Aleksandar Todosijević, history teacher and author
Students aged 12-18 are not equipped with enough experience and knowledge to “read”, that is to say, interpret various historical sources such as historical documents, photographs, video and audio recordings unaided. Many teachers are not willing to use visual historical sources in the teaching process, rarely critically analysing them with students as they do with the written texts. Teaching materials based on the language of graphic novels are insufficiently used as a history teaching method in the Republic of Serbia. Series “Ester” is an attempt to enable teachers to implement some quality teaching materials based on the language of graphic novels in the process of teaching history.
It must be pointed out clearly that graphic novels, being a type of visual teaching materials, do not represent historical sources; but it is also important to underline that they are created according to the studies of relevant historical sources. Their main purpose is to shed light on certain historical events, which are not documented by photographs or video recordings, but are reconstructed in accordance with documents and other relevant historical sources. Consequently, in order to help illustrators to reconstruct historical events, places and characters, expert historians, archivists, and educators from Serbia, Germany, Austria and Netherlands took part in the process of creation of this material, ensuring historical accuracy as much as possible.