Of Studious Babies, Talking Rabbits, and Watercolor Activism: Using the Comics Form to Consider Nonfiction

THIS ISN'T HOW it happened! Who drew this? The Provost character in Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: One Dead Spy (Hale, 2012, p. 26) poignantly responds to how the American Revolution is being portrayed. As scholars of comics and nonfiction literature, we take a cue from him by asking questions of texts. Colman (2007) defines nonfiction as writing about reality: real people, places, events, ideas, feelings, and things in which nothing is made up (p. 260). Fiction is seen as containing made-up material. Yet, by analyzing three pieces of graphic nonfiction, we question the function of nonfiction, consider multiple and contradicting truths within that hold that label, and see the possibilities in the blurring of genres that graphic nonfiction takes up.Fueled by the call and challenge for more nonfiction in classrooms, we ask how the medium of comics supports and complicates how we define and understand nonfiction. Can textual elements that blur conceptions of nonfiction as entirely true be used to help readers analyze representations of nonfiction, and therein, representations of history and lived experiences of disability? To address this question, we focus on two graphic novels commonly labeled as nonfiction, Nathan Hale's Hazardous Tales: One Dead Spy (Hale, 2012) and Drowned City: Hurricane Katrina and New Orleans (Brown, 2015), and one graphic novel that is typically labeled as biography or memoir, El Deafo (Bell, 2014).ScholarshipCONCEPTIONS OF FICTION AND NONFICTIONCommon conceptions about nonfiction and fiction include ideas that nonfiction is dry and only tells factual information, whereas fiction is engaging and relays a story (Colman, 2007). However, children's books found in the nonfiction section of the library frequently incorporate imaginative and inventive elements commonly associated with fiction. This delineation between fiction and nonfiction is becoming blurred in children's literature as books use components of both genres. Some of these are called hybrid, literary nonfiction, and creative nonfiction, while others are still classified as nonfiction (Colman, 2007).The conceptions of fiction-that those books are written for pleasure and use imagination-should also be attributed to nonfiction, because the information presented in nonfiction books can result in reading for enjoyment (Colman, 2007). This is not to say authors of nonfiction cannot use imagination in order to faithfully and accurately tell their story. However, the result can prove problematic for teaching fiction and nonfiction in simple, dichotomous ways (Colman, 2007; Moller, 2016). For instance, teaching fiction solely for plot, characters, and emotional themes and nonfiction for text structure and expository reports are ways instruction with these genres is typically divided (Colman, 2007). Teachers may not recognize the fictional elements in nonfiction or other books that blur genre lines, and these books may be difficult to find, but there is deep value in acknowledging and studying their intricate nature.NONFICTION AND THE COMMON COREWhile teachers are being asked to incorporate more nonfiction into their instruction since the advent of the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010), they frequently are operating without the benefit of extended knowledge of nonfiction (Donovan & Smolkin, 2001; Rice, 2002; Shymansky, Yore, & Good, 1991) and often resort to teaching fiction and nonfiction in isolation without encouraging critical inquiry into the (Colman, 2007; Levstik, 2003; Moss, 2008; Pappas, Kiefer, & Levstik, 2006). Curricular changes expected by the Common Core State Standards propose that 50% of what elementary children read and write include informational texts (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). …