Writing this monthly teacher feature has broadened my understanding about the variety of comics instruction that exist for students of all ages across America. Whether it be a K–12 curriculum, after-school program, study-abroad, or community enrichment, comics education is spreading its tentacles in a lot of directions. John Isaacson is doing his part to spread the appreciation for comics as a powerful medium of storytelling out in Portland, Oregon. I visited John’s website and blog after having received an email from the teacher-cartoonist, who wrote to me about his comics and education experiences as an instructor for a grade k–5 after-school program, in a pre-K–5 summer camp, and through Writers in the Schools (WITS), a nonprofit that places professional writers in high school classes.
From elementary schools in California to high schools in Oregon, John’s been teaching in after-school, summer camps, and artist-in-residence programs for 10 years. He said he's been using graphic novels in the classroom since 2008, and prior to that he was using a lot of Far Side and Calvin and Hobbes to teach fundamentals of comics.
"I decided to use comics in the classroom because I was teaching kids how to make comics and I'm a cartoonist. We were analyzing them from an artistic and storytelling perspective and then using the techniques we noticed in our own comics. However, later I was placed in a global studies class by WITS and we read graphic novels pertaining to conflict in the Middle East in order to supplement curriculumgoals. At Roosevelt High School, we read a lot of Art Spiegelman's work in order to prepare students for a special visit he was making to their school and his Comix 101 lecture at the Arlene Schnitzer concert hall. I also use comics in the classroom to make students aware that comics are a real art form, capable of relaying important messages,lessons, and stories that can impact their lives.”
The resources John uses to inform his comics instruction are lots of other comics. He and his students "tend to read comics that are about obsessions," and he cites Harvey Pekar's "How I Quit Collecting Records," Ariel Schrag's "Chemistry" chapter from Potential, and Dan Clowes's "A Walk" among some of his favorites. He uses a little bit of Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics to help students understand panel transitions.John mentioned Tony Caputo's book Visual Storytelling, which, he says, "has some useful reproductions of Jim Steranko's work showing effective composition." He also noted his affinity for the "How to Read Nancy" essay by Paul Karasik and Mark Newgarden, which he said helps students visually analyze a comic. "From a storytelling perspective," John wrote, "Robert McKee's book Story has helped me explain the connections between character motivation and plot to students." Teachingcomics.org, 826 Valencia, and the Writers in the Schools website are his online utilities.
For his global studies class, John has students invent a fictional character from one of the countries they have studied. He explained the comics lesson in detail:"I have them start out with the three ‘great variables’ that brought them together in this classroom today: Where, When, and To Whom they were born. Then they imagine if they had different parents and were born in a different country. What would their lives be like? They fill out a ‘character sheet’ that describes the character and then write a brief narrative from the character's perspective. At this point in a residency, students have already practiced drawing thumbnails and using different points of view for each panel. After completing the character sheet and the point-of-view narrative, they transfer roughly six sentences of the narration into six blank panels of a comic that they then illustrate, using dialogue if they choose to.”
About the example (above), John explained, "The student chose the island of Kiribati, which she had learned about in global studies, to be her character's home. The student used her free-write from the character's point of view and translated her character's beliefs into a dialogue between the character and a friend whose opinions act as a foil. Several concepts we learned about during my comics residency are incorporated into this comic. First the student used facial expressions to show emotion. Second, the faces are seen from different angles: front, profile, and three-quarters view. Third, the student placed dialogue bubbles for effective reading. And last, the student used foreground and background, incorporating a horizon line into most of the panels."
John’s three reasons teachers should promote visual literacy in school are as follows: "First, as our media is becoming increasingly pervasive, students need skills to interpret and navigate visual messages they are bombarded with every day. Second, through direct teaching, students can be empowered to create effective visual messages using specific tools and techniques. Third, due to heavy censorship from the Comics Code Authority in the 1950s, there is a unique American perception that comics are only capable of telling stories about funny talking animals and superheroes, and are primarily for children. This is a misperception, and teachers should help students recognize that important, relevant, life-changing works of art and being created in comics and graphic novels—works of art that can change the way a person sees the world." I really couldn't agree more!
The various ways the comics medium can be used to teach is as diverse and rich as the people teaching it. Stay tuned to hear from more voices about comics success stories in the classroom.
