Comic Books In The Classroom

A look at how comic books can be used as a tool to teach our kids

"Hence poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of the nature of universals, whereas those of history are singulars."- Aristotle

heh, i like your education system

I (obviously) support comics in the classroom:
 http://www.comicvine.com/news/comic-book-literacy-trailer-yes-comics-can-be-used-to-learn/139778/

good to see things have changed. we couldnt have comics on school property
regardless of reason when i was a wee-man.

This has already been done quite a lot in my area. I am all for it, anything to help kids learn. Learning is great. In fact, my friends Mother works for a local school library. She actually commissioned me to write and draw a short comic to get kids involved in reading for the school. 
 
Apparently it went down quite well with the kids.

i Say YESSS... and i wish they thought of this when i was in school... then maybe i wouldnt be such a DooDOO

I couldve used that during college or maybe I wouldnt be suspended lol

i learned to read from incredible hulk

"
Using comic book characters to teach children how to do stuff...awesome. 
 
Okay class, Deadpool and Punisher here are going to teach you guys how to use a gun! 
 

"

I once gave big heavy bags full of old comics to a lady I knew who was a class room assistant.  She wanted old comics to help teach kids to read.  At the time I didn't think I'd want to read 'em again... anyone any idea how much the original Alpha Flight run costs these days?  Anyway, it's surprising that no-one has used comics before to help teach kids about community, prejudices, grief, etc.  It seems so natural.  I think it's great that it'll teach kids and get them into comics.

I learned to read from X-Man/Chris Claremont  and Alpha Flight/John Byrne

Another great wawy to teach children and internet them!

I heard of an English teacher (or maybe specifically writing. I don't remember which) giving Watchmen to their students.

My 11th grade English teacher is a huge Wonder Woman and  Green Arrow fan..she used to bring in comics for us to look at all the time..than again that was my favorite teacher I've ever had.

I love this. If I were a teacher I'd try to do the same thing. It was my oldest brother's Archie comics that got me to start enjoying reading. Meanwhile I was always ahead of my other brother in reading even though he was 3 years older than me and I loved reading. Archie led to Spider-Man and X-Men and then to books and such.

Hmm, interesting. Although I imagine most of the science lessons go: "This isn't actually possible, but if it were..."

Awesome!

My Teacher does the same thing.I learned about the pitt from him.And learned that the creature of the Pitt worked on Hulk comic before he left and created the Pitt. Awesome right,My Teacher also knows about Spawn when it first came out,and still call Overtkill ,OverKill, cool yet again. And look at me I'm well Educated."Did you know that when you become angry,unnesasery Enzymes are created and blocks some of your Brain waves, and leads you to not Think Thoroughly,and wisely",thats why when people Become angry they spazz out LOL  XD.And thats one of many things he told me.

"I heard of an English teacher (or maybe specifically writing. I don't remember which) giving Watchmen to their students. "

If I could have read comics in Highschool I would not have cut so many classes

I used to get in trouble for reading comics in class. >.< 

 I did this. I used super heroes in the class room to help teach English in Japan. 
 
I printed pictures of heroes doing different things in different places. On each laminated print was a sentence in English. The basic format was "Name was ____ing preposition __place".  Such as Spiderman was climbing in New York.    The students had a riddle in English. All the cards were easily hidden around the room.  The students each had teams of four. One kid wrote and the other 3 ran around the room looking at clues, reading them and then running back to their desk and saying them and sometimes spelling them. Then the last student wrote it down. The goal was to get 4 copies of all the sentences (there were 15) and once they had all the sentences they could deduce by either alibis or location who stole Superman's cookies. The team that got it the fastest was ranked Batman as to detective. And they got to keep a print out drawing of Batman that I did.  
 
It worked very well. They got to get our of their chairs and move all over the room and they were reading, memorizing, speaking, spelling, and writing English. And most of all they had to understand it and think, in order to figure out who could not have taken the cookies and by the process of elimination figure out who did it.  I used both American and Japanese comic book characters.  
 
If you want the riddles I used and the pictures I still have them.  It was always so and so stole the cookies with the Riddler.  The ages were 12-15 and the riddles were easier depending on the grade. For 12 year olds it was just so and so was ___ing. and the place was in Japanese.  For the 13-14 it was only 10 clues and for the 14-15 it was 15 full ones. 
 
Also in the beginning of class I told a short story in Mixed English and Japanese about where the cookies were and that they were taken and how Superman came to Batman to figure out who did it. Sometimes it was Goku's cookies that were taken and he wen to Conan (not the barbarian) to figure it out.  So the class had to raise their hand and figure out the story and re tell it all in Japanese. Then I did the instructions in Japanese for the game and let them lose. I also made a CD with all super hero songs on it to play softly as everyone was running around. Also girl vs boy teams worked well too.  Oh and Each clue was covered by white paper so that you had to run up and lift the paper every time to read it and you could not read it form your desk.   I put Spiderman on the back side of my desk upside down which was hard to find and they had to get down and read it with their head hanging in a touch your toes position to read it. And they laughed.

i was reading an issue of Teen Titans my sophmore year (1 year ago) during sestained silent reading, and got threatened a detention if i brought one again because apparently "its not considered a book" it really really angered me and i wish i couldve done something about it. stupid Coach teach :(

AW MAN! 
How come i couldnt learn with comics in the classroom!?

As someone who learned to read from comics, and is also a classroom teacher, I have some insight into this.  
1) One teaching philosophy says that literacy is built on visual association.  Young children are encouraged to use the images in their picture books to help them figure out the words on the page and the general story.  
 
2) There is an amazing program developed through Columbia University's Teacher's College called, The Comic Book Project.
 
Check it out here: 

It's so nice to see an article online about my home state that it positive. X-Men comics have always been a good example of witnessing people dealing with discrimination.
 
I think more what young readers get from Batman isn't so much as copping with trauma. It shows selflessness and that things are possible without super powers. Bruce trained himself to be the best at what he does. He didn't have the advantage of being power with a power or one thrust upon him in some accident. He choose to do this for his own reason and gets very little out of it.
 
I'm not so sure that means every parent should start taking all the Batman books and give them to their eight year old. The topics can become rather mature now. Which pretty much reflects a mature reader base.
 
In the past these characters were pretty 'perfect'.  Superman, Batman. Both lived pretty ideal lives with a few rough patches here and there. Very much sitcom lives. Though a few decades back they started to make the characters more real and identifiable. Batman became much more brooding and dark. Superman, well, died.
 
It's when it comes to girls that I think they suffer a little bit in the area of positive role models. Not that there aren't any. It's just that writers tend to use women as foils to a male hero rather then the lead of a story, the damsel in distress as one example.
 

 Jeremy Belcher, I support your teaching methods!

In all seriousness, I didn't really know how to write while I was in school. I literally used to squeeze by in English with some creative writing assignment. It wasn't until later in life when I picked up comic books when I learned how to punctuate and spell certain words correctly.
 
I teach my nieces how to read and write through comic books, as well. I've also come to find out that the school my nieces attend carry issues of Marvel Age. Which is weird, because they're hardback--but singular issues.
 
Anyway, yeah, comic books in the classroom is nothing but good. :]

I credit some of my education to Calvin and Hobbes,a long with some of my Dad's older graphic novels.

Great idea.

My friends I can't tell how it warm heart to see kids reading comics  in school  ,and it not being looked down  upon  as trashy and low brow , also I think  this give  kid  two things something to read  beside  Moby Dick  (FYI I know there is a Moby Dick  Comic Book out there ) or Pilgrims Progress Ect , and  it let's  brings in the next generations  of  book fan  weather they  like myself  DC Comic Fan Boy  or  Marvel Kid . So Comics in the class room I can sum it up one word Excelsior! 

Oh my Psychology teacher (he's also a Social Studies teacher) from last year was going to do something like this with his U.S. History class. When he would start teaching the Civil War in class - he was planning on using examples from the Civil War that happened within the whole Marvel world. I think it's really creative, and fun :D

comic's helped me learn to read [and want to] but where im from you would get you're head kicked in if you said anything about them.

I learned more english from comic books than from class..