College Paper Slams ‘Persepolis’ Reading Assignment
Not too long ago, I served as editor of a college newspaper, meaning I also headed up the editorial board that oversaw the paper’s opinion pages. More than a few times, the editorial board would be hard-pressed to come up with some topic worthy of bloviating upon.
I can only hope such a desperate lack of material was what spurred the editorial board of The Ithacan, Ithaca College’s (New York) student paper, to lambast the college’s leadership for choosing Marjane Satrapi’s graphic novel Persepolis as the summer reading assignment for incoming freshman. The editorial, in all its glory, is available right here.
An excerpt:
The idea of a graphic novel goes against the grain of typical required reading and may be welcomed by the incoming freshmen, who are part of a generation that has grown up in a world of fragmented cultures of television news, video games and the Internet. But by coincidence, the selection of “Persepolis” comes soon after a November study by the National Endowment for the Arts indicating declined reading comprehension levels in young adults.
Perhaps the selection of a graphic novel was an effort to engage members of a generation that seem to have lost an appetite for literature. But at some point, this idea of catering to different tastes only furthers the declining reading comprehension. Graphic novels are little more than advanced comic books. The thematic material of this book is worth broaching but its literary value, in terms of building vocabulary and furthering comprehension, falls short.
I think a lot of us working in comics have seen signs that the medium is making some pretty great strides in terms of general recognition and acceptance, but this editorial serves as a reminder that some people still need convincing. "Graphic novels are little more than advanced comic books"? There’s a lot of ignorance in that statement.
How about, instead of writing angry screeds against these college kids, instead we offer to send them a copy of Persepolis (I’d say it’s a safe wager that whoever wrote this editorial hasn’t read the book) as well as a collection of the numerous recent news articles about schools and libraries using comic books to effectively encourage reading among children.
The controversy over whether "Watchmen" would be allowed to compete for the "Best Novel" Higo Award at the 1988 New Orleans SF WorldCon comes to mind. It was my contention (and that of a lot of other people) that "Watchmen" qualified under the Hugo Rules (at least as then written; ther emay have been rewrites in the intervening twenty years), which defined the category as for "works of fiction of at least 40,000 words".I spent an evening (on and off) arguing with John Guidry about this at the time – John's response to any argument, from "the rules say it qualifies" to "a lot of people are voting to nominate it" was "It's not a novel, it's a comic book."(Of course, compared to other adminstrative Bad Ideas associated with that WorldCon, the "Watchmen" controversy sort of fades into insignificance…)
If young people are so bad at reading comprehension, how does the editorial writer expect to be read?
Only Americans think pictures are less difficult to "read" or less enlightening than prose. After the comic censorship scandal of the Fifties scads of research was done proving that comic book reading is not a factor in a person's ability to read or appreciate prose.
Does anyone know where I can find a copy of this editorial? I just had my high school students read PERSEPOLIS for a summer assignment and would love to explore this issue with them. I followed the link above, but it says the page isn't found…any ideas? Thanks so much! -Maria