Todd Erickson

ENG697

Final Project

A Unit for Departure:

Shaun Tan’s The Arrival as an Analytical and Thematic Introduction

Grade Level: 11th Grade International Baccalaureate (IB) Literature

Duration: Ten 66-minute Periods (approximately two weeks of classes)

Objectives:

Overarching IB objectives

Students will be able to demonstrate:

·  an ability to engage in independent literary criticism in a manner that reveals a personal response to literature.

·  an ability to engage in independent commentary on familiar pieces of writing.

Specific objectives for individual class periods:

The students will be able to:

·  display an understanding of the “What-How-Why” approach to a work of art.

·  define the term “analyze” and have a basic understanding of some terminology to be used in analysis of graphic novels.

·  apply a definition of “curiosity” to develop thematic questions as a during-reading strategy.

·  build, utilize, and complete a reading log in thorough, specific, and reflective manner.

·  determine thematic developments based on author’s choices.

·  determine the thematic relevance of two structural components of the story.

·  complete informal commentary on a given section of the work.

·  apply during-reading strategies to comment on the author’s use of specific techniques.

·  determine a thematic idea of the work and components of the story that convey it, citing specific examples from the work.

·  create a diagram to display a work’s depiction of a thematic idea.

·  present information to the class in a clear and organized manner.

Materials:

·  Copies of The Arrival

·  Lined paper

·  Blank (drawing) paper

·  Drawing utensils

·  Projector and internet connection

Context within the course syllabus:

This is a ten-day unit plan that uses Shaun Tan’s The Arrival as the first major unit of my two-year International Baccalaureate Literature course. It will follow the initial summer work presentations and a brief reading diagnostic activity, and precede a mini unit on Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue,” which will then be followed by the first quarter of the course syllabus, which focuses on three Works in Translation.

In this sequence, the unit is meant to provide an introduction to the analysis of art as creation with a purpose as well as an introduction to themes that are common amongst the first three written novels of the year: identity, culture, one’s relationship to place, and language. Both the analytical process and the consideration of content (themes) is something that will continue throughout the remainder of the course. As a note regarding these themes, being that they are somewhat universal and no doubt overlap with and influence one another, the specific ideas developed regarding these themes will be left to the discoveries of the students as the unit progresses and the work is read, allowing for both the analytical process and its findings to be authentic.

Rationale for Use of Comics and The Arrival:

This unit is created for use within a curriculum at a school that, as yet, has not incorporated graphic novels at all. I offer the following rationale in an attempt to reduce the reluctance that can sometimes come along with teaching a “new” genre in a literature class, teaching within the comic genre (which has often been subjected to unfavorable stereotypes), and teaching with a graphic novel that has no understandable written language. The following rationale is extremely brief in comparison to the amount of academic writing espousing the benefits of teaching literacy through this genre.

In Comics and Sequential Art, Will Eisner cites the following quote from Tom Wolf’s 1977 piece in the Harvard Educational Review, seeming to indirectly justify its use in academic settings:

“For the last hundred years, the subject of reading has been connected quite directly to the concept of literacy…learning to read…has meant learning to read words…But…reading has gradually come under closer scrutiny. Recent research has shown that the reading of words is but a subset of a much more general human activity, which includes symbol decoding, information integration and organization….Indeed, reading—in the most general sense—can be thought of as a form of perceptual activity. The reading of words is one manifestation of this activity; but there are many others—the reading of pictures, maps, circuit diagrams, musical notes…” (2).

Eisner follows this by saying that “Wolf’s reconsideration of reading is an important reminder that the psychological processes involved in viewing a word and an image are analogous. The structures of illustration and prose are similar” (2). An understanding of the similarities between words and pictures, both in structure and in how they are received and perceived by readers, makes the use of comics (which often use both words and images) in literature classes not only a practical but a meaningful choice. The transfer of skills that so often seems to go unnoticed, isn’t taught explicitly, or simply doesn’t happen can be made clear through the use of a medium such as comics, through which one can prove that the analytical thinking required in reading novels, stories, and poems is, can, and should be applied to various other areas of life. Additionally, the common complaint of students that such analysis “ruins” the stories that they read can be rebutted with the act of reading a challenging comic that might appear to be simple but in fact requires analytical thinking to understand the artist’s manipulation of elements such as sequence and space on the page.

On what sometimes seems a more obvious level, the use of comics or graphic novels in an English Language Arts makes sense due to its visual content, which can provide an alternative to texts with only the written word. Although it might be a common thing to label certain students as “visual learners,” Bakis actually applies this trait to most of the population: “As I tell my students, ‘Anyone who has sight is a visual learner.’ Humans are wired to learn visually, and the image-text interface will always be a means of learning, recording, sharing, and knowing” (viii). Along with this reasoning, Bakis provides an excellent list of specific reasons for why graphic novels are worthy subjects of study, supported by citing a variety of scholarly articles. To reiterate all of these would be academically redundant, but it may be worthwhile to point out the following as it pertains to the purpose of this unit. Bakis writes that, “Because of the interpretive nature of pictures, graphic novels facilitate instruction on the participatory and active, constructive nature of reading…students avoid one authoritative answer, creating a more democratic classroom” (3). Here, the emphasis on the possibility of multiple reasonable interpretations of a piece connects clearly with the emphasis on a personal response to literature necessary for genuine commentary on a work. It is never the case whether one’s interpretation or commentary is correct or incorrect, but that the ideas can be supported through relevant textual evidence. For this and seemingly countless other reasons, graphic novels or comics can be used in logical and meaningful ways in an English Language Arts curriculum as either primary or supportive texts.

Regarding the specific choice of graphic novel, in addition to its thematic content, Shaun Tan’s The Arrival is ideal due to its being “wordless.” This trait allows for several things: 1) a variety of chances to consider the effects of language should it be applied to the work, 2) a chance to perform the kinds of thinking necessary for thoughtful analysis without necessitating the time to read a longer text, and 3) avoiding any preconceptions that students might arrive with concerning written texts, which might act as barriers to gaining an understanding of the conceptual framework being introduced. Perhaps most importantly, it requires students to think about their thinking as they read the work, something which Bakis clarifies: “the all-graphic text demands attention to self as a reader as an active participant rather than considering text as primary or superior…[it can be used to demonstrate] how reading is a constructive and process-oriented act requiring rereading and reconstruction” (34). Overall within the context of my course, students will ideally be able to see that the same kinds of thinking applied to understanding visual texts can be applied in understanding written texts. Considering thematically similar works in different mediums allows for various connections to be made as well, hopefully engendering depth in understanding of certain themes.

General Overview of Objectives and Unit Plans:

I. The overall purpose of the unit is to introduce students to the process of personalized commentary on a work of art. The overarching objectives of the unit, taken from the IB curriculum of the school is that students will display “an ability to engage in independent literary criticism in a manner which reveals a personal response to literature” and “an ability to engage in independent textual commentary on both familiar pieces of writing.” Ultimately, students will be able to provide written commentary on The Arrival that considers how particular ideas about certain themes are conveyed in the work via certain choices of the author. This ultimate goal is broken down into smaller objectives that are assigned to each day of the unit. It is important to note that it is assumed that students have some familiarity with the concepts of character, conflict, plot, structure, and theme.

In an attempt to enable students to become comfortable with such an approach to art, the unit is grounded in two conceptual frameworks. The first of these is that of a “language of thinking,” defined as “the words in a language that refer to mental processes and mental products” or “words that describe and evoke thinking” (Perkins 7). This concept is one of the pieces of a framework for teaching that aims at creating a “culture of thinking” within a class, as explained in detail in Tishman, Perkins, and Jay’s The Thinking Classroom. I also discuss it further in the “pedagogical credits” section of this plan. Specifically, the focus in this unit on the “thinking words” of analyze and synthesize, as well as the dispositions of specificity, thoroughness, curiosity, and reflectiveness has been determined with the process of considering, analyzing, and responding to art in mind. The processes of analysis and synthesis, as well as the habits of being specific, thorough, curious, and reflective are all relevant to the task of developing personalized commentary in response to a work of art, be it visual or written.

The second conceptual framework is one created by myself, but which is too common to deserve any copyright. In an attempt to convey the content of commentary, I abbreviate the process as “The What, How, Why.” It is a simplified way to communicate the task of determining what an artist is creating, how the artist creates it, and why the artist creates it. For example, in writing, an author may create certain aspects of character (the “what”) through specific methods of characterization or language (the “how”) in order to ultimately, in combination with other aspects of a story, convey concepts about a certain theme (the “why”). This is not meant to serve as a means of organizing writing (an issue that sometimes has to be overcome later on), but to organize one’s thinking in response to a work.

These first two conceptual frameworks are introduced early in the unit (Day One), and are followed by an admittedly brief overview of some of the techniques comic artists use in the medium to create meaning. This is then followed by additional pre-reading activities concerning the cover and the initial pages of the comic, before moving into the body of the work and applying during reading strategies through group and individual work with a reading log and other activities. After finishing the reading, students work in small groups to create and present “theme trees,” or a visual depiction of a chosen thematic idea with information about how it is conveyed. Finally, individual summative assessment is accomplished through each student’s choice of one of the following:

  1. A written analysis of a dominant thematic idea conveyed by The Arrival with explanation of how it is developed through the author’s use of various effects, citing and analyzing several specific panels or pages of the piece.
  2. Creation of an additional page to be incorporated into The Arrival, with specific intent to aid in conveying a particular thematic idea. Accompanied by written justification of artistic choices.
  3. Written analysis as with #1 but with student’s choice of other work.
  4. Creation and analysis of students’ own work, displaying ability to both apply and analyze effects of various techniques and strategies of this art form (this would take a bit longer)

Written work will be graded using an IB rubric. Ultimately, students should be able to not only state what the artist is attempting to create, but the means by which s/he creates it, as well as reasoning why s/he creates it, connecting to universal themes of identity, language, culture, and perhaps even class.

Pedagogical Credits:

Although the use of “thinking words” and “thinking dispositions” is not necessarily copyrighted, and although the short activities which I use to introduce some of the “language of thinking” are of my own creation, I cite the work of Shari Tishman, David Perkins, and Eileen Jay in The Thinking Classroom as providing the inspiration for incorporating a “language of thinking” as a foundation for my classes. I have found this approach to teaching my classes to have excellent results. For the past two years, I have used this experimented teaching and using a foundational “language of thinking” in an explicit way with my freshman classes; this year I aim to incorporate it into my IB class. While I do not incorporate it to the extent that is described in The Thinking Classroom, it has become an important part of the culture and atmosphere I try to create.