By reading my Duty last Saturday and taking note of the title of “ Duty of Education”, signed Réjean Bergeron, I was immediately challenged, because I work every day (and I am not the only one) to precisely “put the book, reading and culture at the center of our educational project “. You won’t be surprised, Mr. Bergeron, if I tell you that I share several of the statements you present there, but let’s say that there is one that startled me concerning comics and young people.
First of all, I am surprised that you put text messages (ephemeral texts) and comics (perennial literary works) on an equal footing, thus allowing you to assert that reading comics “in no way improves or so little reading skills.” It is well known that comics at school have not always been valued over the last decades, a time when certain albums from here or elsewhere were perhaps not what they have become today. ‘today; true literary works.
There are many comic artists (and their publishers) who offer our young readers works of great value, in the same way as a novel, a collection of poetry or a “classic”, and which delight them. The comic has thus become an essential literary genre for teaching reading since it now appears as a resistant text, that is to say a reluctant text which offers comprehension challenges and a proliferating text, which offers problems of interpretation (Tauveron).
These are the comics that I have been presenting with great pleasure to teachers and their primary and secondary students for several years, focusing on discussion. I lead large group reading sessions during which the students are engaged. They discuss their understanding, interpret the vision of the world proposed by the authors, develop their ability to infer, react to the text read and take a critical look at the work.
With these interactive sessions, all reading operations are targeted, in addition to activating cultural references and developing social skills by the very nature of the exchanges. Believe me, our young people are indeed developing their reading skills by forming, with their teacher, a real community of readers where life is good and which allows them to surpass themselves.
Last week, I visited a high school in eastern Montreal for three days. I met ten groups of 2e secondary school and their teachers. We read together and out loud the first 50 pages of the magnificent comic strip Paul at the park, by Michel Rabagliati (La Pastèque), discussing before, during and after our reading. Tell you the quality of the discussions we had!
Next time, I can invite you, if you feel like it, so that you can see first-hand that these young people are real readers, “lovers” of books according to the etymology of the word — amateur —, which means “friends” of books. Comics contribute, in the same way as other literary genres, to developing a taste for reading, to taking pleasure in it and to becoming a competent reader. Isn’t this one of the objectives of any educational project?
Let us continue our actions, offer rich and meaningful reading activities and make different literary genres, including comics, available to our students throughout their school career. We thus help them to become readers in and for life.