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Comics in Education
Comics in Education
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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 1940 s, 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 1940 s 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.