Something must be afoot....
In addition to reminding folks about my first edited collection, the award-winning and best-selling Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels: Page by Page, Panel by Panel, this week's NCTE Inbox has links to 3 articles about comics and literacy:
1."In the Fight for Better Literacy, Comic Books Are Teachers' Secret Weapon" from This Magazine
2."Wondering (Worrying?) about Graphic Novels" from the Tempered Radical blog which features a lot of unfounded idiocy from, where else, my home state of North Carolina? When it comes to North Carolina teachers, I just can't stand stupidity. Guess it comes from having worked in the North Carolina public schools for 3 years. Anyway, I gave a pretty fiery reply to this one....
3."The Literacy of Gaming: What Kids Learn from Playing" from PBS. The James Gee is quoted.
OK, the third is more about video games, but still.
OK, I'm gonna go fume about... wait, what is this?? Tempered Radical's Bill Ferriter has already updated and seems to backtrack a bit, acknowledging that he needs to do some research?? Maybe there is hope for teaching in the Old North State yet!
In the name of fairness, and since I blasted the guy without seeing the new post -- seriously, I actually told him to "read a f------g book!" -- I feel I must share the link to the"Lessons Learned" post about graphic novels as well.
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Wow, that was about 10 minutes of roller coaster for yours truly. I started out excited but curious about NCTE's focus on comics, then furious at the second link they shared, then a little cooled upon noticing the update from the second source.
Anyway, if you want to subscribe to the NCTE Inbox weekly, free newsletter, click here. I guess I'm now living testimony that it will thrill, chill, elate, and anger you.
2 comments:
In a weird, sick way I actually enjoyed seeing the verbal sparring over graphica on Bill's blog... seeing how many teachers responded and gave great reasons why graphic is appropriate for the classroom is great. Those teachers won't change what they're doing just because Bill is an uniformed nay-sayer. Though If I hear one more person tell me that comics are okay as long as they lead to "real" reading, I'm going to barf. What the heck is "real" reading? Should we ask Gunther Kress?
MB, there is evidence to suggest that comics reading leads to more and more varied reading, which is a good fact to have in our arsenal, but I too get frustrated about the "real" designation.
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