When teachers work with students to construct a metalanguage that they can draw on to describe and analyze graphic novels, and then invite students to apply that metalanguage in the service of composing multimodal texts of their own, teachers broaden students' analytical frameworks. In the process of doing so, teachers empower students. In this article, Connors states that reading and producing graphic novels with the intention of mapping their multimodal design can heighten students' appreciation for the form's complexity.