Comics as Teaching Tools: A brief blog

Comics as Teaching Tools



                                                  

NPR did a story back in January on Code Switch, a comic ! It focuses on themes in comics such as the concept of "race"  or ethnic identity, and culture  in comics. Extremely well done! The article as well as the comic that is.  This focuses on a new memoir from the Civil Rights Movement. It is written with Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell via US Representative John Lewis' account of his experiences as a participant in the Civil Rights Movement along with his history as a public servant.  All that in a comic book folks! Look them up on facebook for sure! This is basically a graphic novel type version of Lewis' life story, his superhero origin story so to speak.  A comic about Rosa Parks actually was the basis of inspiration for Lewis, and he decided to use comics as a vehicle to examine nonviolent movements. This exploration propelled his involvement with the Civil Rights Movement and the March on Washington.  This comic is an ideal teaching tool for those wishing to introduce and discuss the idea of non violent means to gain social justice to their students. It can be adapted to classrooms of multiple grade levels with a fair amount of ease as well. The push is also on now to get Code Switch into the hands of libraries and classrooms across the United States.

Comics in general hold a great deal of educational value and are quite well suited to teaching in the classroom since they offer an unbiased means by which numerous sociocultural themes can be discussed. They help lower the defenses and barriers inherent in opening discussions on history, politics, religion, gender, and ethical dilemmas. One is limited only by their creativity in pulling topics from comic examples for application in the classroom. 
Not only comics, but graphic novels for older students also work well as metaphorical materials are more apt to be useful at the high school or college levels.  Comics is quite the diverse genre. There are mainstream and independent works that hold many culturally themed wonders.

There is an excellent teaching resource that has been published online since 2011, The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship.  There is a vast range of reviews and academic papers on themes in comics. They cover the full spectrum of available comics, mainstream and otherwise, that are available to the public.

The case for considering comics in the classroom has been supported by teaching about teaching via the comic To Teach: The Journey, in Comics. It is written by William Ayers and Ryan Alexander-Tanner (Teachers College Press, 2010).  Comics make for ideal alternatives to the traditional textbooks, and make for more creativity and diversity in discussion important themes in the classroom. 

Apologies for a brief blog this week.  I shall return to the more specific themes where I had left off in Gotham last blog and continue forward with topics once I am by a heavy travel schedule with convention talks through late November 2014. 

Thank you.