CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background of the Study

Over the past few years, there has been a growing utilization of popular
culture in the classroom to excite the students in the process of learning. The
comic books are ones of the pop culture products that can be a tool for students to
create their own experiences in combination between language and figures.
Furthermore, the format of graphic novels or comic books constitute the
uniqueness of language as a medium (Hammond, 2012). Basically, the comic
books provide the point of view of the cartoonists. Moreover, they depict the
facial expressions lie on the figures that emphasize the text to be more vivid.
These fictional figures will support the text based on real-world experiences for
the nonfiction writing to be more emotional. The pictures are expected to help
portraying the situation and the emotions when the vocabularies of the students to
confide all emotions are considered limited. Therefore, creating comic books for
students are expected to help the students to share their experience in the form of
multimodal text.

Students’ learning to share their emotions is believed to be necessary. The

key of learning is not only the goal but also to investigate the process. While it is
important for student to achieve the cognitive goals, it is also essential for students
to demonstrate what difficulties they have been dealing with especially with their
emotions. The students should learn to confide the difficulties and manage their
emotions in the teaching and learning process. Evidently, there are lots of
underachievers who are potentially able to achieve above standard scores.
However, their negative emotions especially in adolescence somehow affect their
performance in school. Moreover, high school is period of the students’ transition
students where they should deal with their transition of life to find their identity

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(Morrison et al, 2002). Therefore, they should learn how to manage their emotions
themselves in this transition of their life.

In Indonesia, the 2013 Curriculum indicates that students should learn

how to deal with people regarding their interpersonal or social skill
(Kemendikbud, 2013) .This is explicitly stated in Core Competency two of every
subject in high school including English subject. Students who are troubling to
speak their emotion will affect not only their social life but also themselves.
Apparently, the teaching process in school is very minimum to let the students for
students to learn how to deal with their emotions and the experience in their life.
The students who have trouble to speak out their emotion will affect their
participation in classroom and moreover to their evaluation in school.

The previous study conducted by Kersulov (2016) titled Emotional Truth

with Fictional Image has proved that comic books in the classroom has been
effective for teaching how to put an emotion in nonfiction writing in summer
school in an English-speaking country. However, this case study has not been yet
implemented in EFL classroom. Although, the curriculum of English in
Indonesia which applies the genre-based approach has recount texts for learning
telling the experience. Using comic books in learning the recount text is hoped to
be the opportunity for students to encourage the students to record and manage
their difficulties into a cohesive multimodal text. Hence, this research will
attempt to do the case study in one of high school in Indonesia to assess the
students creating their own comic books in English Subject. Later, their portfolio
will be analyzed in terms of their verbal and the images they use to convey their
emotions and message in their comic books.

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 1.2 Statements of the Problem
The following questions will guide this research:
1. How do the 10th graders express their emotions in their comicbooks?
2. What are the fictional images function to the verbal in the way of
expressing students’ emotion?

1.3 Aims of the Study

This research is aimed to find out how the 10th graders express their
emotions in their comicbooks. In this case, this study will analyze the verbals used
in their comicbooks, the setting, the point of view and the characters they draw.
Moreover this research also attempt to find out the functions of visual images
used in the comicbooks. As the images always have been representative of the
subjects’ imagination and emotions.

1.4 Scope of the Research

This study focuses on the result of how they learn to understand the
benefits of nonfiction writing in form multimodal text, the comic books. To get
there, this may include reading other works such as The Maus by Spiegelman
(2002) to what they feel when they read other nonfiction comic books as a
medium to share the author’s opinion at the beginning beforehand. Later, the
students will be assessed to write their own nonfiction writing in form of comic
books. After that, the comic books portfolio of some students will be analyzed in
terms of the function fictional figures to their verbal in expressing their emotions
in the classroom.

1.5 Significance of the Study

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 The result of the research which will be utilizing comic books to express
their emotions in the EFL writing classroom will give benefits on the teaching and
learning process in the classroom, and it can give benefits for:
1. The students: to make the students able express their emotions in the form of
nonfiction comic books, and to be able to strengthen their writing by adding some
fictional figures in case their vocabulary is limited. Moreover, the students are
encourage to appraise and think critically the content message in the popular
media such as comic books.
2. The teacher: to give a teacher a new method of teaching emotions in the
classroom through creating nonfiction comic books that will make the students
able to manage their emotions.
3. The society: to give the exposure of how creating comic books in the classroom
is very beneficial to reach the understanding through analyzing the cartoonist’
perspective and to the reader.

1.6 Clarification of Terms:

Comic books: Comic arts in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that
represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by brief descriptive
prose and written narrative, usually dialog contained in word balloons emblematic
of the comics art form.
Multimodality: a theory of communication and social semiotics. Multimodality
describes communication practices in terms of the textual, aural, linguistic,
spatial, and visual resources or modes that are used to compose messages.
Visual Literacy in Classroom: Students’ ability to comprehend, make meaning
of, and communicate through visual means, usually in the form
of images or multimedia.

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 CHAPTER 2

LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1 Comic books in the Classroom

Historically, comic books have been the entertainment and also medium of
historical truth since the World War II. Rosenbaum (2012) emphasizes that some
works of comic books force us to rethink and consider the past events that compel
us to questions and values the nations we live by. Since 1970s, comic books have
come back to its prominence and became popular worldwide even until now.
Comic books are multimodal literacy that help the writers express the
circumstances more vividly. Moreover, the visual images support the short
dialogues and narratives to engage the readers critically with the cartoonist’ point
of view.

The comic books as results of popular culture have been potentially a good
interesting media to engage the students with the learning process in school
(Morrison et al, 2002). Based visual literacy theory, these comic books have
various mode that carry meaning (Hasset, 2016). He further states that they
probably inspire the students to use additional modes along with the to comic
books to enhance meaning or even create new meaning. Before, creating their
own comic books, the students learn the elements of comic books by reading the
works of published comic books. The students will see fictional elements in the
selected works by the teacher providing models for students to express authentic
narratives, comment on their identities, and reflect on past physical and emotional
conflicts (Kersulov, 2016).
In the classroom, the comicbook design allow the students to expand and
explore their visual-spatial intelligence (Gardner, 1999). Moreover, the

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combination of visual and verbal into one multimodal text creating a one cohesive
text. (Stein, see Kersulov 2016). The are other advantages of creating comic
books in the classroom. According to Morrison et al, one of them is that the
students gain their research skill. He argues that when creating comic books, the
students gather the information as much as they need and put it in order so the
readers understand their message. This will also involve their thinking to make a
strategy to make a readable and interesting way to tell a story in form of writing.
Moreover, according to Morrison et al, creating comic books in the classroom
promote the students to do innovation. Moreover, it offers the students to
construct meaningful associations and relationships. Therefore, the students are
expected to learn how to analyze nonfiction comics and how to use visual and
verbal combinations in their writing, even with the use of fictional elements.

2.1 Visual Elements in Nonfiction Writing

Students who have a large vocabulary of “feeling words” can better

express their emotions using language rather than through problem behavior (Fox
et al, 2006). There are many media to teach the students express their emotions.
These include role-playing, discussing about emotion during story time, and
nonfiction writing based on their personal experience. Writing their own story
based on their experience is believed to help the students to be critical for
students. Nevertheless, the possibility of limited vocabulary is likely for students
of English as Foreign Language. Stokes states that “most people have a tendency
to think in words rather than in pictures”, conversely the use of visualization in
thinking appears to be increasing. According to Vanderbuilt University (n.d),
using visuals or pictures help the students get your point across regarding learning
emotions. Therefore, pictures and other fictional elements are somehow added to
portray the difficulties and emotional memories experienced by the students
(Kersulov, 2016).
Images in the form of fictional graphic which mark a two-dimensional
surface offer different potentials for the expression and representation of meaning

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than the affordances of other forms of modes in multimodality (Jewitt, 2012).
According to the poet Simonides (cited in Stokes) , “Words are the images of
things” (as cited in Benson, p. 141); similarly, Aristotle stated that, “without
image, thinking is impossible” (as cited in Benson, p. 141). Characters in
alphabets began as pictures with meaning (West, 1997). These symbols, according
to Stokes, portray a human-made language with no distinction between words and
pictures. Additionally, visual elements that incorporate illustrations and text to
depict patterns of concepts and ideas serve as organizational frameworks to
promote thinking and learning (Tarquin & Walker, 1997).

2.1.1 Visual Elements in Comicbooks

According to Ankiel (n.d), there are three basic common terms that the
artist should understand in creating comicbooks. These are layout, figures and
text. First of all, the layout in the comicbooks. These are the list that include in the
layout:

1. Panel: A distinctive segment of the comic. It contains a combination of

image and text in endless variety. Panels offer a different experience than
simply reading text. Unlike other visual media, transitions are
instantaneous and direct but the exact timing of the reader’s experience is
determined by focus and reading speed.
2. Frame: The lines and borders that contain the panels.
3. Gutter: The space between framed panels
4. Bleed: An image that extends to and/or beyond the edge of the page.
5. Foreground: The panel closest to the viewer.
6. Midground: Allows centering of image by using natural resting place for
vision. Ankiel also states that putting an image off-center or near the top or
bottom can be used to create visual tension. However, using the
midground allows the artist to create a more readily accepted image.

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 After creating the layout, each panel will be contained figures. The focus of
emotions will be seen in the faces. Faces can be portrayed in different ways.
Some depict an actual person, or some can be disguised in fictional figure. This
means that those figurues are representative of an idea or a group of people. There
are other points to observe about faces in the comicbooks include:
1. They can be dramatic when placed against a detailed backdrop; a bright
white face stands out.
2. They can be drawn without much expression or detail; this is called an
“open blank” and it invites the audience to imagine what the character is
feeling without telling them.

Beside faces, the figures can also be expressed by the gestures of hands or
feet. The positioning of hands and feet can be used to express what is happening
in the story. Ankiel mentions some examples such as hands that are raised with
palms out suggest surprise. The wringing of hands suggests obsequiousness or
discomfort. Hands over the mouth depict fear, shame, or shyness. Turned in feet
may denote embarrassment, while feet with motion strokes can create the sense of
panic, urgency, or speed.
Meanwhile, the text in the comicbooks can also have visual elements in every
panel. There are at least eight basic visual elements as the text containers in the
comic books based on ReadWriteThink (2005) . These are balloons, thought
balloons, captions, emanata, labels, narratory blocks, sound effects and signs. The
descriptions are below:

1. Balloons: The objects that are used to contain the dialogue that the
characters in the comic speak. Although the balloons speech are frequently
rounded, but they can take many shapes including rectangular.
2. Thought Balloons: It contains a character’s thoughts.
3. Captions: The text that directly speaks to the reader
4. Emanata : Text or icons that represent what’s going on in the character’s
head.

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 5. Labels: Text labels written on characters in comics. The label can be the
character’s name or a more general label that identifies the character as
part of a general group.
6. Narratory blocks : Rectangles or squares in which a narrator or a character
from the story shares special information with readers.
7. Sound Effecst: Words that indicate a sound that accompanies the comic
panel.
8. Signs: Signs may be used to identify an object or to provide more
information that is important to the scene. The sign can be a familiar
object to the reader, but they can also identify objects that may not be clear
to the reader. This also may be symbols that represent something.

These are the visual elements in the comicbooks that students will use for their
own comicbooks. These elements will carry different meanings for each story that
the students write. The verbal that is combined with the visual graphic will also
have different tension for the readers. Therefore, the message can be bolder with
these visual elements.

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 CHAPTER 3

RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

3.1. Research Design

This research will employ a qualitative method by involving a case study

as an ideal guiding framework. Nunan (2002) defines a case study as a research
design that involves a single individual or groups focus on one particular instance
of educational experience or practice. This is supported by Emilia (2012) who
states that a case study design is employed in “a small scale, a single scale”. This
design in believed to be the appropriate design to study the case of students based
on their comic books.
Since this study aims to investigate to find out the how the 10th graders
express their emotions through creating the comicbooks and to find out what are
the fictional images function to the verbal in the way of expressing emotion, the
most applicable and suitable research instrument available is case study. As
Stenhouse (1983) has classified the case study typology into four types, the type
of case study that will be appropriate in this research is action case study as it is an
investigation carried out by classroom practitioner in his or her professional
context.

3.2 Sample

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 The participants of this study are three high school students in their 10th
grade. All participants are mixed between male and female students between 15-
17 of age and they are all Indonesian students who are currently studying in one
of public high schools in Bandung.

3.3 Data Collection

There will be two steps to collect the data for this research. There are
observing the portfolio of students’ comic book and interview. The research will
be conducted along with the regular schedule in the school in four weeks. In this
study, observation will be used to gain the data after the students have collected
their own comic books of non-fiction writing in the writing class for four times.
The second step to gain the data collection is through the interview. The
questions of the interview will focus on finding out the factors that lead them to
write such story. Moreover, the question may also lead to their experience of what
they feel when they share their personal emotional experience. Those questions
will consist at least seven main questions and the participants will be expected to
explain their choice in the field provided. Supplementary questions are probably
added in case the interview needs further investigation

3.4 Data Analysis

The data analysis will be presented in a descriptive explanation and
categorized into several aspects related to the theories that are mentioned in the
literature review. There are several steps to analyze the obtained data from the
students’ portfolio such as analyzing, interpreting the data, and summarizing the
result.
The other data will be collected from the interview. The interview will be
recorded and analyzed based on the findings in the observation, to make a
conclusion about the correlation between the results of the interpreting students’
portfolio and the result transcribed of the audio transcriptions.

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