Graphic Narratives as Teaching Tools

Introduction

On June 21, 2025, the United States shocked the world by bombing three Iranian nuclear sites, risking escalated conflict with Iran. I have long thought Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis an important text for students to read for its insights into Iranian culture and history; I now think Satrapi’s graphic memoir is a crucial, non-negotiable text for my students to read. The recent events and their media coverage repeat a cycle of conflict, misunderstanding, and misrepresentation that has influenced Americans’ perception of Iranians throughout the United States’ fraught history with Iran. Although the media coverage is plentiful, I suspect that many high school students (and many full-grown adults, for that matter) have a warped perception of Iran. Michael Axworthy comments on the tendency of Westerners, especially, to lack credible information about Iran yet be familiar with certain aspects and images of Iran. Images such as robed, bearded, and aggressive-sounding Islamic officials, chanting crowds, and maybe the shifts in oil prices—all topics that dominate news headlines—monopolize our thinking about Iran.¹

In his extensive work examining the Iranian Revolution, Axworthy argues for the necessity of seeing “Iran and the region in their true form, as they really are.”² Satrapi’s graphic memoir with its child’s perspective, raw authenticity, and blunt, seemingly simple drawing style takes on this task of showing Iranians in their true form (about a decade before Axworthy even asked). In speaking about why she wrote Persepolis, Satrapi said, “If people are given the chance to experience life in more than one country, they will hate a little less. It's not a miracle potion, but little by little you can solve problems in the ‘basement’ of a country, not on the surface. That is why I wanted people in other countries to read Persepolis, to see that I grew up just as other children do.” Through reading Satrapi’s memoir, my hope is that students will question the dominant narratives of Iran and gain a better, more authentic understanding of a country, culture, religion, and people they know little about.  

Throughout this unit, students will compare various representations of Iranian culture and history. Our understanding of Iran has been largely constructed by news media’s narratives and the realities they create. However, what aspects of Iranian life and culture is left out of these negative, violent narratives? Yale Comparative Literature Professor Marta Figlerowicz argues that graphic narratives can crucially fill out our view³. With this idea of truth-telling in mind, students will complete a critical reading of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis alongside other texts, such as news stories, prose narrative memoirs, cinema, and documentaries with the purpose of reaching a more complete understanding and appreciation of Iran’s complex, complicated history and culture.

I anticipate that this unit will require four to six weeks of class time in a traditional (42-minute period) class schedule. The unit will begin with four to five days of pre-reading activities that will ignite student interest and help them build contextual understanding of several key topics, including Iran-US relations and the Islamic Revolution. These introductory lessons will also prepare students for the critical reading of images and narratives that they will practice throughout the unit. Then, students will engage in a two-week reading period of Satrapi’s Persepolis: Story of a Childhood. During the reading period, students will complete critical reading notes, compare Satrapi’s representation of events to that of the news media and other sources, and conduct further research into a topic, historical event, or concept portrayed in Persepolis. Students will also read excerpts of Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics to become more fluent in the graphic narrative genre conventions Satrapi uses in Persepolis. These readings and activities will lead students to their “Creating a More Balanced Perspective on Iran” summative presentation, in which they will compare the representation of an aspect of Iranian culture, history, politics, religion, or society in Persepolis and at least two other texts, such as news media, art, or literature. In their presentations, students will reflect on how these different representations impact individuals, groups of people, and relationships between people.

You may find the content of this unit quite extensive, but I believe the contextual knowledge is necessary to teach this text well. Here is a roadmap to help you find your way through this unit:

• Teaching Situation and Rationale—This section tells you about the student audience for which I wrote this unit. This information may help you decide whether this unit will benefit your students or what types of modifications you’ll need to make.
• Content Objectives—This section contains the content that will inform your teaching and students’ readings of Persepolis. The section consists of prereading topics (US-Iran Relations and Iran in American Media; Shi’a Islam, Iran, and the Islamic Republic; and The Iranian Revolution of 1979) and reading topics (Women Under the Islamic Republic; Relationship between Eastern and Western Cultures in Persepolis; and Conventions of the Graphic Narrative Genre). You may find this section to be very dense, but keep in mind that you will not need to directly teach all this content to students. Some of the content is meant to inform your teaching of Satrapi’s memoir. With that in mind, you may want to jump to the Teaching Strategies and Classroom Activities sections for a more concrete idea of what you and the students will be doing during this unit.
• Teaching Strategies—This section contains several teaching strategies that will help students build the skills and understandings targeted in this unit. You’ll use these strategies throughout the unit to help students grow into more skilled, insightful readers. The activities described in the Classroom Activities apply these teaching strategies in different ways.
• Classroom Activities—This section provides several sample activities you might use to help students read Persepolis and effectively compare the intentions and messages of a variety of texts representing Iran. Many teachers prefer to peruse this section before spending more time on the earlier sections.
• Resources—A bibliography of helpful readings for teachers (and some for students).
• Appendix on Implementing District Standards—A list of English Language Arts Common Core standards targeted throughout the unit.
• Notes—End notes documenting the sources of information, research, or perspectives used in my writing of this unit.