http://www.geneyang.com/comicsedu/biblio.

html
http://www.comicsresearch.org/ComicsDissertations.html
Introduction
In his 1993 book Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud gives his definition of the
word "comics":
comics (kom'iks) n. plural in form, used with a singular verb. Juxtaposed pictor
ial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/
or produce an aesthetic response in the viewer. (p. 9)
Throughout this document, the word "comics" will be used as a singular noun, in
adherence to McCloud's definition.
The educational potential of comics has yet to be fully realized. While other me
dia such as film, theater, and music have found their place within the American
educational establishment, comics has not. To determine the reasons behind this
oversight, I will review the history of comics in education from 1933, the birth
year of the modern comic book, to the present. Afterwards, I will discuss the m
any strengths of comics as an educational tool that emerge from the literature.
History of Comics in Education
In 1933 two employees at the Eastern Color Printing Company inadvertently gave b
irth to the modern comic book by collecting a number of popular newspaper comic
strips into a tabloid-sized magazine (Wright, 2001). Within a decade, their humb
le creation had spawned a multi-million dollar industry and an American cultural
phenomenon. By the 1940's, an estimated 95% of all 8-14 year olds, and 65% of 1
5-18 year olds, read comic books (Sones, 1944).
Academia took notice, initiating over a decade of debate, research, and writing
on the educational value of comic books. University of Pittsburgh professor W. W
. D. Sones (1944) reports that between 1935 and 1944, comics "evoked more than a
hundred critical articles in educational and nonprofessional periodicals" (p. 2
32). In the early 1940s, Sones (1944) himself conducted a series of studies on us
ing comic books in education. Many of Sones contemporaries undertook similar rese
arch. Robert Thorndike and George Hill, for example, analyzed the vocabulary of
words found within comic books (Dorrell, Curtis, & Rampal, 1995), while Paul Wit
ty led a study examining the reading content of comic books with 2500 school chi
ldren (Sones, 1944). Educators also began designing comics-supported curriculum.
Thorndike partnered with DC Comics and Harold Downes to create a language arts
workbook that starred Superman (Sones, 1944). A few years later, the Curriculum
Laboratory of the University of Pittsburgh and the Comics Workshop of New York U
niversity devised and implemented an experiment using Puck - the Comic Weekly in
hundreds of American classrooms (Hutchinson, 1949). The educational use of comi
cs was of such importance that the Journal of Educational Sociology devoted the
entirety of 1944's Volume 18, Issue 4 to the topic.
Educators eventually lined up on both sides of the debate. Many, like Child Stud
y Association of America Director Sidonie Gruenberg, saw comics as a force to be
harnessed for education. Gruenberg (1944) cited numerous examples of educationa
l comics for a variety of subjects, noting: "There is hardly a subject that does
not lend itself to presentation through this medium" (p. 213). Others saw comic
s as a stumbling block to literacy. Nebraska principal Lucile Rosencrans, for in
stance, believed that comics impeded reading comprehension, imagination, and cau
sed eyestrain (Dorrell, Curtis, & Rampal, 1995). School librarians were especial
ly vehement in their disapproval of comic books, vilifying comics as an enemy of
other reading (Dorrell, Curtis, & Rampal, 1995).
In the late 1940's those opposed to comics found a champion in Dr. Fredric Werth
am, a New York City psychiatrist who studied juvenile delinquency. Through a ser
ies of lectures and articles, Wertham warned America of the dangers comic books
posed to children and demanded government regulation. In 1954, his work culminat
ed with The Seduction of the Innocent, a 400-page war cry accusing comic books o
f promoting violence, racial stereotypes, homosexuality, rebelliousness, and ill
iteracy (Wright, 2001). "Comics [is] death on reading," Wertham proclaimed (Dorr
ell, Curtis, & Rampal, 1995, p. 226). Wertham was particularly harsh towards pro
-comics educators, even going so far as to call the attention given to comics by
the Journal of Educational Sociology "an all-time low in American science" (Wri
ght, 2001, p. 162).
In April 1954, Wertham served as a key witness in an investigation of the comic
book industry by the Senate Subcommittee to Investigate Juvenile Delinquency. By
the time the investigation concluded a month and a half later, America - and th
e American educational establishment - had gotten Wertham's message: comic books
were bad for children. Scholarship on the educational value of comics effective
ly stopped.
It wasn't until the 1970's that teachers dared to bring comic books back into th
eir classrooms. Richard W. Campbell was among the innovative few, integrating co
mics into a fourth grade reading program (Koenke, 1981). Robert Schoof also foun
d comics useful in the language arts, particularly in teaching dialect and chara
cterization (Koenke, 1981). In trade journals, educators Kay Haugaard (1973) and
Constance Alongi (1974) recommended using comic books with reluctant readers, w
hile Bruce Brocka (1979) enlisted comic books as a defense against a new enemy t
o literacy: television.
The legacy of the 1954 investigation, however, still loomed. Many educators who
advocated comics condescended them in the same breath. Haugaard (1973) described
one of her son's comic books as "poorly written, so poorly that it was really h
ilarious in the same way that a high school production of Hamlet can be hilariou
s" (p. 54). The title of Brocka's (1979) article assured his readership, "Comic
books: In case you haven't noticed, they've changed. Most importantly, education'
s renewed interest in comics had neither the depth nor the urgency so apparent i
n the literature of the 1940's. Both Haugaard and Brocka, for instance, supporte
d their suggestions with only anecdotal evidence.
The tension of education's uneasy new relationship with comics was somewhat ease
d in 1992 when Art Spiegelman's Maus became the first comic book to win a Pulitz
er Prize (Sturm, 2001). Maus, Spiegelman's biography of his father's Holocaust e
xperience, was the most public example of a decades-long movement within the com
ics community towards artistically mature, literate work. A flurry of articles a
ppeared in news publications across the nation proclaiming that comics had final
ly "grown up."
Over the next decade, comics began gaining ground in the world of education as w
ell, slowly finding its way into the course catalogs of American higher learning
institutions. Using comics, English professor Rocco Versaci (2001) challenged s
tudents at Palomar College to critically examine the very definition of literatu
re. University of Minnesota Physics professor James Kakalios (2001) received med
ia attention for his phenomenally popular introductory physics course "Science i
n Comic Books." Neil Williams replaced his traditional ESL course books with Cal
vin and Hobbes comic books at the American Language Institute of New York Univer
sity (1995). With the establishment of both undergraduate and graduate programs
in comics at the Savannah College of Art and Design (Sturm, 2001), comics finall
y emerged as a medium worthy of study in and of itself. Ironically, librarians i
n the new millennium were among comics' most vocal supporters, finding comic boo
ks useful in luring teenagers away from their televisions and video games (Bacon
, 2002).
Today, educators at all levels are designing new ways of teaching through comics
. In 2002, the New York City Comic Book Museum released C.O.M.I.C.S., an eight-l
esson curriculum for K-12 students teaching the reading and creation of comics.
Dozens of schools across the nation ordered the curriculum before it was even co
mplete. The National Association of Comics Art Educators evangelizes colleges an
d universities on the importance of comics-based courses. Their website (www.tea
chingcomics.org) features the syllabi of existing courses, instructional units w
ritten by cartoonists and professors, and an online community of comics educator
s. "There really is a resurgence in this," high school teacher Jean Diamond says
of comics-based projects, "and it's a fabulous way to get kids thinking creativ
ely" (Wax, 2002).
Many of today's teachers use comics to encourage the very abilities some educato
rs in the 1940s feared it would squelch: reading and imagination. Ultimately, I m
ust conclude that the American educational establishment has shied away from com
ics for incidental, historical reasons rather than deficiencies within the mediu
m itself. In fact, upon close examination, several strengths of comics as an edu
cational tool emerge as themes within the literature.
Strengths of Comics in Education
Motivating. By far, the most frequently mentioned asset of comics as an educatio
nal tool is its ability to motivate students. In Hutchinson's (1949) experiment
with a curriculum built around Puck - the Comic Weekly, 74% of teachers surveyed
found comics "helpful for motivation" (p. 244), while 79% claimed comics "incre
ased individual participation" (p. 244). One teacher even complained that comic
books made "learning too easy" (Hutchinson, 1949, p. 244). When DC Comics, Thorn
dike, and Downes introduced their Superman language arts workbook to classrooms,
they reported "unusual interest" (Sones, 1944, p.233) among the students, which
"presented the annoying difficulty of causing the youngsters to complete a whol
e week's task in one evening" (Sones, 1944, p. 233).
Haugaard (1973) shares that comics was the only way to motivate her son to read:
"The first thing which my oldest boy read because he wanted to was a comic book
" (p. 54). She goes on to describe a similar phenomenon in her younger children.
Alongi (1974) also testifies to "the magnetic attraction comic books wield for
children" (p. 801). For students in Kakalios' (2002) "Science in Comic Books" cl
ass, comics provides enough motivation for them to overlook the oversimplificati
on of example problems appropriate for an introductory physics course. Diamond o
bserves that students in her high school art class are consumed by comics-based
art projects, despite the many hours such projects usually require (Wax, 2002).
William Marston theorizes that the appeal of the comics medium is woven into the
very fabric of its nature.
The potency of the picture story is not a matter of modern theory but of ancient
ly established truth. Before man thought in words, he felt in pictures... It's t
oo bad for us "literary" enthusiasts, but it's the truth nevertheless, pictures
tell any story more effectively than words. (Sones, 1944, p. 239)
Children - and if Marston is to be believed, all of humankind - have a natural a
ttraction to comics. By inviting comics into their classrooms, educators can tak
e advantage of the "fantastic motivating power of comic books" (Haugaard, 1973,
p. 55).
Visual. Comics, being composed of "pictorial and other images" (McCloud, 1993, p
. 9), is a fundamentally visual medium. Brocka (1979) sees this as comics' prima
ry advantage over other literary forms. Pictures and text shoulder the burden of
the story together. Versaci (2001) welcomes this "interplay of the written and
visual" (p. 62). He feels that comics can "quite literally 'put a human face' on
a given subject" (Versaci, 2001, p. 62) resulting in an intimate, emotional con
nection between his students and characters of a comics story.
In a study comparing comics to text, Sones (1944) found that comics' visual qual
ity increases learning. Sones divided four hundred sixth- through ninth-grade st
udents into two groups, balanced in terms of both school grade and intelligence.
To the first group he presented a story in comics, with both pictures and text;
to the second, only the text. Afterwards, each group was given a test on the co
ntent of the story. One week later, the process was reversed: the first group gi
ven the text version and the second group the comics. Both groups were tested ag
ain.
In the end, Sones (1944) concluded that "a strong trend in favor of the picture
continuity was indicated by the two sets of results" (p. 238). On the first test
, the first group scored significantly higher than the second group. On the seco
nd test, the second group showed a significantly higher improvement than the fir
st. Sones inferred from this that children in the first group had neared saturat
ion after reading the comics, so were unable to learn much more from the text. T
hose in the second group did not reach saturation until after they had reread th
e material in comics. Sones (1944) noted that students of "low and middle intell
igence levels" (p. 239) were especially helped by comics' visual quality.
Sones' conclusions foreshadow the trend towards teaching to multiple intelligenc
es among educators today. He writes, "An assumption implied in most school instr
uction is that all children will read the printed materials with equal effective
ness... The absurdity of this practice is patent" (Sones, 1944, p. 240). Visual
learners benefit from visual media. In the struggle to engage students of all le
arning dispositions, comics can prove to be a formidable tool.
Permanent. Williams (1995) cites comics' "permanent, visual component" (p. 2) as
one of his many reasons for using comic books in his ESL class. Film and animat
ion, in contrast to comics, are visual but time-bound. Language and actions in fil
m and animation are fleeting. The medium, rather than the audience, dictates how q
uickly the viewing progresses. The same is true of a traditional face-to-face le
cture; the speaker has primary control over the speed of the lecture. The text m
edium, on the other hand, shares comics' "permanent" component but not its "visu
al." "Visual permanence," then, is unique to comics.
McCloud (1993) describes this quality in another way: "In learning to read comic
s we all learned to perceive time spatially, for in the world of comics, time an
d space are one and the same" (p. 100). Time within a comic book progresses only
as quickly as the reader moves her eyes across the page. The pace at which info
rmation is transmitted is completely determined by the reader. In educational se
ttings, this "visual permanence" firmly places control over the pace of educatio
n in the hands (and the eyes) of the student.
Intermediary. Comics can serve as an intermediate step to difficult disciplines
and concepts. Many language arts educators have used comics in this manner with
tremendous success. Karl Koenke (1981) suggests that comics can lead students to
wards the discipline of reading, especially those who don't enjoy reading or hav
e a fear of failure. A study at the University of Pittsburgh supported this sugg
estion, finding comic books useful in remedial reading instruction (Sones, 1944)
. In Hutchinson's (1949) experiment, many teachers "discovered comic strips to b
e particularly useful in special classes or for slow learning pupils in regular
classes" (p. 240). Haugaard (1973) credits comic books with transforming her rel
uctant reader son into an avid fan of Jules Verne and Ray Bradbury.
Versaci (2001) takes the intermediary quality of comics one step further. Using
comics, Versaci challenges college literature students to consider, evaluate, an
d question the very concept of a "literary canon." Because comics are rarely con
sidered literature, Versaci can surprise his students with well-written comics d
ealing with mature themes. Versaci then leads his class in a discussion on liter
ary worth. He has found that discussions on comics are generally livelier than t
hose on classic novels, possibly because of a misguided notion that books in the
traditional canon are above question. Through comics, Versaci encourages his st
udents to think critically about the literary worth of books and the formation o
f the literary canon.
Comics can also scaffold to disciplines and concepts outside of the language art
s. For example, Jay Hosler's Sandwalk Adventures, a comic book starring Charles
Darwin and a talking follicle mite, introduces readers to evolutionary biology (
Eakin, 2002). The syllabi of many history courses already include the aforementi
oned Maus (Kendricks, 2000). Beyond specific works, the very act of creating com
ics is an interdisciplinary activity. In addition to reading and writing, comics
-based projects can develop drawing, computer, and research skills. Many of the
skills used in comics creation can be applied to film-making, illustration, and
even Web design (Sturm, 2002).
Popular. American children are steeped in popular culture. While some educators
simply ignore this reality, many others struggle to address it adequately. Timot
hy Morrison, Gregory Bryan, and George Chilcoat (2002) suggest that, by incorpor
ating popular culture into the curriculum, teachers can bridge the separation ma
ny students feel between their lives in and out of school. Hutchinson (1949) agr
ees, stating that "there should be harmony between the child's on-going life act
ivities and his experiences in the school - new learning always is a continuatio
n or expansion of learning already possessed by the learner" (p. 236). In additi
on, the inclusion of popular media promotes media literacy. It encourages studen
ts to "become critical consumers of media messages, having developed the ability
through exposure to accurately appraise media content or quality and accuracy"
(Morrison, Bryan, & Chilcoat, 2002, p. 758).
Teachers can introduce popular culture into their classrooms easily and effectiv
ely through comics. Comic books have been a vital part of American popular cultu
re for the last century. As examples, Emily Wax (2002) points to the Spider-man
and Star Wars blockbuster movies, both of which have comic book counterparts. Th
ere are also examples with considerably less marketing hype. Versaci (2001) asks
English teachers to consider Judd Winick's comic book Pedro and Me: Friendship,
Loss, and What I Learned. Pedro and Me is a touching account of the author's fr
iendship with Pedro Zamora, a young AIDS activist who eventually succumbed to th
e disease. Many students will recognize Winick and Zamora as cast members of MTV
's Real World: San Francisco. Through comic books such as these, teachers can le
ad their students in a study of "contemporary lifestyles, myths, and values" (Br
ocka, 1979, p. 31).
Conclusion
Clearly, the five identified strengths of comics - that comics is motivating, vi
sual, permanent, intermediary, and popular - can be harnessed in practically any
subject and at practically any grade level. Many innovative teachers have alrea
dy done so with much success. As the misconceptions of the 1940's slowly fade, b
oth the educational and comics communities look forward to a new generation of e
ducational materials that teach through comics. To see some of the materials ava
ilable today, explore the resources listed at the bottom of Comics in Education'
s home page.
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history of comics in education, esp. rp
cfa, then gospel komiks
types of comics