manga and English teachers

[meryl]

I have a chance to write an article for a journal/magazine that goes to English teachers in Virginia, and so I thought I'd write a primer to manga. I plan to talk about shounen and shoujo, a little about appropriate content for different age groups, and make some recommendations. Then I started to wonder what the younger fans around here would want their teachers to know about manga that might get them to take it more seriously. I only have a few days and a few pages of manuscript to work with so it won't be a long article. So, any suggestions on what you think teachers should know?

[shuironeko]

How young is younger. I certainly know I don't qualify, but are you looking middle-school only, or is high school okay?

[Pelianth]

I'm not young, but somethign with regards to the dangers of editing/censoring/arbitrary re-writes is always good.

*will be putting that in to something she's doing for the elementary school librarians she's helping on the subject*

[meryl]

I would say middle school and high school. I teach college English myself, but the magazine goes to teachers at all levels.

For instance, looking at my shelves I plan to highlight Hikaru no Go and From Far Away among others as being great for middle school kids and Fruits Basket, Hana-Kimi, XXXholic, Tsubasa and some others for high schoolers. Part of the difficulty about doing this article is talking about things that don't bother me, and didn't bother me when I was that age, but which parents might raise a stink about. For instance, Hana-Kimi could be risky in terms of parents but I think high school kids could really relate (and wouldn't mind the more "out" characters).

[sumiyax]

I have asked your question on a board where you will get more answers than you can possibly cope with. I recommend checking it out immediately. /images/graemlins/sdsmiley.gif

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10874718

If the thread is popular, it may last for several days, so keep checking back!

(Note: URL fixed.)

[Rukia Kuchiki]

Teachers should know about the culture behind it somewhat. But I think teachers should expect their students to be able to relate what they (the students) like (manga, anime) to what is being taught. For example, I wrote a paper about two years ago for a Science Fiction Literature class and I dicussed the Sci-fi of Evangelion but, I did so comparing various scenes of the show to several different Sci-fi short stories we covered in the class. Funny thing was while we were reading the stories, I was thinking "hey, this reminds me of this scene in this anime/manga".
I digress, though. The biggest difficulty I have found with techers and anime/manga is that they just don't know about it. Granted I've come across quite a few teachers in my day that will not even consider anime/manga anything more than "junk", the majority of the teachers/professors I've had have taken an honest interest in the subjects and have often asked me to explain anime/manga to them. So yes, talk about some good manga for the different age groups but talk a little about manga's history too.

[meryl]

Thank you! That helps a lot. I'll go over and check it out.

[Chuplayer]

My first English teacher in my first college English class saw me reading xxxHolic, and she took immediate interest in it. She then tried reading it and she got dizzy because she had to read in the reverse manga way. She blamed it on being left-handed. But she really liked the concept, and she liked the extra cultural and translation notes in the back.

[sumiyax]

[ QUOTE ]
meryl said:
Thank you! That helps a lot. I'll go over and check it out.

[/ QUOTE ]

Here's another thread on the same board that you'll find useful. But you'll never get through the whole thing!

http://www.gaiaonline.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10065869

[CrimsonRose]

There's an exhibit that is touring some universities that's about shojo manga. Here's a link (http://www.csuchico.edu/hfa/chicoarts/shojomangapr.html) to some info about it. I hope I get to see it!

[cairber]

The British COuncil for Teaching English has an article about AH My Goddess on their website (teachingenglish.org) and I know there is another one on manga at the NAtional Council of Teachers of English site. I used them in a paper I wrote a while back about motivating students to read. You could look at those articles for some info...tho I can't remember the exact web addresses of them. I might be able to locate my works cited later tho.

[shuironeko]

[ QUOTE ]
cairber said:
The British COuncil for Teaching English has an article about AH My Goddess on their website (teachingenglish.org) and I know there is another one on manga at the NAtional Council of Teachers of English site. I used them in a paper I wrote a while back about motivating students to read. You could look at those articles for some info...tho I can't remember the exact web addresses of them. I might be able to locate my works cited later tho.

[/ QUOTE ]

This raises a point about the various levels of editorial quality to be found in manga. After all, we have seen many instances of improper use of English in manga over the past few years, including miss-spellings, improper use of homonyms, repeated words, incorrect grammar and the like.

Maybe you should mention it as an opportunity to point out these issues. And then send it to the relevant manga company's editorial & quality control departments. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

I suggest you recommend a contest for the students to see who can find the most mistakes. /images/graemlins/happy.gif

[puffypancake]

Former lurker turned poster here. Just have an interesting story that may or may not relate.

The other day when I was browsing through the manga at Borders, there was a mom there with her 6th or 7th grade son (I can't remember which) who struck up a random conversation with me.

She went on and on about how she loved the fact that he was reading so much these days and how since he started reading manga, all his test scores started to go up and he did something like 20% better on his state tests at the end of last year. So now she bribes him with manga to get him to keep doing his homework and chores and he's so much better behaved.

I found it interesting and funny at the same time. I can only imagine being a kid with no money and hearing my mom shout at me to make my bed or get an A in a class before I can read the new Fruits Basket or something.

[meryl]

One of the reasons for doing an article like this is that teachers and parents are desperate for ways to get kids (especially boys) eager to read. So finding things like manga that kids want to read anyway helps the cause.

[wingednike]

I don't know if this is true or not but perhaps one of the prejudices against manga and comics is that it doesn't "make kids use their imagination". After all, with a "real" book the words cause readers to imagine what the characters, settings, and interactions look like. With manga the pictures are already drawn so there is a set way to picture everything. No thinking required.

Manga can still be used to inspire creativity, though. Teachers could ask students to describe or draw how characters would react to various situations, forecast a character five years/10 years into the future, compare a manga and reall book hero to find similar traits, etc

[michaelwb]

[ QUOTE ]
wingednike said:
After all, with a "real" book the words cause readers to imagine what the characters, settings, and interactions look like. With manga the pictures are already drawn so there is a set way to picture everything. No thinking required.


[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I was thinking about this recently. Can anyone of our generation or recent generations read books the way our ancestors did? We spend our lives inundated with images of an amazing variety of things via movies, TV, photographs, etc. Anything you read that describes automatically accesses this database of imagery to build upon what you read.

In the past, if you read something that was beyond what you saw in your life you can to rely more heavily on the actual descriptions offered by the writer. I suppose that is part of the reason the pre-visual media books are so much more description laden that more current books. And I think that in some ways, it makes it harder for modern folks to read the description heavy prose of the past.

I also wondered if it is even possible to read something and envision it the way the author intended because of the wealth of pre-defined images roaming our heads. I think in some ways it is part of the reason that I feel a special affinity with graphic novels, manga, etc. you can see that creator's actual vision, rather than the plate of images you assemble from the media's cafeteria-style buffet.

But I ramble...

[Andre]

While Manga isn't used so much in English Class [since it's english literature], it is heavily used by Librarians. Domestic and Foriegn Graphic Novels [primarily English, French, Korean and Japanaese comics] are promoted quite a bit by Libary Journal [an academic Journal for librarians], the American Library Association [see their YALSA lists, the next of which is currently in nomination period, with Ai Yazawa's NaNa already on the list], and the Candian Library Association. They recognize the tool of comics being used for educational/literary purposes.

We did actually use a little manga in my Japanese language courses in University though... and one of my english Prof's knew what Shoujo was when I referenced it for modern homosocial aspects among women like those in Sailor Moon and CardCaptor Sakura.

[Andre]

[ QUOTE ]
wingednike said:
I don't know if this is true or not but perhaps one of the prejudices against manga and comics is that it doesn't "make kids use their imagination". After all, with a "real" book the words cause readers to imagine what the characters, settings, and interactions look like. With manga the pictures are already drawn so there is a set way to picture everything. No thinking required.

[/ QUOTE ]

Pictures have existed in books since Books existed. the earliest books were Illuminated Manuscripts, handmade/written with vellum, and painted with various inks and dyes, and gold enamel on every page. It cost a lot to buy a book, since you'd have to pay to have a copy made by hand, pre-printing press.

Anyhoo, these books were riddled with illustratsions, and were more or less sequential art/comics in places, picture books heavy on pictures AND text.
Once the printing press came about, illustartations were still common by adding lithographs and prints into the bindings.

Anyhoo, you still have to image the voices, the transitions, it does leave a good deal of the interpretation to the brain. It's not that TV isn't mentally stimulating, as it's the content that's stimulating, not the way it's presented to you. It's just that TV is easier/quicker to take in then books [comics+novels], just as comics are easier to take in then novels.... mind you, it can take several thousands pages of comics to tell the same story as a novel. And Theatre has existed longer then actual books have been around...


On a tangent, the earliest novels were Serialized in newspapers and magazines, like Charles Dickens work, just like how most manga and comics are published -monthly/biweekly/weekly installments which make you want the next one RIGHT NOW, and editors trying their darndest to make the writer WRITE MORE [which is why Dicken's David Copperfield is so BIG and allover the place... the editors and readers just kept asking for more /images/graemlins/happy.gif]

[Mrdini]

[ QUOTE ]
michaelwb said:
[ QUOTE ]
wingednike said:
After all, with a "real" book the words cause readers to imagine what the characters, settings, and interactions look like. With manga the pictures are already drawn so there is a set way to picture everything. No thinking required.


[/ QUOTE ]

Actually I was thinking about this recently. Can anyone of our generation or recent generations read books the way our ancestors did? We spend our lives inundated with images of an amazing variety of things via movies, TV, photographs, etc. Anything you read that describes automatically accesses this database of imagery to build upon what you read.

In the past, if you read something that was beyond what you saw in your life you can to rely more heavily on the actual descriptions offered by the writer. I suppose that is part of the reason the pre-visual media books are so much more description laden that more current books. And I think that in some ways, it makes it harder for modern folks to read the description heavy prose of the past.


[/ QUOTE ]
Gormenghast *beats head on table* Whilst I don't deny the trilogy is an excellent piece of work, it's so heavy, so hard to read. Don't think I'll ever finish it.

[ QUOTE ]

I also wondered if it is even possible to read something and envision it the way the author intended because of the wealth of pre-defined images roaming our heads. I think in some ways it is part of the reason that I feel a special affinity with graphic novels, manga, etc. you can see that creator's actual vision, rather than the plate of images you assemble from the media's cafeteria-style buffet.


[/ QUOTE ]
*Nods* An interesting point. Whenever I think of characters from Terry Pratchett's stuff, I always look at them in a Josh Kirby (http://www.artesanato-mr.com/ruby/jkirby1.htm)-esque way. (All UK Discworld paperback cover artwork were done by him up till his recent death).

*Coughs* Anyway, back to the topic. In my opinion, there's a fine line here. I feel that there is such a thing as "literature". Feel free to flame me, but the majority of manga (for that matter, probably all manga ) out there is not "english literature" in my opinion, and does NOT belong in an english classroom.
I studied Susan Hill's "I'm the King of the Castle", "Lord of the Flies" by Golding, and a few of Shakespeare's stuff. At no point can I recall ever studying non-english-origins material in my english classes.