Comic Literature and Graphic Novel Uses in History, Literature, Math, and Science

Graphic novels and comics have a rich history and have long served as a medium for both education and entertainment. Although we live in an increasingly technology-rich era which offers abundant visual stimulation to compete with comics, graphic literature is arguably a more immediate and robust resource than ever before. The following paper highlights specific applications of graphic literature to pedagogical purposes, including implications for the use of comics in teaching history, world languages, English as a new language, science, and mathematics. Across these areas, a wide degree of application exists for teachers, in both K-12 and post-secondary settings. In addition, we draw upon the history of comics itself and the relationship between graphic literature and other popular media to demonstrate how the study of comics is itself a powerful lens through which to study history and sharpen skills for critical inquiry that hold utility across academic disciplines. The potential of graphic literature to be both a vehicle for teaching and learning academic content, as well as a topic that is itself worthy of deliberate study, is an essential theme explored by this paper with an emphasis on concrete examples which may be applied to educational practice