Teaching Comics Through Multiple Lenses

Crag Allen Hill is Assistant Professor of English Education at Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education, University of Oklahoma, USA.

• Contents Preface1. Introduction: The Growing Relevance of ComicsCrag HillSection 1: Materiality and the Reading of Comics2. Designing Meaning: A Multimodal Perspective on Comics ReadingSean P. Connors3. Multimodal Forms: Examining Text, Image, and Visual Literacy in Daniel Handler’s Why We Broke Up and Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief Amy BrightSection 2: Comics and Bodies4. Illustrating Youth: A Critical Examination of the Artful Depictions ofAdolescent Characters in ComicsMark A. Lewis5. Just Like Us? LGBTQ Characters in Mainstream ComicsA. Scott HendersonSection 3: Comics and the Mind6. Telling the Untellable: Comics and Language of Mental IllnessSarah Thaller7. Christian Forgiveness in Gene Luen Yang’s Animal Crackers and Eternal Smile: A Thematic AnalysisJake StratmanSection 4: Comics and Contemporary Society8. Poverty Lines: Visual Depictions of Poverty and Social Class Realities in ComicsFred Johnson, Whitworth University, and Janine J. Darragh, University of Idaho9. Can Superhero Comics Defeat Racism?: Black Superheroes "Torn between Sci-Fi Fantasy and Cultural Reality"P.L. Thomas10. Teaching Native American Comics with Post-Colonial TheoryLisa Schade EckertSection 5: Endpoints11. Crag HillList of ContributorsAdditional resources were compiled by Shaina Thomas.

"For a relatively compact book, Teaching Comics covers substantial ground... Teaching Comics usefully illustrates the importance of comics as a medium and area of study on its own, apart from other media. Though this does not come across as a campaign for legitimacy, it is clear that these scholars have a vested interested in growth and development of this area."— Jacinta Yanders, Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature"This edited volume provides teachers with a series of theoretical approaches applied to a variety of comics to help them in their own practice. It touches on an impressive breadth of graphic texts and theories. meant to open up new ways of thinking about using comics in the classroom. "— John D. Benjamin, Seminar: A Journal of Germanic Studies, UTP Journals