Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/740763
Behl was one of three graduates last year who joined Goldman- Hall and Jenny Kim, both San Jose Teachers Association members, along with East Side Teachers A ss o ci ation m emb er Al ex Hun g D i e p, to present "Uncanny Core: Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom," a panel at Silicon Valley Comic Con (SVCC) in March. e presentation focused on how comics can be used to enrich courses and reach reluctant and challenged readers. "e panel was super fun," says Kim, who heads Pioneer's special education depart- ment. "At first I thought nobody might come. But they did , and many of those attending were teachers." SVCC drew tens of thousands of people over three days, featuring content and costumes related to comics-based films, animation, video games and fantasy novels. A Literature Tied to Art "We had a presentation in a packed room, and it was pretty amazing," says Goldman- Hall. "Our goal was to show that comics are a valid form of literature." Goldman-Hall, a longtime comic book fan, began incorporating comics into his reading and writing courses a few years ago to make things more fun. He asked his district to approve some of the comics for classroom use, and it did, letting students delve into figurative language, visual met- aphors and symbolism, which he found fit nicely into the Common Core. " C o m i c b o o k s a l l ow e d m e t o t e a c h specific skills associated with the new standards, such as characterization, use of textual examples to support an opinion, and plot. And of course, the literature is tied to art." At first people thought it was a little "weird," he admits. It had never been done at his school before. He favors comics with mature themes. The first one he taught was The New York Five, written by Brian Wood and illustrated by Ryan Kelly, about four freshmen at New York University. "I taught that to my seniors in an expository reading and writing course unit about life after high school," he recalls. Next, he taught Maus, a graphic novel written and illustrated by Art Spiegel- man about his father's experiences as a Jew and a Holocaust survivor. (In Maus, each nationality gets a different animal. Germans are cats; non-Jewish Polish people are pigs; Americans are dogs who chase the German cats who prey on the Jewish mice.) In 1992 it became the first graphic novel to win a Pulitzer Prize. G o l dman-Hal l 's third graphic novel was Pride of Baghdad, written by Brian K . Va u g h a n a n d i l l u s t r a t e d b y N i k o Henrichon. It is a fictionalized account of four lions who escape from the Baghdad Zoo, based on a real incident after Amer- icans bombed the city in 2003. The lions serve as a metaphor for four different eth- nic groups in Iraq. Punching Up Curriculum " There are so many things I love about using comics," Goldman- Hall says. " The students can see what the character is thinking by their facial expressions. ey provide a medium for visual learners. For this generation, which is so accustomed to the Internet with pictures and text togeth er, it seems natural . Comic Riya Behl, Robert Collins and Natasha Thompson hold copies of the graphic novels they read in Jason Goldman-Hall's class at Pioneer High. 37 October 2016