Graphic Novel Week

A Wrinkle in Time, by Madeline L'Engle's

In my nearly two decades of reading experience, I had never read a graphic novel. Now, in a matter of only a few days, I have read two. The first was a graphic novel adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Tempest, and this book, A Wrinkle in Time, is obviously my second one. With my relative "overload" of such a unique and foreign type of text, I am still trying to figure out exactly how I feel about graphic novels. I do believe they are worth incorporating into a language arts classroom, but exactly how often should they be used? How should we use them? And which ones are worth using?
Personally, I was okay with reading a graphic version of Shakespeare because many people, myself included, struggle with understanding the language of a 400 year old text. The images help the reader make sense of the words, and this type of book would be especially valuable for new readers of Shakespeare. For a book like A Wrinkle in Time, however, I found its graphic adaptation to be less worthwhile in a classroom. Yes, the pictures helped add to the suspense and excitement of Meg's journeys with the three Mrs. W's and her brother, Charles, but I did not feel like they served the same purpose as they would in another book--such as The Tempest. Of course, I am not saying that the only graphic novels that are worthy of being in my lessons are Shakespeare, but I do not feel like A Wrinkle in Time is necessarily one of them.
I have never read the original text of this book, so it might be worth pursuing in order to compare the two types of mediums. Unlike The Tempest, this graphic novel does not maintain its original text, and therefore, I believe we, as readers, may be compromising the value of the original text. The descriptive imagery and other rhetorical devices were lost in this book that I would assume would be present in the original text. Our imagination is replaced with the interpretation of the book's artist, and we are unable to conjure up our own thoughts and images because they have been decided for us. Additionally, when compared to the original text (assuming that its language is more descriptive), I would be less likely to remember the details, figures, and images presented in the graphic novel because I did not rely on my imagination or have the opportunity to interpret the book in my own way. Therefore, if I were to choose to incorporate this book into my class, I would most likely use its original text. With that being said, I would also consider allowing my students who struggle with reading or who are more visual learners to read the graphic novel version as a supplementary text.