With the publication of the Stephen Tabachnick-edited collection Teaching the Graphic Novel, teachers at the collegiate level have a vast array of strategies, ideas, philosophies and lenses regarding the critical viewing of graphica in the classroom. While the book features a wonderful cohesion in key concepts -- such as reveling in the ambiguities of form, terminology, and place so inherent in higher-order considerations of comics -- it also reveals that academics from various fields are studying comics. With a book like this available, there's no longer any excuse for a post-secondary educator to avoid accepting comics place in academe.Katie Monnin's similarly titled single-authored Teaching Graphic Novels offers a complete and thorough deconstruction of how to study comics as comics and as literature. The various methods for viewing frames and exploring other elements of comics as text constitute a breakdown
of the medium like no other text on the market geared towards secondary educators. "But I just don't understand the form!!" and "I just don't get comics and don't know how to teach their formal properties to my students so they can adequately read them" are now relegated to lame excuses, folks.I have to admit, I'm a "part" of both books, which were published in the latter part of 2009. As some of my previous posts revealed, I have a chapter in the MLA book, and Katie was very kind to mention me as a mentor figure in the front matter of her book. I'm very proud to say I was able to give Katie a hug at this year's NCTE, where she hand-delivered a copy of the text to me, after seeing such a kind sentiment expressed. So, I may be guilty of bias, but it is very exciting to see texts filling in gaps such that the overall body of comics-and-literacy scholarship and research becomes more well-constructed bridge to learning than little islands of insight surrounded in between by vast oceans of disconnect.
I recommend both texts to anyone with an iota of curiosity regarding why all these teachers seem to be accepting a once maligned medium.
1 comment:
I really want to check both of these out. I'm presenting at a pop culture conference next month, and they have huge book sales, so I'm hoping I might be able to pick these up!
Nice work!
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