Building off the argument that comics succeed as literature—rich, complex narratives filled with compelling characters interrogating the thought-provoking issues of our time—this book argues that comics are an expressive medium whose moves (structural and aesthetic) may be shared by literature, the visual arts, and film, but beyond this are a unique art form possessing qualities these other mediums do not. Drawing from a range of current comics scholarship demonstrating this point, this book explores the unique intelligence/s of comics and how they expand the ways readers engage with the world in ways different than prose, or film, or other visual arts. Written by teachers and scholars of comics for instructors, this book bridges research and pedagogy, providing instructors with models of critical readings around a variety of comics.

Contributions by Bart Beaty, Jenny Blenk, Ben Bolling, Peter E. Carlson, Johnathan Flowers, Antero Garcia, Dale Jacobs, Ebony Flowers Kalir, James Kelley, Susan E. Kirtley, Frederik Byrn Køhlert, John A. Lent, Leah Misemer, Johnny Parker II, Nick Sousanis, Aimee Valentine, and Benjamin J. Villarreal More and more educators are using comics in the classroom. As such, this edited volume sets out the stakes, definitions, and exemplars of recent comics pedagogy, from K-12 contexts to higher education instruction to ongoing communities of scholars working outside of the academy. Building upon interdisciplinary approaches to teaching comics and teaching with comics, this book brings together diverse voices to share key theories and research on comics pedagogy. By gathering scholars, creators, and educators across various fields and in K-12 as well as university settings, editors Susan E. Kirtley, Antero Garcia, and Peter E. Carlson significantly expand scholarship. This valuable resource offers both critical pieces and engaging interviews with key comics professionals who reflect on their own teaching experience and on considerations of the benefits of creating comics in education. Included are interviews with acclaimed comics writers Lynda Barry, Brian Michael Bendis, Kelly Sue DeConnick, and David Walker, as well as essays spanning from studying the use of superhero comics in the classroom to the ways comics can enrich and empower young readers. The inclusion of creators, scholars, and teachers leads to perspectives that make this volume unlike any other currently available. These voices echo the diverse needs of the many stakeholders invested in using comics in education today.

Providing an overview of the dynamic field of comics and graphic novels for students and researchers, this Essential Guide contextualises the major research trends, debates and ideas that have emerged in Comics Studies over the past decades. Interdisciplinary and international in its scope, the critical approaches on offer spread across a wide range of strands, from the formal and the ideological to the historical, literary and cultural. Its concise chapters provide accessible introductions to comics methodologies, comics histories and cultures across the world, high-profile creators and titles, insights from audience and fan studies, and important themes and genres, such as autobiography and superheroes. It also surveys the alternative and small press alongside general reference works and textbooks on comics. Each chapter is complemented by list of key reference works.

Art can be used in education to assist in engagement, comprehension, and literacy. For years, comics and graphic novels have been written off as simple sources of entertainment. However, comics and graphic novels have tremendous value when utilized in the classroom as unique texts that can be approached philosophically and cognitively. Exploring Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom highlights voices from a number of disciplines in education, showcasing research and practice using both popular and lesser-known examples of comics across time in terms of publishing history and across geographic contexts. It explores comics from multiple viewpoints to share the efficacy of these texts in descriptive, narrative, and empirical ways. Covering topics such as intersectional identity representation, sequential visual art, and critical analysis, this premier reference source is a dynamic resource for educational administrators, teacher educators, preservice teachers, faculty of both K-12 and higher education, librarians, teaching artists, researchers, and academicians.

This edited collection will turn a critical spotlight on the set of texts that has constituted the high school canon of literature for decades. By employing a set of fresh, vibrant critical lenses—such as youth studies and disabilities studies— that are often unfamiliar to advanced students and scholars of secondary English, this book provides divergent approaches to traditional readings and pedagogical practices surrounding these familiar works. By introducing and applying these interpretive frames to the field of secondary English education, this book demonstrates that there is more to say about these texts, ways to productively problematize them, and to reconfigure how they may be read and used in the classroom.

This book focuses on the tensions that emerge in teaching the English language arts methods course within teacher education programs. The book features chapters that grapple with the historical legacies of influence on methods/pedagogy as well as contemporary challenges in teaching methods courses alongside field experiences. Multiple perspectives from those involved in teaching methods courses within English language arts teacher education programs are presented as a way to dialogue about current and future challenges. Dialogue is sustained throughout the book, as each chapter includes an adjacent response that prompts readers to ask further questions about the chapter’s content. Content with the chapters in the book focus on describing a “tension” or “dilemma” that the author faced when teaching the middle/secondary ELA methods course or adjacent field experience. Discussion in the chapters’ responses highlights the importance of the field’s history and its present response to the tension featured. This book will be a useful resource to teacher educators who wish to investigate new approaches to dilemmas faced in teaching the methods class to pre-service teachers.

With the popularity of comic adaptations on television and at the movies, these current topics can be a great way to engage students by bringing characters and stories they connect with into the classroom to help them build the skills that they need to be successful. Comic Connections: Reflecting on Women in Popular Culture is designed to help teachers from middle school through college find exciting new strategies that they can use right away as part of their curricular goals. Each chapter has three pieces: comic relevance, classroom connections, and concluding thoughts; this format allows a reader to pick-and-choose where to start. Some readers might want to delve into the history of a comic to better understand characters and their usefulness, while other readers might want to pick up an activity, presentation, or project that they can fold into that day’s lesson. This volume in Comic Connections series focuses on female characters—Wonder Woman, Peggy Carter, and Lois Lane, to name a few—with each chapter deconstructing a specific character to help students engage in meaningful conversations, writing projects, and other activities that will complement and enhance their literacy skills.

This text offers 6th - 12th grade educators guided instructional approaches for including diverse young adult (YA) literature in the classroom as a form of social justice teaching and learning. Through the YA books spotlighted in this text, educators are provided pre-, during-, and after reading activities that guide students to a deeper understanding of topics that are often considered taboo in the classroom - race, racism, mental health, immigration, gender, sexuality, sexual assault - while increasing their literacy practices.

This Palgrave Handbook examines the ways in which researchers and practitioners theorise, analyse, produce and make use of testimony. It explores the full range of testimony in the public sphere, including perpetrator testimony, testimony presented through social media and virtual reality. A growing body of research shows how complex and multi-layered testimony can be, how much this complexity adds to our understanding of our past, and how creators and users of testimony have their own complex purposes. These advances indicate that many of our existing assumptions about testimony and models for working with it need to be revisited. The purpose of this Palgrave Handbook is to do just that by bringing together a wide range of disciplinary, theoretical, methodological, and practice-based perspectives.

Teaching Young Adult Literature Today introduces the reader to what is current and relevant in the plethora of good books available for adolescents. More importantly, literary experts illustrate how teachers everywhere can help their students become lifelong readers by simply introducing them to great reads—smart, insightful, and engaging books that are specifically written for adolescents. Hayn, Kaplan, and their contributors address a wide range of topics: how to avoid common obstacles to using YAL; selecting quality YAL for classrooms while balancing these with curriculum requirements; engaging disenfranchised readers; pairing YAL with technology as an innovative way to teach curriculum standards across all content areas. Contributors also discuss more theoretical subjects, such as the absence of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and questioning (LGBTQ) young adult literature in secondary classrooms; and contemporary YAL that responds to the changing expectations of digital generation readers who want to blur the boundaries between page and screen. This book has been updated to reflect the wealth of new YA literature that has been published since the first edition appeared in March 2012, and to reflect new trends in technology that influences how adolescents are reading and responding to literature.