Response to "American Born Chinese"

Gene Luen Yang's graphic novel, American Born Chinese, is great and can be used effectively in a secondary classroom.

First, since American Born Chinese is a graphic novel it offers a unique strength in its ability to engage a variety of student learners whom may not learn best with traditional texts. Providing options to our student populations helps differentiate instruction to those students because learners will engage better and learn more if they are interested in what they study or read.

Second, American Born Chinese has a style and subject matter that appeals to a lot of students. The mythical kung-fu-practicing Monkey King and his quest for recognition is something that would interest a lot of students who spend hundreds of hours a year playing video games with similar stories.

Third, American Born Chinese includes a lot of themes common to young adult literature: overcoming differences within one's self or community, integrating into other communities, dealing with attraction to others, etc. It includes parallel stories that weave together in the end to present its message.

Fourth, students struggling with reading comprehension could benefit from American Born Chinese too. Helping students find the meaning of words in the context of the graphic novel could be helpful. I wouldn't know what the abacus was unless I looked at the drawing myself. Instead of writing a prediction of what happens further in the story, students could draw their own cartoon of what they think could happen next. Adapting these reading comprehension strategies to a graphic novel could change the pace of a class and successfully help struggling readers.

Fifth, though American Born Chinese is over two hundred pages, I blew through this graphic novel in less than an hour. Due to how quick it is, students may be more likely to read this novel.

Sixth, American Born Chinese is a novel that can be successfully paired with another novel. How does The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian compare with American Born Chinese in its graphic art, with how the main characters encounter and react to differences and adversity, etc. There are a lot of avenues to go down with this text.