The college’s First-Year Reading Initiative aims to connect new students and faculty each year through the examination of an important issue. Administrators say the program is designed to demonstrate Ithaca College’s “academic nature.”

 

This summer, the class of 2012 will read “Persepolis,” a graphic novel that tells the story of political turmoil in Iran from the perspective of a child.

 

The idea of a graphic novel goes against the grain of typical required reading and may be welcomed by the incoming freshmen, who are part of a generation that has grown up in a world of fragmented cultures of television news, video games and the Internet.  But by coincidence, the selection of “Persepolis” comes soon after a November study by the National Endowment for the Arts indicating declined reading comprehension levels in young adults.

 

Perhaps the selection of a graphic novel was an effort to engage members of a generation that seem to have lost an appetite for literature. But at some point, this idea of catering to different tastes only furthers the declining reading comprehension. Graphic novels are little more than advanced comic books. The thematic material of this book  is worth broaching but its literary value, in terms of building vocabulary and furthering comprehension, falls short.