Comic book lovers and educators got on stage for two different panels at New York Comic Con yesterday to talk both about how comic books can ignite classroom discussion and how librarians can digitally bring those beloved books into schools.
Common Core, a new set of national curriculum standards that teachers nationwide are advised to follow, accepts graphic novels as a medium that instructors can use to teach students. But Nathan Tubbs, a sixth grade science teacher in Brooklyn, is excited by how comic books can turn kids who would otherwise never pick up a book into avid readers, even if that reading isn't directly associated with class.
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"Kids walk into my classroom and they see comic books in the back and they say, 'Mr. Tubbs, are those comic books?'" Tubbs said on stage at a panel called, "Using Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom: Whys and Hows," one of several panels on comics in schools. "I say 'Yep,' and they say, 'Can we borrow some?'"
Perhaps even more than generating excitement around reading, Tubbs thinks comic books have the potential to get kids talking about a host of subjects they're already learning about in a formal capacity.
"You can use comic books to address a wide range of social issues that might come up in your classroom," Tubbs said.
In multiple Superman comics, for example, the hero talks someone out of jumping from a building, and more of them deal with depression and coming of age. Others address the science behind the atomic bomb, and he said comics such as X-Men can help students understand elements of the civil rights movement.
Those comic books aren't always readily available to kids, though, especially not in schools where students who may want to read them would be able to get their hands on a few.
That's why, in an earlier talk titled "Bringing Digital Comics Into Schools and Libraries," panelists discussed a service called Comics Plus that streams the books online to school libraries.
The service was developed by iVerse Media, and school libraries that sign up will have access to hundreds of comic book titles. All students have to do is click the appropriate portal on their library's website, and pick whatever comic or graphic novel they want. There is no limit to how many copies of a single title students can check out, and kids can read them on a computer at school or take them home to read on their iPad. The service works on phones as well, according to iVerse Media Account Director Josh Elder, but it isn't yet optimized, so the text won't be as readable.
The best part about Comics Plus, Elder said, is that schools only pay for what students check out, so libraries are free to order different titles and wait to see how popular they are, with no risk of huge overhead.
School libraries make a down payment and select a range of comic books they want their students to have access to. Then, as students check them out, the money comes from that down payment. Standard comic books cost a dime per rental, more popular ones cost 25 cents apiece, and new graphic novels are a dollar for every checkout. The system is based on quarterly or annual deposits, but whatever money is left over after one pay period just rolls over to the next. If a school decides to discontinue using Comics Plus, iVerse Media's website says they will be refunded in full.
Graphic novels have yet to establish a large presence in the average school library, but the speakers on both panels believe they can get students excited about exploring topics they wouldn't normally dive into because the kids are bored by traditional classroom discussion. With comic books, they may become more engaged in other elements of learning.
"Your get kids excited, they're going to read, they're going to study, they're going to excel," Tubbs said.
Image: Flickr, Alan Alfaro