New Semester Starting 8/22/07!

On August 22 I start my second year as a visiting instructor at the University of Southern Mississippi. This coming semester, I'll finally actually be teaching a majority of English Education classes instead of being a general education filler. I'm excited to finally be working with pre-service teachers, aka "my peeps!"

This semester will also mark my 4th -- that's right -- FOURTH time teaching a graphic novels-related course. ENG 311, the department's variable content course, allows me to teach a "Contemporary Trends and Issues in Graphic Novels" class. This will be the third time I've taught it, and I'm happy to see some former students of mine signed up to take another course with me. I also taught a "GN's as YA Lit" course this summer that went pretty well. I've added a few titles, such as American Born Chinese and the 9/11 Report. I wanted to add Pride of Baghdad and something from Craig Thompson , but maybe next semester. Students will have to read one GN of their choice beyond the syllabus listings, so maybe I'll turn them towards those...

In other news, Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels: Page by Page, Panel by Panel continues to do well. I just saw that it was in the top 70,000 in sales at amazon.com. It reached the top 12,000 at one time and had been lingering around the 250,000 ranking, so hopefully some libraries or college classes are picking it up. It's a great read, if I do say so myself (and on behalf of my contributors). If you're a future or current English teacher who wants to use sequential art in the classroom, I think you'd be happy with a copy. ;)