Teaching through comics gains momentum at U. Nebrask - Arts & Living …

Teaching through comics gains momentum at U. Nebrask - Arts & Living   http://www.dailycollegian.com/media/storage/paper874/news/2005/04/1...



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         Daily Collegian
         Friday, April 28, 2006
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         Teaching through comics gains momentum at U. Nebrask
         By: Bill Defrain, Daily Nebraskan

         Issue date: 4/11/05 Section: Arts & Living
         LINCOLN, Neb. - Rocco Versaci was looking for a new way to get students interested in literature.

         Tapped to teach the English 270: Pop Literature class at Palomar College in San Marcos, Cal., Versaci said
         one of his biggest concerns was fighting student apathy toward literature.

         So he gave his students comics.

         And now, "I have students reading ahead and rereading. I have students coming up to me saying they're
         excited for the next reading."



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Teaching through comics gains momentum at U. Nebrask - Arts & Living   http://www.dailycollegian.com/media/storage/paper874/news/2005/04/1...


         The class was so successful that Versaci was able to create a new class at the college: Comics as Literature.

         "People think of Archie and Batman ... it's really a much more complicated art and literary form than people
         give it credit for," Versaci said.

         This semester the class -- with consistently full enrollment -- has two texts: "Watchmen," written by Alan
         Moore, and issue 13 of the literary magazine "McSweeney's," devoted entirely to comics.

         Versaci said part of why he likes teaching comics in class is to destroy people's stereotypes of the
         often-maligned medium, reminding his students that it wasn't too long ago film as an academic study wasn't
         accepted in the academic world.

         And Versaci's not alone. Comic classes have surfaced across the country, but not always with ease. So the
         National Association of Comics Art Educators -- a non-profit, comic advocacy group - was formed to help
         teachers promote not just comic literature but comic drawing classes as well.

         "There's a lot of people that are teaching comics as studio classes and within English departments who teach
         comics as fiction," said Ben Towle, assistant director of NACAE.

         "It can be a hard sell to a dean or a head of a department," Towle said, so the group created a Web site,
         Teachingcomics.org, as an online resource with academic papers on comics, syllabi, handouts and study
         guides for teachers wanting to start a comics class.

         Just as the aim of a traditional literature class isn't necessarily to prepare students for a career in writing or
         publishing, comics are a means of building visual literacy, Towle said.

         "I've found it's an easier sell to sort of affirm people's stereotypes ... it can be helpful to have a lot of comics
         that are similar to what you'd read in an English 101 class, books about normal people," Towle said.

         Titles like "Ghost World" by Daniel Clowes and "American Splendor" by Harvey Pekar, given more
         attention from recent movie adaptations, exploit not the fantastic but the mundane, making comics a more
         accessible medium for some people -- or at least less juvenile -- than the stereotypical caped superheroes in
         tights.

         The tricky part in getting teachers and administrators to open up to comics, Towle said, is that "comics as a
         medium are judged by its worst examples ... there's no escaping the fact that there's some bad stereotypes of
         comics, much of it well deserved ... but the fact that Danielle Steele writes novels doesn't mean you shouldn't
         read 'Great Expectations.'"

         "Not to say that 'Watchmen' is a bad book, but when you open it up it's a bunch of people in tights," Towle
         said. And for a faculty member proposing a comics class to a department chair, that's not always helpful.

         Yet Versaci said he didn't have much difficulty in getting English 290: Comics as Literature approved.
         Neither did English graduate student Eric Sergeant when he proposed using "Watchmen" as text for an
         English 101 class here at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

         Sergeant said the graphic novel seemed like an obvious choice for the class, which is centered on themes of
         playing god in literature.

         "We're trying to show multiple levels. Comics are a good way to get people thinking like that, and
         'Watchmen' has some great character development."

         Sergeant likened a good comic to a good film, where the director has complete control of everything inside


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Teaching through comics gains momentum at U. Nebrask - Arts & Living   http://www.dailycollegian.com/media/storage/paper874/news/2005/04/1...


         the frame.

         "Every panel moves the story forward for a certain reason," Sergeant said.

         But for teachers like Sergeant and Versaci, the most important thing is to get students thinking and reading
         about literature.

         "A really talented artist and writer can combine a word and an image to create a new meaning in a completely
         different way," Versaci said.


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Teaching through comics gains momentum at U. Nebrask - Arts & Living   http://www.dailycollegian.com/media/storage/paper874/news/2005/04/1...



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