Comic Books in the Classroom
Written by: rwlovett on February 27, 2011
An editorial from the New York Times brings into perspective workshops utilizing comic books as a teaching tool. This article is programmed towards the idea that students who struggle with reading may be able to grip the skill of reading by way of comic books, and I agree. I believe that this editorial has a strong assertion, which is that comic books are becoming more widely accepted in classrooms. The paper is clearly organized and the anonymous author has weak pathos because there was no emotion felt when I read the editorial. The author has good credibility by using Michael Bitz as his authority, as far as he or she goes. The overall tone of the paper was one of seriousness, I believe that this fits well with the topic because we do need to do something about students struggling with reading and I agree that comic books are a great start. The author could have had better diction because overall, the paper seems dry; that is, its tone is stale.
Throughout the editorial, “Comic Books in the Classroom”, written by an anonymous author for the New York Times, discusses the idea that introducing comic books in the class room can bring a whole new approach to students who would otherwise struggle with reading and comprehending literature. The author does not mean to “drop a comic book on a child’s desk and say: ‘read this.’” But to educate the child through Michael Bitz’s workshops that allow them to critically think about the comic books and begin to grasp the language for which they are learning through images as well as proper literature.
The creditability of the article is there but it is not very strong. Michael Bitz is a good source, with him being the founder of the program and all, but the reliability of the editorial could have been stronger had the author used other sources as well, such as doing independent research. The editorial could have been more persuasive had the author used an allusion. The author could have related to some events or stories about how young students did not understand the literature, so then they picked up a comic book and began to learn to read and comprehend.
Had the author had an analogy, it would have been more persuasive, for example, the author could have applied some of the similarities between traditional texts, and comic books.
An anecdote would have also been helpful when persuading readers, for example, the author could have inserted a short story with a clear, strong message, that enlightened the reader about how comic books helped the main character in the story to read. The author did an excellent job of using assertion to their advantage, “Generations of children grew up reading comic books on the sly, hiding out from parents and teacher who saw them as a waste of time and a hazard to young minds.” With this statement in mind, the author was able to hook the reader into the rest of the editorial. The author uses Michel Bitz as an authority in his or her editorial, which is a great start, also considering that the program is run out of Teachers College at Columbia University.
The author could have added in some officials who helped give rise to the program, and other credible sources, which led up to its success. I also feel that the author could have used some different grammatical ‘eye catchers’ in order to capture the complete attention of the reader. The author of the paper could have done a better job spicing up the paper by using a better choice words and flavorful adjectives. The author could have used a different tone to fit the topic of the paper. Rather than use a serious tone, and apply more to that of traditional texts, why not pursued the reader using a more comical approach to show them that comic books do in fact pursued and teach, and are not just for the purpose of entertainment.
The paper was clearly organized; first, the author introduced the topic and used a supporting paragraph, then used an additional paragraph to explain, then summing it all up in their conclusion. Thus leading me to criticize the author and this editorial. The author of the paper has a pretty good start, but there are some major points that they did not touch down on, or where weak.
Some of the five A’s were not even brought up, which took away from the persuasiveness and thus reliability of the paper. Thus leading me to criticize the author and this editorial. The area that persuaded me, was how the author used a great statistic tone throughout their paper. They could have utilized their next paragraph when explaining to ensure that the reader was persuaded by naming a few of the schools and introducing some of their own research to correspond with the information about the program.
Originally Published on Triond
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