Community
BLACKFOOT GRAPHIC NOVEL
by Christine McFarlane
Graphic novels seem to be everywhere these days. They’re in your local bookstores; your libraries and they are even making their way into the educational system. Educators are touting the use of graphic novels as being an innovative tool for teaching. They can be a great way to differentiate instruction for learners in terms of reading and they can also be fun. The “graphic novel” is really a political term. It is a part of a growing effort to cast the comics’ medium in a new, more literary light, apart from the genres usually associated with it, and there are two strengths of the comic’s medium. One is that it is visual because it combines image and text, and that allows a graphic novel to bridge the gap between the media we watch and the media we read. Secondly, in comparison to other visual media like film and animation, graphic novels are permanent. The graphic novel has what you call a “visual permanence’ to them and this means that time
progresses only as quickly as your eyes move across the page before you. It is in how fast you choose to read that the rate of information-transfer stays within your control. Aboriginal cultures and languages play an intricate role in the Canadian identity. The project objective USAY is putting forth involves publishing a Blackfoot Graphic Novel, that will aim to increase the number of Blackfoot speakers among urban Aboriginal youth (aged fourteen to twenty-nine), and help revitalize the Blackfoot culture, where people will see it as a strong, living and vibrant culture. In March 2011 USAY completed a pilot Blackfoot Graphic Novel, also known as “Niisoo” or Volume 1. The pilot was a great success and they recently completed a new story for the project called “Ak Skim Aan” or “Hunter.” All projects were completed with the funding provided by Canadian Heritage.
USAY has established a larger language initiative to develop innovative and culturally appropriate solutions to promote the Blackfoot culture by developing youth friendly language tools such as the Blackfoot Graphic Novel and Blackfoot Language eLearning. “It became important to us to develop different programs that could help preserve and grow Aboriginal languages, says LeeAnne Ireland, Executive Director of the Urban Society for Aboriginal Youth,” and “the Blackfoot Graphic Novel program can play a very important in keeping our heritage alive.” USAY is hoping through their language initiative to benefit not only Aboriginal communities but other Canadians as well. They are proposing to continue pedagogical language resource tools in the form of a graphic novel. The development of the story line of the Volume 2 in the Blackfoot Graphic Novel would be based on feedback from a focus group discussion. Once NEW TRIBE SEPTEMBER 2012
21