Workshops

Teaching and Learning with Comics Wednesday, 07/22/20, 3:00 PM – 4:00 PM

Peter Carlson (Green Dot Public Schools), Susan Kirtley (Portland State University), and Antero Garcia (Stanford University) lead this panel that reveals practical activities and theory involved in teaching with comics while discussing teaching and making comics with the incredible creators and educators Nick Sousanis (Unflattening), Ebony Flowers (Hot Comb), David F. Walker (Naomi), and Brian Michael Bendis (Naomi).

With Great Power Comes Great Pedagogy: Teaching, Learning, and Comics Thursday, 11/19/20, 9:30 a.m

This panel presents an interactive workshop for educators, leading participants through examples of literacy activities from their edited volume, With Great Power Comes Great Pedagogy: Teaching, Learning, and Comic Books. Published by the University Press of Mississippi, the volume is a convergence of collaborations with a diverse collection of comic creators, scholars, and educators from various fields and settings. This panel of editors brings a conversation that sets out the stakes, definitions, and exemplars of contemporary comics pedagogy using contexts from K-12 to higher ed instruction and communities of comic scholars.  The panelists share key strategies, theories, and scholarship on comics pedagogy as they guide participants through workshop activities that present approaches to teaching comics and teaching with comics, all drawn from three key areas: Foundations of Comics Pedagogy, Comics Pedagogy in Practice, and New Directions for Comics Pedagogy. Each activity acknowledges that readers’ relationships to comic books and graphic novels are evolving and often come from a confluence of personal identity, nostalgia, and history. Each panelist, immersed within comics-driven classrooms, reveals examples of student work from comic analysis and production in order share interpretations, assumptions, and promises of what comics mean when authors and readers meet amidst the panels and gutters of comic book pages.