Overall, I took in a lot more from Versaci’s article than I did from McCloud’s Ted video. I think that Versaci’s message was very important. I think that his overall point and question in this article was “what constitutes literary merit?”. He claims throughout the article that his students (college students) are so unaware of how important literature is, and how great it can be. When he begins to discuss graphic novels, most of his students just assume that they are for children. And like myself, most people have not picked up a graphic novel since they were a child. In today’s society, we think that if it is a picture book, it must only be for kids. This is so discouraging in today’s world because there are so many wonderful works of art and pieces of literature that people are discourage from reading because of our societies views on what is and isn’t important to read. Versaci claims that our primary goal should be “to encourage students to see themselves as having a voice in the question of what constitutes literary merit by defining reasonable parameters by which to judge a creative work and articulating why and how that work is – or is not – within those parameters. Only helping students achieve this voice do we help them become active, critical, and engaged readers”. This quote in the article is what stuck out to me the most. I think that as future educators it is important to understand how to help students not only become readers, but become good, thoughtful, and engaged readers.

When we first began the genre studies, I was not very excited. I didn’t like graphic novels when I was younger, and considering they’re made for kids, I definitely wouldn’t like them now. But I was completely wrong. The genre studies was one of my favorite parts of this class. I completely surprised myself. I chose the Lunch Lady series, which I thought was absolutely hilarious. I would definitely consider myself a visual learner, so reading in such a way as this, really helped to understand what I was actually reading rather than just skimming over the words. It took me a lot longer to read than it would have a regular book, but that is because I was so focused on the pictures and details, which I though ultimately added so much to the story and my imagination. I really loved the graphic novels and I can’t wait to include them in my own classroom curriculum.

The book that I chose for the book-club portion of class was Counting By 7’s written by Holly Goldberg Sloan. This book is about a young girl who suffers a terrible tragedy when she is very young. She finds out early on in the book that her parents both died. The main character in this book, Willow, is literally a genius. She knows everything there is to know not only about the academics that she learns in school, but she is also fascinated with the medical world. Throughout this book there are many characters and friends that come into Willow’s life, all of which play very interesting parts. One thing that I liked about this book is that Holly Goldberg Sloan took a very deep and difficult subject, and tackled it with humor, quirkiness, just enough tragedy, and grace. She perfectly encompasses that there are kids who go through huge changes in their life as well as smaller everyday events. I think that this book could be very helpful for a student or child that may be going through the same thing as well as a lesson for other kids who may live a more “picture perfect” lifestyle and may not know what some of their peers go through. Although fortunately, I have never dealt with a death in the family, I still went through a lot growing up that most other kids don’t have many experiences with. I would assume that a lot of the things Willow goes through are the same way.  As a child, and still to this day, I always wish that my friends had a better understanding of the particular issue that my family deals with on a day to day basis, but they don’t. They won’t unless they educate themselves. I think that this book could educate young kids on not only one, but many issues that children deal with.