When I was a graduate student at the University of Massachusetts in
the late 1970s, I saw some photonovellas, which looked like comic
books but used photographs rather than drawings, that had been
produced in Ecuador as community adult education materials. A fellow
student and I convinced the New England Farm Workers Council that they
needed some photonovellas for their ESL classes. We gathered stories
about coming up to Massachusetts from Puerto Rico from their students
and put them into a story. We then recruited students to play the
parts. After that first photonovella, we helped a group of students to
write the story, recruit the actors, and do the layout for the next
one. We ended up producing a series of photonovellas, Hermanos, about
brothers and sisters coming to New England and making a new life for
themselves.  You can see a copy of one of the Los Hermanos series at:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/healthliteracy/photonovel/hermanos.pdf

We were more interested in the participatory process we used than the
photonovella format but found that format supportive of student
participation. So, we then produced a photonovella with the clients of
a community-based organization in Troy, NY.  The state's Department of
Health was interested in having a new health education material, and
so we developed a photonovella with the community. The photonovella
focused on the health topic, rodent control, but also told a story of
white and black residents and their misconceptions about each other.
The community had been all white but the demographics were changing.
The multi-racial group we worked with wanted this issue to be part of
the final product.  You can see a copy of this photonovela at:
http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/healthliteracy/photonovel/neigh.pdf

I do find the photonovella to be an engaging health education
material, but when produced with participation of members of the
target audience, it becomes more engaging. Technology has made it much
easier and cheaper to design, produce, and distribute phononovellas
and it has made it easier to employ a participatory process in their
design.

If there are others on this list who have produced or used
photonovellas as health education materials or as language and
literacy learning materials for their ABE or ESL students, I invite
them to describe both the photonovellas and the process they used to
development them.

-- 
John P. Comings
25 Central Street
Auburndale MA 02466
1.617.335.9839
john.comings at gmail.com
http://john.comings@googlepages.com