Educating through Popular Culture: You're Not Cool Just Because You Teach with Comics 1498549179, 9781498549172

Table of contents :
Dedication and Acknowledgments
Table of Contents
Introduction: Educating through Popular Culture: “You’re Not Cool Just Because You Teach with Comics” • Ludovic A. Sourdot and Edward Janak
Part I: Looking Behind: Teaching in the K-12 Schools with Popular Culture
1 Reclaimed Identity in Tak Toyoshima’s Secret Asian Man and Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese • Tammy L. Mielke and Emily L. Brandon
2 History, Literacy, and Popular Culture: Using Graphic Novels to Teach the Struggle for Racial Justice • Richard Hughes, Meghan Hawkins, and Katie Lopez
3 Karma in Comics: Discovering Hidden Super Powers through Creating • Tonia A. Dousay
Part II: Looking Around: Teaching in Postsecondary Schools with Popular Culture
4 Making Academia Cool: Serious Study of Sequential Art at the University • Pearl Chaozon Bauer and Marc Wolterbeek
5 Meditation: Mediating the Writing Process • Jillian L. Wenburg
6 Exploring Migration through Popular Media and Fieldwork • Cadey Korson and Weronika Kusek
Part III: Looking Globally: Teaching US Popular Culture in Global Context
7 A Question of Relevance: Teaching with Sci-Fi and Fantasy Film in a Saudi University • Maha Al-Saati
8 Teaching Little Professors: Autism Spectrum on TV and in the Classroom • Kimberley McMahon-Coleman
Part IV: Looking Ahead: Preparing Teachers with Popular Culture
9 Poking It with a Shtick: Humor as Hermeneutic in the Pre-Service Teacher Education Classroom • Sarah Hunt-Barron and Richard Hartsell
10 Orange Is the New Blackboard: Lessons for Teacher and Student Advocacy • Haley M. G. Ford and Meredith J. Tolson
11 Thinking Philosophically: The Power of Pop Culture in Developing a Personal Philosophy of Education • Chad William Timm
Part V: Looking Theoretically: Research Utilizing Popular Culture
12 Using Multimodal Literacy to Teach Gender History through Comic Books, or, How “The Wonder Women of History”Became “Marriage à La Mode” • Andrew Grunzke
13 Exploring the Intersections of Social Identity, Popular Culture, and Men in Early Childhood Education • Kenya Wolff, Melissa Chapman, and Josh Thompson
14 Loyal Opposition: Conservative Student Resistance to Jazz Culture in the 1920s • Jacob Hardesty
Conclusion: But I Don’t Want to Read a Graphic Novel: Truth and Nuance about Pop Culture in Education • Paul A. Crutcher and Autumn M. Dodge
Index
About the Contributors

Citation preview

Educating through Popular Culture

Educating through Popular Culture You’re Not Cool Just Because You Teach with Comics Edited by Edward Janak and Ludovic A. Sourdot

LEXINGTON BOOKS Lanham • Boulder • New York • London

Published by Lexington Books An imprint of The Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group, Inc. 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706 www.rowman.com Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB Copyright © 2017 by Lexington Books All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-4985-4917-2 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-4985-4918-9 (electronic) TM The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

Dedication and Acknowledgments Ludovic dedicates this book to Michael C. Chapman, in loving memory. Edward dedicates this book to the many wonderful people who have presented in his area at the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association’s national conference. The editors wish to acknowledge the efforts of Lindsey Porambo at Lexington Press; her patience and guidance have proven invaluable.

Table of Contents

Introduction: Educating through Popular Culture: “You’re Not Cool Just Because You Teach with Comics” Ludovic A. Sourdot and Edward Janak Part I: Looking Behind 1 Reclaimed Identity in Tak Toyoshima’s Secret Asian Man and Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese Tammy L. Mielke and Emily L. Brandon 2 History, Literacy, and Popular Culture: Using Graphic Novels to Teach the Struggle for Racial Justice Richard Hughes, Meghan Hawkins, and Katie Lopez 3 Karma in Comics: Discovering Hidden Super Powers through Creating Tonia A. Dousay Part II: Looking Around 4 Making Academia Cool: Serious Study of Sequential Art at the University Pearl Chaozon Bauer and Marc Wolterbeek 5 Meditation: Mediating the Writing Process Jillian L. Wenburg 6 Exploring Migration through Popular Media and Fieldwork Cadey Korson and Weronika Kusek

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Table of Contents

Part III: Looking Globally 7 A Question of Relevance: Teaching with Sci-Fi and Fantasy Film in a Saudi University Maha Al-Saati 8 Teaching Little Professors: Autism Spectrum on TV and in the Classroom Kimberley McMahon-Coleman Part IV: Looking Ahead 9 Poking It with a Shtick: Humor as Hermeneutic in the PreService Teacher Education Classroom Sarah Hunt-Barron and Richard Hartsell 10 Orange Is the New Blackboard: Lessons for Teacher and Student Advocacy Haley M. G. Ford and Meredith J. Tolson 11 Thinking Philosophically: The Power of Pop Culture in Developing a Personal Philosophy of Education Chad William Timm Part V: Looking Theoretically 12 Using Multimodal Literacy to Teach Gender History through Comic Books, or, How “The Wonder Women of History” Became “Marriage à La Mode” Andrew Grunzke 13 Exploring the Intersections of Social Identity, Popular Culture, and Men in Early Childhood Education Kenya Wolff, Melissa Chapman, and Josh Thompson 14 Loyal Opposition: Conservative Student Resistance to Jazz Culture in the 1920s Jacob Hardesty

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Conclusion: But I Don’t Want to Read a Graphic Novel: Truth and Nuance about Pop Culture in Education Paul A. Crutcher and Autumn M. Dodge

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About the Contributors

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Introduction Educating through Popular Culture: “You’re Not Cool Just Because You Teach with Comics” Ludovic A. Sourdot and Edward Janak

Each year the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association hosts both regional and national conferences. As one of the national area chairs was faculty in the local college of education, a group of high school history teachers with whom the area chair worked were strongly encouraged to attend the national 2015 meeting in New Orleans. Initially, their response was very positive; after each of the first two days, they were enthused and excited to meet a group of like-minded people. Typifying their experience was one night’s conversation after the sessions had ended. One of the teachers was making reference to a film, then caught himself: “You wouldn’t have seen it,” he explained. “Try us,” was the reply. When he found out the entire table had, indeed, seen Bubba Ho-Tep and enjoyed it greatly he got a shocked look on his face and said, “That has never happened to me before in my life!” So it was very surprising when the area chair had a very different encounter with that same teacher the following day. After attending a session, the teacher walked up to the area chair looking dejected. When asked what was wrong, the teacher fumbled for words for a moment or two, then finally said, “Just because you teach using comic books does NOT make you a cool teacher! And it DEFINITELY doesn’t mean you know what to do with those comics.” The frustration voiced by the teacher in this instance is similar to that voiced nationwide when theory meets practice and there is a lack of praxis. The purpose of this edited volume is to address, in part, the frustration voiced ix

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by that teacher at that conference. It is intended to serve as a place for teachers and scholars to begin seeking ways in which popular culture has been tapped for research and teaching purposes in effective means around the country. While the title makes explicit reference to one medium of popular culture—comics—naming that specific medium is intended metaphorically. Indeed, the contents of this volume examine multiple forms of popular media from visual (television to, yes, comics and graphic novels) to auditory (jazz and hip hop music) to tactile (makerspace). The editors are in agreement with John Storey who argues that the definition of popular culture is wide ranging and complex; it • Is simply culture that is widely favored or well-liked by many people; • Is what is left over after high culture has been determined (though postmodernists would hotly contest this notion); • Is mass culture, relying on mass production and/or mass consumption; • Originates with the people, almost as a folk culture; • Is a contested site of struggle between subordinate and dominant groups, between the masses and those they perceive to be in power; and • Is a culture that has emerged following industrialization and urbanization. 1 Just as the contents reflect multivariate popular media, so too do they address teaching with popular culture on many levels. The first part allows teachers in PreK-12 schools the opportunity to share their successful practices. The next part affords the same opportunity to teachers in community colleges and university settings. What follows closes the loop, to some extent, showing how universities can prepare teachers to use popular culture with their future PreK-12 students. The final part of the book allows researchers to discuss the impact popular culture plays in their work as it crosses teaching and research lines. This volume also seeks to address a shortcoming in the field. Currently there are outlets to publish studies of popular culture and outlets to publish pedagogical/practitioner pieces regarding teaching broadly. However, there are no explicit outlets to publish practitioner-driven pieces on studying and using popular culture, in spite of the increased popularity and legitimacy of the field. It is hoped that volumes such as this might encourage further editions of its ilk, if not encouraging the editors of peer-reviewed publications both theoretical and practitioner to explicitly seek out such articles for inclusion.

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STATE OF THE FIELD Indeed, recent years have proved the necessity of such scholarship. In the past fifteen years media consumption by children has skyrocketed throughout the United States and around the world. Since 1999, the Kaiser family foundation has surveyed a national sample of third through twelfth graders (ages eight through eighteen) to find out the amount of time a representative sample of America’s youth spent engaged with media. In a recent survey, the Kaiser Family foundation found that “young people live media-saturated lives, spending an average of nearly 8 hours a day (7:38) consuming media.” 2 Such level of engagement with media has increased dramatically since 1999. This is due in large part because of the birth of the World Wide Web in the mid 1990s coupled with innovations in computer science allowing personal computers to calculate and process information in a matter of seconds. These advances eventually led manufacturers of personal computers such as Apple to start developing handheld devices to store and play digital content (music, audiobooks, podcasts). In the last decade the miniaturization of electronic components has allowed for the development of web-enabled portable devices. In 2015 the Pew Research Center estimated that 68 percent of US adults have a smartphone (up from 35 percent in 2011), this number grew to 86 percent of US adults ages eighteen to twenty-nine. According to a recent survey released by the consumer advocacy group Influence Central, the average age for a child getting their first smartphone is now 10.3 years, tablets have also become kids’ device of choice during car rides, and 64 percent of children have access to the Internet via their own laptop or tablet. 3 The popularity of handheld devices and the ability to stream content has allowed for television viewing to move from America’s living rooms to tablets and portable computers. In the last decade, television networks have evolved to match the needs and viewing habits of their audience. The American Broadcasting Company (ABC) owned by Disney was the first major broadcaster to take full advantage of the possibilities afforded by the Internet. During the 2004–2005 season, ABC released two television shows that enjoyed a cult following on television and online. Lost followed the lives of several individuals who after surviving a plane crash try to adapt to living on a what appears to be an inhabited island (actually populated by mysterious entities and a group of hostile inhabitants) while Grey’s Anatomy followed a group of surgical interns in and out of Seattle Grace Hospital. With these two shows ABC developed new marketing strategies soon followed by other network and cable outlets. These broadcasters set up multimedia platforms to promote their shows, spark interests in the public, and make devoted fans out of the viewers. In the past ten years, ABC has become a leader in web presence to promote shows; several blogs based on fictional characters found

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in Grey’s Anatomy, such as the nurses in the surgical unit where most of the characters work, and Joe who bartends at the Emerald, the character’s favorite spot to unwind, were also available for viewers to learn more about plots and voice their opinion through posts. Groups of fans even created their own blogs where they discussed plots, storylines, the physique, or the likelihood that one character may be romantically involved with another one or off the set. Lost ran on ABC for six seasons (2004–2010) and has been hailed by TV critics for its innovative plots and unique writing—“the show with perhaps the most compelling continuing story line in television history.” 4 This show is now being enjoyed by a new generation of viewers via the streaming service Netflix. In its twelfth season Grey’s Anatomy still headlines ABC’s Thursday night lineup. These two shows led the way when it came to multiplatform marketing and distribution strategies. Grey’s Anatomy creator Shonda Rhimes has since excelled at marketing her TV series; her subsequent creations Private Practice, Scandal, and How to Get Away with Murder have all enjoyed great runs on television, in syndication, and online. Today most networks offer web exclusives on their website or on their cell phone or tablet applications. Watching television no longer requires a TV set—a cell phone or a tablet will do. The emergence of new streaming platforms such as Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Video, and YouTube reinforced this idea. Despite the technological advances in computing observed in the past two decades, traditional media have also fared very well, in 2015 the box-office revenue hit a record $11 billion in North America. In the past eight years, movies produced by the Marvel Studios have grossed an estimated $10 billion worldwide 5 while the sales of comics, trade paperbacks, and magazines reached $579 million in the United States in 2015. 6 The technological advances of the past twenty years have allowed popular culture to be available and enjoyed by more people than ever worldwide. More than thirty years ago a few educators and scholars first envisioned the power and potential of popular culture as a field of inquiry; in 1984 art educator Vincent Lanier argued that educators should take a closer look at popular culture since in his opinion it presents similarities with the study of art: “whatever our attitude about the contemporary popular culture, it cannot be denied that these media engross enormous numbers of young people in ways analogous if not similar to the aesthetic experiences of museum, gallery, theater, and concert hall.” 7 In 1987 another art educator, Paul Duncum, probably provided the best definition for popular culture: “a mass-produced, mass-distributed, and mass-consumed artifacts; typically involving content that is relatively clear and simple; and produced by a small group of professionals for the consumption of others.” 8 More than twenty years ago, critical pedagogue Henry Giroux called for educators “to be informed by [the] emphasis on popular culture as a terrain of significant political and pedagogical

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importance.” 9 He believed that popular culture is a powerful influence on students; he also wrote about the need for teachers to take into account elements of popular culture when planning for instruction with the aim of making learning relevant for students. One implication for such work is that future and existing teachers be educated about the viability of developing context-dependent learning that takes account of student experiences and their relationships to popular culture and the terrain of pleasure, including those cultural industries that are often dismissed as producing mere entertainment. 10

Over the years several more scholars looked at popular culture, notably Buckingham (2003) who defined the current influence of the media in our lives—“The media are embedded in the textures and routines of everyday life, and they provide many of the ‘symbolic resources’ we use to conduct and interpret our relationships and to define our identities.” 11 Buckingham’s work informs on the ways the media, including television programming, should be analyzed and carefully studied to prepare a new generation of informed students. Lanier, Duncum, Giroux, and Buckingham all agree that the media and popular culture are important to study and analyze since they occupy such a big part in the lives of Americans. Popular culture is also such a tremendous part of our children’s daily lives; therefore, schools should utilize this powerful tool to teach students, using media content they are familiar with. This edited collection is intended to serve as a place for teachers and scholars to begin seeking ways in which popular culture has been tapped for research and teaching purposes in effective means around the country. The contents of the book have been organized with this in mind, affording teachers on all levels an opportunity to share— and seek—ways to better engage their students. OVERVIEW OF THE BOOK The first section of the book allows teachers in the nations’ public schools a place to share what reaches their students. “Part I: Looking Behind—Teaching in the K-12 Schools with Popular Culture” opens with Tammy Mielke and Emily Brandon’s “Reclaimed Identity in Tak Toyoshima’s Secret Asian Man and Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese” which delineates the historical development of Asian American character stereotypes alongside the shifting politic context concerning Asian Americans in the United States. Yang and Toyoshima build identities within their respective texts in response to historical and political contexts, reclaim Asian American stereotypes, and change previous perceptions. Mielke and Brandon demonstrate how these two texts in conversation with one another inspire dialogue in students about

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difficult issues concerning race and diversity within our society. They argue that Yang’s graphic novel and Toyoshima’s comic strips offer a space for students to discover a respectful understanding of cultural difference. Ultimately this chapter addresses how and why comics, specifically those written by minorities, can help broaden the topic of multiculturalism in the classroom: texts such as Toyoshima’s Secret Asian Man and Yang’s American Born Chinese allow for critical discussions of racism and cultural difference. Maintaining the theme of using comics to teach issues of racial history and cultural engagement is “History, Literacy, and Popular Culture: Using Graphic Novels to Teach the Struggle for Racial Justice” by Richard Hughes, Meghan Hawkins, and Katie Lopez. The authors remind readers that in 2013, as Americans celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, John Lewis, one of the speakers that day in 1963 and now a US Congressman, authored a graphic novel on the movement. March: Book One (2013) was the first of a planned trilogy about Lewis’ experiences before, during, and after the civil rights movement. The graphic novel quickly became a New York Times bestseller and, in 2015, March: Book Two debuted with equal success, extending the narrative through 1963. This chapter explores the innovative ways two history teachers have used both of Lewis’ graphic novels, in conjunction with a variety of valuable historical primary sources, to teach the African American civil rights movement to sophomores of mixed ability levels in a Midwestern public high school. Focusing on data such as the students’ enriched perceptions of key actors in what historians describe as the “long civil rights movement” and their comparative performance on common literacy skill-based assessments, the chapter examines the potential of graphic novels to teach multiple historical thinking and literacy skills while simultaneously providing meaningful historical content. The study also analyzes the reflections of roughly one hundred secondary students on their own learning in terms of the relationship between history, literacy, and the potential of engaging popular culture in the classroom. Part I concludes with Tonia Dousay’s “Karma in Comics: Discovering Hidden Superpowers through Creating.” Much of the current classroom trend of using comics in the classroom focuses on how struggling readers can improve through reading comics or how art instruction benefits from evaluating visual literacy and comic design components. Despite the trend, many teachers are reluctant to consider using comics in the classroom for fear of using the wrong terms or unfamiliarity with the genre. Thus, effective and full use of comics in the classroom eludes the majority of teachers, but it does not need to be this way. This chapter explores types of use for incorporating comics in curriculum, comics as a form of assessment, and includes an example comic unit, divided into three lessons, developed for secondary social studies, and research implications. Additionally, considerations for incorpo-

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rating culture, the development of culture, individual historical figures, and the influence of popular culture on storytelling are addressed. The final components of the chapter include authentic assessment recommendations to assist teachers and administrators as well as research implications with an emphasis on mixed methods approaches to evaluate such units in educational environments. “Part II: Looking Around—Teaching in Postsecondary Schools with Popular Culture” begins with “Making Academia Cool: Serious Study of Sequential Art at the University Level” by Pearl Chaozon Bauer and Marc Wolterbeek. This chapter offers four practical models of teaching sequential art to lower- and upper-division students; these models aim to place sequential art in the context of serious but enjoyable academic learning. In lowerdivision courses, sequential art is helpful in elevating student critical thinking and analytical skills. The Freshman Composition course begins by focusing on social-historical issues in Art Spiegelman’s Maus; and the Introduction to Literature class commences by studying the socioecological issues in Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta. Students write a visual analysis paper that closely examines one panel from each text to help them understand the balance between art and language. The two upper-division courses including sequential art have very different aims. Graphic Novels and Manga emphasizes the formal aspects of the art, from the micro to the macro levels. The other upper-division course, Mythology of Heroes and Superheroes, places contemporary sequential art in the context of traditional Western and Japanese mythology. After studying Greco-Roman and Shinto mythology, students explore twentieth-century American superheroes as well as Japanese manga and animated films with strong mythological elements. A key to making these courses “serious” explorations of this new art form is instilling academic rigor and high expectations in the study of sequential art. These courses aim to make the academic experiences of reading “comic books” enjoyable and valuable. Mindfulness studies are quickly gaining in popularity, both in the realms of popular and academic cultures. Bridging these worlds is Jillian L. Wenburg’s “Meditation: Mediating the Writing Process.” Wenburg argues that college students benefit from mindful meditation practices to facilitate writing abilities and assist with daily college living. Meditative practices provide integral tools for the completion of writing projects; incorporating these practices into the classroom can help students overcome struggles with understanding to complete the writing process. Elements of mindful meditation reduce writing process anxiety and allow students the chance to engage with the process, rather than fear it. Several key mindfulness tips can help students in pre-writing: how to better engage in peer workshopping, identify writing environments, and how to achieve success over the mind monster of writer’s block. Integrating, as well as teaching, these mindful meditative techniques

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will be imperative for teaching mindfulness. Positive classroom models allow students to practice effectively during writing or study time. This chapter proposes the benefits of teaching mindfulness practices and demonstrates effective teaching strategies. It encourages teachers to help students to look at the act and process of writing itself as a meditation. The chapter provides detail of the process of both the workshop and classroom integration tools with supplemental materials included. Ultimately, this project grounds readers with an understanding of meditation as well as how to apply it specifically for a composition- or writing-based classroom. “Exploring Migration through Popular Media and Fieldwork” by Cadey Korson and Weronika Kusek moves from teaching mindfulness to teaching cultural awareness. Teaching in American universities often requires working with a diverse student population understood in a very broad sense: racial, ethnic, national, but also socioeconomic, religious, and gender-based. In such an environment, popular culture and the use of social media can become a unifying factor: a method of inquiry that can facilitate discussion among all students because it is part of their everyday experience. This chapter questions the extent to which university students are critically engaging with these, and other, sources of information and outlines a series of activities that use a critical pedagogical framework to foster discussion about migration and contemporary immigration issues through various instruments of popular culture. These frameworks challenge students to analyze and question the narratives that inform their thinking by urging students to think about their own perceptions, how those perceptions are impacted by social and popular media, and how media portrayals compare to firsthand and personal accounts of migration. In a globalized world it is crucial for Americanborn undergraduate students to be exposed to non-Eurocentric perspectives early in their college careers; to help accomplish this, Korson and Kusek combine a critical pedagogical approach that emphasizes critical thinking, student self-reflection, and activism with activities that explore migrant narratives in popular culture and lived migrant experiences to promote intercultural exposure. “Part III: Looking Globally—Teaching US Popular Culture in Global Context” explores the impact of US popular culture globally as international educators share the ways in which they use US pop culture to improve their teaching. What is most fascinating is the similarities in challenges faced by instructors abroad. For example, Maha Al-Saati’s chapter, “A Question of Relevance: Teaching with Sci-Fi and Fantasy Film in Saudi Arabia,” explores the experience of a Saudi Arabian educator who teaches using various forms of US popular culture, including sci-fi film. Some of the challenges that rose during her use of US popular culture in teaching revolved around issues of relevance: of sci-fi film to students not interested in the genre, of Western narrative to a Saudi audience, and of dated sci-fi films to a younger

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audience. The chapter discusses the various contextualization methods for these classroom screenings. It examines how dated sci-fi films can enhance the students’ critical eyes. As new sci-fi films increasingly aim to immerse viewers in their special effects, dated sci-fi films can be more revealing of the socio-cultural norms of their times. For instance, Brazil (1985) envisions a future un-liberated from paper as an essential medium of communication, and 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) taps at the gender norms of their times, with its portrayal of men leading a future in which women remain subservient. From the Middle East to Oceania, in “Teaching Little Professors: Autism Spectrum on TV and in the Classroom,” Kimberley McMahon-Coleman explores the ways in which characters from US popular culture may be utilized as a means of addressing stigmas and misconceptions within Australian university classrooms and offer insight into teaching and learning when working with people with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). As we are reminded by McMahon-Coleman, many experts posit that individuals on the spectrum may often struggle with “theory of mind”; that is, the ability to attribute mental states (such as knowledge, beliefs and intentions) to oneself and to others, and more particularly, to understand beliefs and perspectives different to one’s own. Teaching faculty can similarly gain insight into the inner workings of the minds of this cohort by watching fictional representations of the spectrum’s “little professors.” Characters such as Dr. Martin Ellingham from Doc Martin, Dr. Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory, and Dr. Temperance Brennan from Bones are all often read by audiences as being on the spectrum, even when the shows’ writing and production crews vehemently deny this. Indeed, there is now emerging evidence that some students use the prevalence and popularity of on-screen characters who display the traits of autism in order to explain their own behavioural quirks and learning needs. Once teaching PreK-16 has been explored, the book ahead to the next generation of pop culture educators. “Part IV: Looking Ahead—Preparing Teachers with Popular Culture” opens with “Poking It with a Shtick: Humor as Hermeneutic in the Pre-Service Teacher Education Classroom” by Sarah Hunt-Barron and Richard Hartsell. In this chapter the authors ask intellectually provocative questions such as how do we help students begin to see their lived experiences in schools through new lenses, moving beyond the dominant narratives too often automatically applied to the purposes and possibilities for education? And perhaps more importantly, how can we help our preservice teachers begin to view school and schooling with new eyes, asking critical questions about the status quo of an educational system they likely not only are comfortable within, but within which they excelled? This chapter explores humor in popular culture as a hermeneutic tool with critical pedagogy applications for the pre-service education classroom. The chapter

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includes a brief overview of hermeneutics, including its origins to its present use as a more generalized mode of inquiry. The main focus of the chapter is a proposed methodology for utilizing the hermeneutic function of popular culture humor within the classroom. Specifically, the chapter emphasizes the possibilities humor can present for developing hermeneutic dialogue between texts more relevant to students, texts that may better illuminate dominant power structures in institutionalized education than typical introductory textbooks. Finally, the chapter offers successful examples of the use of popular culture humor as a tool for helping pre-service teachers develop a critical pedagogical stance. Voices of teachers and students will explore possible connections to critical pedagogy for each example. From hermeneutics to incarcerations, Haley M.G. Ford and Meredith J. Tolson explore the issue of producing teachers ready to become culturally relevant to their students using visual media in “Orange Is the New Blackboard: Teacher Lessons for Student Advocacy.” Ford and Toulson posit that teachers come into the classroom expecting to wear many hats, whether that is counselor, cheerleader, or educator, but one role educators cannot leave out is advocate. Being that more than 80 percent of teachers are white, middle-class females, many teachers’ experiences don’t tend to mirror those of the students they teach. Orange Is the New Black, while not directly about education, does reflect the experiences and struggles many students, especially those in an urban setting, have to walk through. This chapter explores the stories profiled in the show and highlights tangible lessons teachers can then apply directly into their classrooms. Part IV ends as it began, encouraging teacher educators to engage preservice teachers in philosophical thinking. “Thinking Philosophically: The Power of Pop Culture in Developing a Personal Philosophy of Education” by Chad William Timm begins with the notion that because teachers’ philosophy of education profoundly influences their everyday practices as educators, most teacher preparation programs spend a great deal of time helping students develop a personal philosophy of education. Much of this preparation occurs in a foundations of education course where students are often expected to develop a philosophy of education that will typically take the form of a paper. Pre-service teachers often struggle, however, with developing a personal philosophy of education because philosophy itself can be so ethereal and abstract. This chapter describes a pedagogical process to introduce future teachers to educational philosophy. Some of the questions students grapple with are what does it mean to be educated, what is an educated person’s responsibility to society, where does knowledge come from, and what is the purpose of education? Timm describes specific instructional and assessment strategies used to link pop culture to these philosophical questions in ways that not only help students develop deep and complex understandings but also encourage them to apply those understandings in their classroom teach-

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ing. The chapter concludes with comments and reflections from students on the role that using pop culture played in helping them develop a deeper understanding of complex philosophical concepts. From education classrooms to educational research, “Part V: Looking Theoretically—Research Utilizing Popular Culture” allows researches an avenue to discuss how popular culture influences their research in addition to informing their teaching. Leading off is Andrew Grunzke’s “Using Multimodal Literacy to Teach Gender History through Comic Books or: How ‘The Wonder Women of History’ Became ‘Marriage à La Mode.’” Grunzke reminds readers that in certain types of texts, words and images work together to create meaning. This chapter builds on Dale Jacobs’ concept of multimodal literacy, using the theory both as a pedagogical theory for approaching the teaching of gender history and as a theoretical approach to conducting educational history. Specifically, the chapter seeks to demonstrate how theories of multimodal literacy can be applied to historical analysis of popular texts, like comic books, that provided a multimodal educational experience for children and young adults, concentrating on how such texts can be used to teach modern students about how children’s media in the past has been used to shape conceptions of proper gender roles. By way of example, the chapter explores how theories of multimodal literacy and literary sponsorship can be applied to Wonder Woman comics of the 1940s and 1950s, detailing the ways current teachers can develop their own students’ historical understanding of shifting gender norms in the World War II and postwar eras through readings of multimodal texts created during the periods. Taken together, this project argues for the value of using multimodal literacy as a specific lens for examining visual texts and using those texts to teach the myriad ways that children’s media have historically sought to shape both young males’ and young females’ notions of proper gender roles. From exploring gender from a female lens to exploring gender through a masculine lens, Kenya Wolff, Melissa Chambers and Josh Thompson share “Exploring the Intersections of Social Identity, Popular Culture and Men in Early Childhood Education.” Wolff and Walker posit that in the past twenty years popular culture has documented men as teachers and caregivers of young children. Multiple books, movies, and articles focus on men in early childhood education. Many teacher education programs and school districts are formally and aggressively attempting to recruit male teachers for younger children. Yet, in reality, men make up only 4.5 percent of child care workers and only 2.4 percent of preschool teachers and kindergarten teachers. Foucault’s theory of discourse is used to juxtapose the power and knowledge behind the discourses found in the popular movie Daddy Day Care against the lived reality of men teaching and caring for young children. These stories include routine discrimination by administrators who refuse to allow men to work with children in diapers or who are young enough to need toileting

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assistance to marginalization by some parents and co-workers as lacking the “sensitivity” to work with young children. These experiences, coupled with the challenges that accompany all ECE teachers (i.e., lack of pay, low professional respect) differ from the humorous images portrayed in Hollywood movies. From comics and comedic films to jazz, “The Loyal Opposition: Student Criticism of Jazz Culture in the 1920s” by Jacob Hardesty highlights the conservative student response to jazz culture in the 1920s. At the time, critics and advocates alike saw “jazz” less as musical genre and more as a type of lifestyle, one that involved drinking, sensuous dancing, and “immodest” dress. To be sure, these voices critical of this increasingly widespread lifestyle represented a minority on college campuses, particularly at large state universities. And yet, the extant literature on 1920s popular culture ignores them to such a degree, one could reasonably question whether student jazz opposition existed at all. This chapter argues undergraduate jazz culture opponents largely fell into one of three groups: female students who disapproved of sexualized jazz dances, black students who did not want to be associated with the scandalous new genre, and aesthetic conservatives who thumbed their noses at jazz’s “primitive” nature. Ultimately, this chapter helps complicate the dynamic of popular culture on college campuses, highlighting an often-vocal minority who looked at changes in dress and deportment with skepticism. The conclusion presents an unusual case study of a reluctant reader who is actually the educator. “But I Don’t Want to Read a Graphic Novel: Voices on Truth and Nuance for Comics in Education” by Paul Crutcher and Autumn Dodge is an explicitly polyvocal narrative chapter that begins with an organic conflict that problematizes and focuses attention from savvy practitioners and scholars on the best uses of comics, graphic novels, and other visual literatures. In the chapter, Dodge narrates her experience in this conflict, primarily relative to reading The Silence of Our Friends during our research. Despite being a scholar and professor in literacy who teaches graphic novels and visual literacy in her graduate and teacher preparation courses, Dodge describes a conflict not encountered in the extant literature on popular culture—she doesn’t want to read a graphic novel. In the chapter, she details how she (a) doesn’t enjoy the most dominant content (i.e., fantasy and science fiction), (b) doesn’t feel competent or interested in developing the skills to read graphic novels, (c) simply prefers prose and conventional texts and sees a reason for their primacy, and (d) doesn’t take most graphic novels seriously or see them as complex or substantive (i.e., through an emic view of literacy).

Introduction

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CONCLUSION Taken overall, it is the hopes of the editors that this book will allow educators on all levels to not just see the value of teaching with popular culture but to get specific ideas on how to successfully implement it in the classroom. While not an explicit how-to or set of lesson plans to be followed, it is the intent that educators draw inspiration from the chapters presented herein. It is our intent to provide an opportunity for educators to think about developing a popular culture pedagogy that, in the words of Laurence Raw, “should be able to free itself from the tyranny of binaries (theory/practice, dominance/ resistance, worry/complacency) and find new frameworks for learning.” If nothing else, as Raw further reminds us, “[i]n a transmedial world where the distinction between ‘high’ and ‘popular’ culture no longer seem so significant . . . maybe we ought to spend time rethinking precisely what ‘popular culture’ signifies, and how it changes over time and space.” 12 Great educators at any level, know and care about their students. They are also able to recognize their students’ interests, talents, and instructional needs. It is hoped that the mix of literature in the field, active research, and pedagogical tools will allow educators the means to achieve their own form of praxis in their classrooms, whether in middle school or graduate school. As Raw further reminds us, “Educators need to rethink their roles—perhaps they should not assume sole responsibility for determining the pedagogical agenda but listen both to what learners are saying, and (perhaps more significantly) what they are not saying.” 13 Students in the United States and around the world are consumers of popular culture outside the walls of the classroom; this book aims at helping educators capitalize on students’ interests in everything popular while also meeting their academic needs. Educators who choose to tap into this as a pedagogical tool should be commended. However, ultimately we hope that this book reminds educators that they are not “cool” just because they bring in a comic, or anime, or current song to share with their class; it is what happens next, the pedagogical exchange between learner and instructor, where cool begins. NOTES 1. John Storey, Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, 7th Edition (New York: Routledge Press, 2015), 7–13. 2. Henry J. Kaiser Foundation, “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8–18-Year-Olds” (Last modified January 25, 2010, http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf), 2. 3. Influence Central, “Kids & Tech: The Evolution of Today’s Digital Natives” (Last modified May 22, 2016, http://influence-central.com/kids-tech-the-evolution-of-todays-digitalnatives/). 4. Bill Carter, “Tropical Teaser: ‘Lost’ Clues Decoded,” New York Times, January 30, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/arts/television/30lost.html?_r=0.

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5. “Box Office History for Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies,” The numbers.com (Last modified May 23, 2016, http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/MarvelCinematicUniverse#tab=summary). 6. “Comic Book Sales Figures,” Comichron.com (Last modified May 22, 2016, http:// www.comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2015.html). 7. Vincent Lanier, “Eight Guidelines for Selecting Art Curriculum Content,” Studies in Art Education 25 (1984): 236. 8. Paul Duncum, “What, Even Dallas? Popular Culture within the Art Curriculum,” Studies in Art Education 29 (1987): 6. 9. Henry Giroux, “Doing Cultural Studies: Youth and the Challenge of Pedagogy,” In The Giroux Reader, ed. Christopher Robbins (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006), 92. 10. Henry Giroux, “Cultural Studies, Public Pedagogy, and the Responsibility of Intellectuals,” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies 1 (2004): 66. 11. David Buckingham, Media Education Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2003), 5. 12. Laurence Raw, “To Theorize or Not to Theorize . . . ” The Journal of Popular Culture 49 (2016): 436. 13. Ibid., 437.

BIBLIOGRAPHY “Box Office History for Marvel Cinematic Universe Movies.” The numbers.com. Last modified May 23, 2016. http://www.the-numbers.com/movies/franchise/Marvel-CinematicUniverse #tab=summary. Buckingham, David. Media Education Literacy, Learning and Contemporary Culture. Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2003. Carter, Bill. “Tropical Teaser: ‘Lost’ Clues Decoded.” New York Times, January 30, 2008. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/30/arts/television/30lost.html?_r=0. “Comic Book Sales Figures.” Comichron.com. Last modified May 22, 2016. http://www. comichron.com/monthlycomicssales/2015.html. Duncum, Paul. “What, Even Dallas? Popular Culture within the Art Curriculum.” Studies in Art Education 29 (1987): 6–16. Giroux, Henry. “Doing Cultural Studies: Youth and the Challenge of Pedagogy.” In The Giroux Reader, edited by Christopher Robbins, 89–122. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2006. ———. “Cultural Studies, Public Pedagogy, and the Responsibility of Intellectuals.” Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, 1 (2004): 59–79. Henry J. Kaiser Foundation. “Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8–18-Year-Olds.” Last modified January 25, 2010. http://www.kff.org/entmedia/upload/8010.pdf. Influence Central. “Kids & Tech: The Evolution of Today’s Digital Natives.” Last modified May 22, 2016. http://influence-central.com/kids-tech-the-evolution-of-todays-digitalnatives/. Lanier, Vincent. “Eight Guidelines for Selecting Art Curriculum Content.” Studies in Art Education, 25 (1984): 232–237. Pew Research Center Internet, Science and Tech. “Technology Device Ownership: 2015.” Last modified May 20, 2016. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/10/29/technology-deviceownership-2015/. Raw, Laurence. “To Theorize or Not to Theorize . . . ” The Journal of Popular Culture, 49 (2016): 433–438. Storey, John. Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: An Introduction, 7th Edition. New York: Routledge Press, 2015.

Part I

Looking Behind Teaching in the K-12 Schools with Popular Culture

Chapter One

Reclaimed Identity in Tak Toyoshima’s Secret Asian Man and Gene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese Tammy L. Mielke and Emily L. Brandon

In a 2008, Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA) sent a “memo to Hollywood” 1 which provided a list of repeated Asian stereotypes in media and also the group’s suggestions on how to avoid these in the future. The images included the following: Asian Americans as foreigners who cannot be assimilated; Asian cultures as inherently predatory; Asian Americans restricted to clichéd occupations; Asian racial features, names, accents, or mannerisms as inherently comic or sinister; Asians as the “model minority”; and anti-Asian slurs going unchallenged. Tak Toyoshima addresses these issues within his comic strip Secret Asian Man which ran in syndication for just over two years from July 2007 until September 2009 and released in a collected form titled Secret Asian Man: The Daily Days. 2 The strip’s protagonist, Osamu “Sam” Takahashi, is a Japanese American cartoonist who shares his experiences as an Asian American and his everyday observations of race relations in America. Controversial and often un-politically correct language provides the reader with the perspective of the “Other,” specifically, the Asian American point of view. Surrounded by characters who represent various ethnicities—African American, European American, Japanese American, and half Japanese/half white—Sam has the opportunity to see the world from not only his own Asian American perspective but also from the multiple perspectives of his friends and family. While Toyoshima does include some of the very stereotypes the MANAA condemns, such as the Asian Chinese food delivery man, the Chinese dry cleaning owner, and the 3

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hard-working Asian, he presents them in such a way that enables the reader to recognize stereotypes, although negative, that exist in our society. In Gene Luen Yang’s highly prized American Born Chinese, 3 Asian stereotypes are also addressed from the opening image of multiple religious figures at a party, whose comments are only understood if the reader has a full understanding of the major religions in China: Taoism, Confucianism, Islam, and Christianity. Throughout the text, Yang makes use of pop culture in order to explain what it means to be American-born Chinese. Mythical stories from Chinese history are interwoven with a glimpse of American Idol, the film Sixteen Candles, and popular singer Ricky Martin. The entire premise of the book is built upon young Danny playing with Transformers shortly after the opening story of the Monkey King and literally transforming, through various stereotypes, in his search to be both American and Chinese. Both Toyoshima and Yang use Asian stereotypes; but these two Asian American authors use negative stereotypes to reclaim identity and redefine an Asian American identity. In this chapter, we outline the specific histories of this comic strip and graphic novel by discussing the past stereotypes of Asian Americans alongside the political context at the time of publication. We then discuss how Yang and Toyoshima build identities within their respective texts in response to, and a reclaiming of, Asian stereotypes and perceptions. We end with showing how these two texts in conversation with one another are used to inspire dialogue in students about difficult issues concerning race and diversity within our society. ASIAN AMERICAN STEREOTYPES IN POLITICS AND PRINT Asian Americans have a long and rich history of immigration, starting in Central America. There are a number of excellent sources that provide a detailed history of Asian immigration in the Americas. Briefly stated, Asian immigrants were welcomed as cheap labor when they first arrived in the United States. As the Asian/Asian American population began to grow, and with it a feeling of threat, so did the stereotypes and the negative connotations associated with them. First came the stereotype of the “coolie.” These were Chinese laborers in the 1850s–1880s who helped build the transcontinental railroad and “develop[ed] the lumber, fishing, mining and agricultural industries of the West.” 4 Coolies were considered unskilled and received the lowest wage. While cultural stereotypes were perpetuated by the wave of immigration to the United States in the mid-1800s, political actions exacerbated the negative portrayals as well. The first immigration law enacted in the United States that singled out a group for exclusion based on race was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. This government act came after decades of discrimination

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and violence. Although Chinese immigration was relatively low, only 4.3 percent of the total number of immigrants in the entire the United States from 1870–1880, they were subjected to violent attacks, such as the massacre of the Chinese at Rock Springs, Wyoming in 1885, and the lynching of seventeen Chinese in Los Angeles on October 24, 1871, the largest mass lynching recorded in the United States. In 1892, the Exclusion Act was extended for another ten years, renewed in 1902, and made permanent in 1904. During this time, Asian immigrants were considered the “Yellow Peril”—a pollutant to the “pure” race of white Americans. Asians were considered deviant, especially the common laborers, the operators of opium dens, and Asian women who were imported for prostitution. Later stereotypes include “gook”—which originated during the Korean War as a generic term for Asians and became more popular during the Vietnam War. Asians most recently have had the yoke of being labeled as the model minority, a stereotype highlighted by political leaders, which casts Asian Americans as a group that has successfully assimilated into American culture. The model minority stereotype (Wu 2014) stems from American society labeling Asian Americans as “definitely not white” before the 1950s and changing that label to “definitely not black” (author italics) in the mid-1960s. 5 This shift in stereotyping occurred because of racial liberalism, defined by Wu as “the growing belief in political and intellectual circles that the country’s racial diversity could be ably managed through the assimilation and integration of non-whites.” 6 Asian Americans had a vested interest in promoting their new accepted racial image as an asset to American foreign policy. Inclusion, they argued, was based on how American they were and, that as Americans, they were culturally able to serve as “natural ambassadors” to the Far East. 7 In this way, Asian Americans “perceived differences” were turned from a “liability to [an] asset to benefit US expansionism.” 8 Although it seems that the Asian American stereotype has progressed from negative to positive in the last two hundred years, the complexity of how stereotypes function in society means that while the model minority paints Asian Americans in a positive light, the past stereotypes still exist to this day in various forms. Stereotypes, no matter how old, are hard to escape. Will Eisner reminds us in his book Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, 9 that the actual definition of the word stereotype is “an idea of character that is standardized in a conventional form, without individuality” but goes on to say that the negative association is primarily due to the fact that stereotypes were often used “as a weapon of propaganda or racism.” 10 The latter is apparent in the early representation of Asians in comics such as “Terry and the Pirates,” 11 “The Adventures of Tintin,” 12 and the “Blackhawk” 13 series. Representations of Asians in these comics included key visual and verbal indicators of the character’s Asian-ness such as slanted eyes, round spectacles, shiny black hair, traditional clothing and hats, buck teeth,

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and distinctly broken English. Such representations were included in daily comic strips such as Milton Caniff’s Terry and the Pirates 14 which began in 1934. The series featured the story of a young boy named Terry who was growing up in China. Many of the representations of the native people reflected traditional dress, small eyes, and shiny black hair; however, it was Caniff’s introduction of the “Dragon Lady” character which has left a strong impression on stereotypes of Asian women in comics as well as a derogatory term used to describe strong women in our society. 15 Unlike the negative visual depictions of Asian males in “Tintin” 16 and “Blackhawk,” 17 Caniff’s “Dragon Lady” was represented in a visually more appealing manner. While more beautifully depicted, she was still portrayed as an evil temptress. This depiction led to the negative stereotyping of Asian women in future comics, movies, and books. Early and enduring representations of Asian stereotypes appeared in Hergé’s Adventures of Tintin. For example, in the 1936 Tintin adventure “The Blue Lotus,” a stranger comes to visit Tintin, and he thinks to himself, “yellow skin . . . black hair . . . glasses . . . careful, Tintin.” 18 Later, we are introduced to a Japanese gentleman named Mitsuhirato who is drawn with extremely slanted eyes, round spectacles, large buckteeth, and a menacing scowl. 19 Other Japanese diplomats in the story were depicted in a similar manner, such as the Minister of War, 20 the representative at the League of Nations, 21 and General Haranochi. 22 While the daily syndicated comics incorporated Asian stereotypes in their work, publishers of comic book serials, such as DC Comics, also engaged in stereotypical depictions of Asians. DC Comics introduced the Asian character Dr. Fu Manchu in 1937; this character was based on one created by British novelist Sax Rohmer in the mid-1900s and featured in his detective series titled The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu. 23 DC Comics’ depiction of the character was much like Rohmer’s negative Asian stereotypes. DC Comics introduced another Asian character in the Wonder Woman series named Egg Fu; this character was introduced in 1965 and was nothing more than a large, golden egg with slanted eyes, evil grin, and slim mustache. DC Comics was not the only publisher to include negative Asian stereotypes in their serials. In 1941, the Asian character Chop-Chop was introduced in the “Blackhawk” series (Military Comics) published by Quality Comics. 24 Like the depiction of Chop-Chop by his predecessors at DC Comics, Chop-Chop was also reduced to a stereotype with slanted eyes, large buckteeth, traditional Chinese clothing, and a queue. Quality Comics took the stereotype a bit further by altering Chop-Chop’s language. This character was unable to properly pronounce specific sounds and his use of improper syntax as in the following quote from one of the comics, “Me see it all now . . . It’s a tlick . . . Chop-Chop been double closed.” 25 It is likely this negative depiction of Chop-Chop was legendary in the Asian American liter-

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ary community because sixty-six years later, he is mentioned in Toyoshima’s November 20, 2007 strip. 26 Chop-Chop was so popular that he received his own adventure in October of 1950. He remained a member of the Blackhawk squad but had undergone various changes. In the 1960s, he is re-named Dr. Hands and is master of martial arts. It isn’t until 1983 that Chop-Chop’s fellow squad members realize how unfair they have been and Chop-Chop is finally able to leave his traditional outfit behind and Special Officer Wu Cheng (Chop-Chop’s real name) is allowed to wear the Blackhawks uniform. Chop-Chop’s story of shifting from being a discriminated foreign outsider to finally achieving acceptance echoes the reality of American history. The long tradition of perpetuating negative stereotypes in comics has its roots in the stereotypes in our country’s immigration pattern in the early 1800s. YANG AND TOYOSHIMA— RECLAIMING AND BUILDING IDENTITY Asian American authors grow up in the context of the past Asian American stereotypes. Tak Toyoshima and Gene Luen Yang are not the only Asian American authors who are actively writing in response to Asian/Asian American stereotypes, but we chose Toyoshima and Yang’s texts since their work is ground breaking and award winning. As authors, their own identities as Asian Americans are key to understanding the ways in which they are reclaiming Asian American identity. Tak Toyoshima grew up in Manhattan’s Chinatown district in the 1970s, a child of immigrant Japanese parents, in an environment upon which he often relied for the topics in his daily comic. When asked what his inspiration for creating Secret Asian Man in a 2007 interview with the Winston-Salem Journal, Toyoshima stated that he asked himself the questions, “If I were to start a comic book or strip, what would I write about? What do I know about better than anyone else in the world?” 27 He found the answer to that question by investigating his own life, specifically, his life as an Asian American. When recollecting his childhood, Toyoshima said there was a “lack of Asian American representation in many forms of mass media and popular culture. There were plenty of exotic images depicting people from Asia, but none were accurate, as far as I felt, portrayals of us Asians born and raised in the States.” 28 Thus was born Secret Asian Man (SAM). 29 Gene Luen Yang grew up on the opposite coast, in the San Francisco Bay area, during the same time as Toyoshima. He too is the child of immigrant parents, although his parents came from China. He “often mines his life for his graphic novels.” 30 His book, American Born Chinese (ABC), 31 is a semiautobiographical telling of Yang’s childhood, filled with all the normal issues that occur in growing up (such as finding friends and experiencing

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middle school crushes) as well as dealing with subtle forms of racism. Yang recounts the shame he felt in grade school at being asked to befriend a new classmate from Taiwan who spoke Mandarin to him for a week. He includes this event in American Born Chinese 32 and notes that his unwillingness to befriend this new boy was more about him “dealing with something inside about [Yang] being ashamed of the culture of my parents.” 33 Yang’s “stories leapfrog genres and often pose questions about acceptance, identity and culture.” 34 Although Toyoshima and Yang have different regional and cultural backgrounds, it is important to note they both had the same purpose for creating their works—understanding and reclaiming their Asian American identities. While Toyoshima and Yang published their works in 2007 (SAM) and 2006 (ABC), the representations of Asian American in comics are limited. In a 2004 study of ethnic and gender representation in daily comics, Jack Glascock and Catherine Preston-Schreck discovered that of the forty-nine comic strips featured in syndication 35 96 percent of the characters were white, 2.5 percent black, and 1 percent “other” minorities. The study did not investigate the actual creators of the comics, but rather representations and readership of the comics. 36 The key element missing from this study is the background of the creators. Comic critic Scott McCloud, in his second book Reinventing Comics, 37 suggests that when it comes to comics, “who makes it (comics) matters.” He carefully posits that when writing “about a social or physical condition which only a minority experiences, members of that minority will have an advantage in portraying it.” 38 Toyoshima and Yang are creators who have firsthand knowledge of what it means to be Asian American. Both authors have a unique place in publishing as well. Not only was Toyoshima the first Asian American to have a syndicated comic strip, but also the first to include an Asian American protagonist. Much like Toyoshima, Yang received accolades for his unique place in literature and culture as well. He is the first graphic novelist to serve as the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature and is the first Asian American to serve in this capacity. Both authors use stereotypes to speak to racism and negative perceptions of Asian/Asian Americans. Reclaiming identity is an act of intent; Toyoshima and Yang, in the examples that follow, are purposefully addressing perceptions in order to make space for a new understanding of Asian American identity. While Toyoshima and Yang used Asian American stereotypes to encourage an open discussion about the Asian American identity. Critic Will Eisner suggests that stereotypes are a necessary evil in graphic novels because the art “deals with recognizable reproductions of human conduct” and “depend on the reader’s stored memory of experience to visualize an idea or process quickly. This makes necessary the simplification through amplification of images into repeatable symbols. Ergo, stereotypes.” 39 Yang addresses past

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Asian stereotypes head on in his character of Chin-Kee, intentionally making readers confront the racism embedded within the image. In his interview with Rachel Martin, Yang noted, “the Chin-Kee character is an amalgamation of all the different Chinese and Asian stereotypes that I could think of. All the negative stereotypes I could think of.” 40 Yang identified Chin-Kee’s slanted eyes, his yellow skin, and his large buckteeth as character aspects that come from those past representations. Chin-Kee’s broken English and his actions, claims Yang, come from “modern sources.” Yang explains: So for instance, there is an incident in the book where he’s sitting in the school cafeteria next to Danny, another character in the book and he offers Danny . . . a bite of his crispy fried cat gizzards with noodles. That phrase . . . yeah . . . that phrase ‘crispy fried cat gizzards with noodles’ . . . I actually lifted word for word from a 2001 cartoon by a political cartoonist named Pat Oliphant. He’s a Pulitzer Prize winner, very, very popular and a very talented political cartoonist. So during the Chinese spy plane crisis in 2001, he did this cartoon with Uncle Sam visiting a Chinese restaurant and in that Chinese restaurant, he is offered by the waiter a plate of crispy fried cat gizzards with noodles. The waiter is drawn very stereotypically: he has slanted eyes; he has buckteeth; he talks in really broken English. But when that came out, there was a small outcry from some Asian American activists and nothing really beyond that happened. So I feel like the reason why there wasn’t the same sort of outrage with that cartoon as you would get if you had done the same thing to another ethnic group like African Americans or Latino Americans is because people don’t connect the imagery that we see in modern day with its heritage. With its heritage in these really racist political cartoons in the late 1800s/early 1900s. 41

Yang offers Chin-Kee as a tie to the past, forcing the readers to confront our country’s ugly history of stereotyping Asians in a negative manner, literally showing past negative stereotypes as modern characters, inciting the reader’s rejection of all stereotypes. However, the readers’ reactions to Chin-Kee have fallen short of Yang’s goals; Chin-Kee is meant to be revolting and yet, Yang has said that there has been a mixed reaction to Chin-Kee. Some Asian American bookstores refused to carry American Born Chinese, misunderstanding the use of such stereotypes and missing the intent to cause rejection of Yang’s Chin-Kee. 42 Other readers have had the opposite reaction, liking Chin-Kee and thinking he is “cute.” Yang says that that reaction “freaks him out a little bit.” 43 While Toyoshima does not include recognizable visual stereotypes in his work, he does use verbal cues to indicate stereotypes. The inherent danger when authors such as Yang and Toyoshima use negative stereotypes to address the construction of Asian American identity humorously is that the audience might miss the deeper understanding being offered. Since some readers lack the historical background to understand the reclaiming of these stereotypes, we might wonder why authors chose a poten-

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tial dangerous means of communication. Eisner posits that since comics are a visual art and that there is “little time or space” 44 to convey information, artists rely on visual cues to quickly relay the narrative. In other words, the typical Asian stereotype could be considered an iconic image—it is easily recognizable and as McCloud states, the icon is “any image used to represent a person, place, thing, or idea.” 45 For most readers, the depiction of an Asian character in traditional clothing would be enough to indicate that the character is, in fact, Asian; Eisner calls this the reader’s “reflexive response” 46 to a depiction. While Yang relies on the visual presentation to deliver a narrative about negative stereotypes by including the Chin-Kee character, Toyoshima relies on the narrative to tackle the problems he sees with ethnic differences, tolerance, and acceptance in American culture. By diverting the reader’s attention from visual to narrative, he is able to successfully engage in a narrative dialog of the problematic theme that is race and ethnicity. Rather than drawing Sam and his cousin Simon to reflect their Asian ethnicity, Toyoshima chooses to depict them in a manner which is difficult to associate as the iconic representation of Asians. Sam has dark hair and big eyebrows and Simon has dark spiked hair and skinny eyebrows. Neither of these characters have the stereotypical characteristics of the previous representations of Asians in comics. This allows the reader to focus their attention to the narrative rather than their physical characteristics. Likewise, with the exception of Chin-Kee, Yang’s characters are not clearly identified as Asian. Chin-Kee stands in stark contrast to other characters in the text. Toyoshima and Yang challenge the idea that visual stereotypes are needed to provide quick identification for the reader. And yet the context for their work is clear through the titles of their texts. In Secret Asian Man, Toyoshima seized the opportunity to find ways to encourage discussion about race in America as well as bring various groups together. Through his comic, he expresses the daunting task ahead of him. When Sam first learns that his comic will be run in syndication, he tells Charlie, “I want to make a good strip, not just an Asian one. It’s kind of an awesome burden to carry.” 47 But Toyoshima seemed to welcome the challenge; in an interview, he viewed the strip as “a bridging text that doesn’t preach or push an ideology on people but instead presents things to think about for the readers to make up their own minds.” 48 Toyoshima accomplishes his aims by not only considering the Asian American point of view, but also considers the African American, Native American, and white points of view as well. Consider the following exchange between Sam, his best friend Charlie (who is African American), and Richie (who is white): Richie: Happy African American Month! Sam: I thought it was called Black History Month.

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Richie: Black is a term from the past. We’ve made progress since those days. Charlie: How about real progress? Just call it February. 49

This interaction among three characters with distinct ethnic backgrounds is a reflection of Toyoshima’s attempt to defamiliarize the reader’s expected outcome of the conversation. A reader may assume that characters of specific ethnic groups may chose to emphasize their difference; however, Charlie wishes to change this perception by indicating that true progress requires society to cease the creation of delineations between ethnic groups. In another interaction, Sam encounters a white high school football player who appears to be crying. Sam asks, “You OK?” and the boy responds, “I’m a victim of stereotype! Just because I’m athletic and good-looking doesn’t mean I want to be treated like some piece of meat by the cheerleading squad! We studs are an oppressed people!” 50 This exchange reflects Toyoshima’s recognition that stereotypes are not limited to people of specific ethnicities and encourages the reader to consider other static stereotypes which persist in our society. While Toyoshima’s African American character often attempts to create a more homogenous America, Sam waivers between referring to himself as American and Asian American. There are multiple examples in the collection that demonstrate this; for example, when Sam is asked by a white man at a local bar, “So are you Asian, Asian American, Japanese American, or just plain American?” Sam responds, “All of them.” 51 In another strip, Sam’s son Shin asks about his own ethnicity: Shin: Papa, a girl at school called me a “halfie.” Sam: She’s totally wrong about you. You’re half Japanese, a quarter Italian, an eighth Irish, and an eighth Native American. Shin: So what does that make me? Sam: “American.” 52

Like the previous exchange, this demonstrates the character’s need to claim their ethnic identity but ultimately stating that he (and his son) is in fact, an American. Although emphasis on claiming one ethic background or another is prevalent throughout Secret Asian Man, the issue of the perpetuation of stereotypes is a major theme as well. Sometimes, the characters catch themselves in the act of perpetuating the negative stereotypes that exist. This exchange among Sam, Charlie, and Simon when they are taking a look at Sam’s latest daily explores this idea: Sam: Finished! Check out my new strip! Simon: Why’d you make the white guy racist? Sam: I dunno. No reason.

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Tammy L. Mielke and Emily L. Brandon Simon: People are going to think you hate whites. Charlie: If your goal is to dispel racist myths, why would you portray a white man as the oppressor? Doesn’t that perpetuate a negative stereotype? Simon: You don’t draw any kung-fu guys or dragon ladies! Sam: You have to be honest. I’m trying to make my stuff realistic. Sometimes people do match their stereotypes. 53

In the next frame, Sam answers to door to pick up his Chinese delivery food from an Asian delivery man. One of the reasons Toyoshima is successful in tackling issues such as stereotypes is that he approaches the subject with a sense of humor. The ability to laugh at one’s self and to recognize that sometimes all of us are responsible for inadvertently perpetuating negative stereotypes is part of the success of Toyoshima’s strip. Yang also employs humor as a means by which readers can see themselves in the text. Yang’s graphic novel doesn’t offer as large of a multicultural world as Toyoshima’s comic strip. As a semi-autobiographical text, Yang is reflecting the world he grew up in, and, in Yang’s world, one character, Wei-Chen, is portrayed as the model minority. Toyoshima uses a present-day setting and represents himself as an adult, effectively allowing him to engage in a multicultural world in ways unavailable to Yang. And yet Yang’s main character, Jin, is transformed into a white boy named Danny. In this transformation, Jin/Danny cannot escape his Asian past. Yang is presenting the struggle for personal identity; he is both Chinese as Jin, and American as Danny. It is only when Jin comes to peace with being both Chinese and American that he is able to be one united character. Because stereotypes are such a prominent theme in Toyoshima’s work, it would be easy to miss out on some of the ironies he attempts to convey about being recognized as different but not wanting to be treated differently. In her article “Defining Asian American Realities through Literature,” Elaine Kim suggests that much of the literature written by Asian Americans focuses on the “theme of reclaiming an American, as opposed to Asian, identity that we may begin to wonder if this constitutes accommodation, a collective colonized spirit—the fervent wish to ‘hide our ancestry’ . . . to relinquish our marginality.” 54 Yang’s Danny is a rejection of Jin’s Chinese ancestry; Jin is literally hiding within the skin of a white-skinned, blond-haired boy. Unlike Danny, Sam does not try to hide his identity; rather, his struggle is trying to determine where he fits in the American landscape. In fact, he is quite introspective about his own ethnicity and what it means to be Asian, Asian American, Japanese American, and American. Below is an exchange between Sam and an African American 55 survey taker outside of a grocery store: Surveyor: Got a minute for a cultural survey? What ethnicity are you?

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Sam: Ethnicity? Do you want my country or which cultural group shares my geneology? Surveyor: Forget it. Sam: Or are you looking for which languages I speak? 56

This interaction reflects Sam’s introspection when it comes to the question of his ethnicity. He makes valid points—does ethnicity relate to a country, a specific group, and a culture? In her essay, “Constructing Ethnicity,” Joanne Nagel argues that “the chosen ethnic identity is determined by the individual’s perception of its meaning to different audiences, it salience in different social contexts, and its utility in different situations.” 57 This explains Sam’s identity crisis—he does fit into several groups, but which group is dependent upon the intended audience. The understanding and processing of this question, when asked of someone who is non-white, is an insight into the point of view and everyday experience of someone in the minority. Toyoshima provides the reader with an opportunity to see race through the eyes of the minority. Another example of Toyoshima providing the reader with an introspective look of the Asian American experience is through Sam’s obsession over his preoccupation with race. After watching a children’s show with Shin, he tells his wife Marie that the show had “an Irish police officer, a Scottish golfer and an Italian chef who ‘talk-a-like-a-dis’ . . . if they had a Chinese guy ‘talking rike this’ or a black guy ‘tawkin’ like dis’ I would have spat out my corn flakes. But it didn’t bother me. I’m a hypocrite!” Marie responds, “Euro stereotypes are so old they’ve lost their power to offend,” to which Sam replies, “So why do so many newer minorities go bananas over that stuff? Is it a deep-rooted sense of oppression? A natural defensive reaction against a dominant group? Congenital insecurity? I must know!” 58 Sam brings up interesting points to consider. He tries to understand why he is not offended by racial stereotypes of Asians but realizes that the majority of the minority groups are, in fact, offended. Marie offers an interesting theory on why Sam is conflicted; is she, perhaps, suggesting that in a hundred years, other minorities will become numb to stereotypes? Will Americans, in general, no longer be offended by what would once have been perceived as a negative stereotype of a minority group? Although Sam frequently comes back to this idea throughout the strips, he never seems to come to any resolution to his own conflicted responses to stereotypes. Nor does Yang, who admits that in writing American Born Chinese, 59 he was looking for a way to understand his own complex identity. We stated earlier that stereotypes are hard to forget. These two authors seek to reclaim identity by addressing stereotypes and by discussing responses to those stereotypes instead of pretending such stereotypes do not exist in society.

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USING SECRET AGENT MAN AND AMERICAN BORN CHINESE TO DISCUSS DIFFERENCE IN MIDDLE, HIGH SCHOOL, AND COLLEGE CLASSROOMS As educators, we are faced with guiding our students in addressing, discussing, and debunking stereotypes in our society. Like Toyoshima, we suggest that representations seen in comics and graphic novels encourage discussion. In his introduction to a special issue of MELUS titled, “Coloring America: Multi-Ethnic Engagements with Graphic Narrative,” Derek Parker Royal states that “comics . . . should be read not only as aesthetic works of narrative art, but as rich cultural documents that can truly become vehicles of American ethnoracial expression.” 60 With the changing face of ethnicity in America, representations of minorities are shifting in popular culture. While in the past negative stereotypes were generally considered socially acceptable, political correctness and inclusion make stereotypes taboo. However, if handled insensitively in the classroom setting, such depictions can create tensions and cause alienation among different ethnic groups. If our students associate minorities with their negative representations, such as those fans of Yang who liked Chin-Kee, then we are not debunking stereotypes but reinforcing the negative perceptions. These two texts offer a space for older students—we suggest middle school to college—to discover a respectful understanding of cultural difference. In Yang’s text, the white world presented offers ample opportunity for discussion. When Jin changes schools at the beginning of third grade, he is welcomed at “Mayflower Elementary School.” His teacher pronounces his name incorrectly, says he moved from China when he moved from San Francisco, and when a boy in the class volunteers that his father says Chinese people eat dogs, the teacher doesn’t correct the comment but responds by noting that Jin’s family “probably stopped eating dogs when they came to America.” 61 The inclusion of the classroom in the text provides an opportunity for educators of middle school students the space to explore how new students are treated in their class. They might discuss how cultural differences between two groups can lead to misunderstandings of the new culture. Students might research different foods from different cultures. Older students could study the natural resources of locations and their connection to cultural diets. For example, one group might study the Inuit peoples and their high-protein and very-high-fat traditional diets. While eating items such as whale and seaweed might be strange to us, the diet is effective and tied to their geographical location. Educators might also guide students in understanding that Jin’s lack of identity can be universal. How do we deal with our own questions of identity? Students in a classroom can see themselves on the edges in Yang’s world and yet can relate to Jin’s adolescent desire to be anyone other than who he is, while still learning who he is.

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While the primary focus of Toyoshima’s comic is the idea of negative Asian American stereotypes perpetuated by the majority, a more controversial theme tackled is the perpetuation of stereotypes of the majority and minorities by the minority. Although Sam does engage in this to some extent, his cousin Simon is the biggest offender. Toyoshima once referred to Simon as the “resident angry Asian man” 62 since he is quick to suggest racism in various exchanges between Asians and non-Asians. In the following strip, Simon demonstrates his use of stereotypes, no matter how inappropriate or ironic: Simon: Whoa! That guy has more Chins than a Chinese phone book! Sam: Chin is not as common a last name as you think. There are far more Lees than Chins. Simon: Fine, if that dude’s Lees were any bigger he’d be the Gap’s denim section. 63

Sometimes Simon points out unjust stereotypes while using one of his own. When arriving to a baseball game with Sam and Charlie, he notices that a fan has on a Cleveland Indians baseball cap whose mascot is a stereotype of a Native American. He exclaims, “Can you believe that in this day and age we still promote our racist past in sports?” 64 Sam doesn’t quite agree the mascot is a racial slur; however, Charlie suggests the mascot was intended to “honor Native Americans. . . . It’s offensive by today’s standards.” 65 Annoyed by Sam and Charlie’s unwillingness to agree, he says, “Get your own tickets, haters! I’m going to find a scalper.” 66 While he attempts to “do the right thing” Simon does not even realize that the connotation of the word “scalper” is racist in itself. Students might study the ways in which stereotypes have stemmed from historical encounters, as written by the winners. Educators might discuss how mascots are visual stereotypes, which further denigrate the minority. Educators might bring in articles such as Laurel R. Davis’ “The Problems with Native American Mascots,” 67 which explains the complex issues surrounding the use of mascots. Educators might also explore how minorities in history have been visual marked, such as the classification codes used in concentration camps. Such visual markings still echo in our society today. 68 There are several other instances in which Sam must deal with stereotypes. MANAA suggests that some non-Asians do not understand what is and is not offensive; Toyoshima seems to concur with this determination as he displays in interactions between Sam and non-Asians. In these depictions, Toyoshima indicates that the offenders often do not realize the offense. When Sam decides that advertising needs more Asians involved, he approaches a marketing firm about his idea to be the next “Brawny” paper towel model. The executive, who appears to be a white man, says, “I’m

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afraid we want to go with a more . . . uh . . . universal appeal.” Sam responds, “What’s unappealing about me? If my face isn’t iconic, what is?” The executive states, “You are appealing! For selling noodles.” 69 Here, Toyoshima reflects our society’s inability escape the stereotypes created long ago by the media. This particular idea reiterates the validity of Eisner’s theory of stereotypes as a necessary evil for quick recognition by the reader (and in this case, the viewer). While many of us do not realize that this type of mental type casting occurs, Toyoshima does a good job of bringing this into conversation, effectively enabling the reader to consider the situation. The comic medium is an effective tool in the classroom and is a good way to help students understand the history of stereotypes and how to address stereotypes today. When students actively work to debunk the myths or incorrect perceptions perpetuated by stereotypes, then the self-reflection of the authors translates into the self-reflection of the readers. Identifying with the reader is one of McCloud’s core arguments for the validity of comics as a method of effective communication. Grounding his theories on simplification through amplification, he suggests that “visual iconography” is a form of “universal communication.” He also posits that “we all have something to say to the world” and that the comic medium “serves as a bridge between minds.” 70 Considering McCloud’s idea that comics is an effective way in which a reader can successfully enter the mind of the character and/or author/ artist, Toyoshima and Yang accomplish this task by allowing the reader to see the world through the eyes of the underrepresented Asian Americans and perhaps builds a “bridge” between the mind of the majority with that of the Asian American minority. Educators effectively contribute in building this bridge when they use Toyoshima and Yang’s work to show their students ways to engage in a dialogue with people of different ethnic and cultural backgrounds. CONCLUSION Tak Toyoshima has said, Racial politics is extremely complicated but, to me, endlessly fascinating. It’s a dynamic that involves feelings of superiority/inferiority, history, language, entitlement, guilt, popular culture, etc. The purpose of my comic is not stand to on a soapbox and tell people what they should think. My job is to ask questions and get people to think about them and encourage discussion. It’s a fine line between wanting to be appreciated as different but not wanting to be treated differently. 71

Asking questions is an excellent way in which we can invite students to explore what is unknown or misunderstood. When educators engage in di-

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alogic pedagogy, that is, learning through talk, it is the students who take the responsibility in the classroom, asking and answering each others’ questions, and creating authentic discussion about difficult or uncomfortable topics such as stereotypical depictions of minorities. Educators choose materials that offer ways for the students to explore how stereotypes work and how stereotypes can be dismantled. The work of Toyoshima and Yang provide a place for Asian Americans to see themselves and also allow readers who are outside Asian American culture to learn about a culture not their own and to unlearn incorrect perceptions. Keith Chow, editor of Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology (Secret Identities), notes, “The best way to alter perceptions about our community is by showing as many different angles as you can. Stereotypes come from a kernel of truth; they don’t come out of thin air, but they become problematic when other people don’t allow you to be something other than that perception.” 72 Through his comic strips, Toyoshima successfully provides a picture of the culturally diverse society in which we live. Through Yang’s graphic novel, we can question whiteness and its privilege. Although static stereotypes exist, both authors choose to address them with honesty, introspection, and of course, a sense of humor. Neither author focalize strictly on the negative Asian stereotype, but rather chose to address other stereotypes as well. As suggested by Eisner, stereotypes are a “necessary evil” in graphic novels because they are recognizable and allow the reader to quickly process the image. Yang and Toyoshima’s use of stereotypes add to the experience of the reader. Their combination of narrative and simplified art allow the reader to relate to the characters and their lives. The topics covered encourage discussion and dispel some of the myths that stereotypes have created throughout the history of Asians in comics. McCloud suggests that, “We all live in a profound state of isolation. No other being can ever know what it’s like to be you from the inside.” 73 Through the characters of Sam, the Secret Asian Man, and the American-born Chinese Jin, Toyoshima and Yang provide the reader with a glimpse of what it is like to be not only an Asian American in our society, but also an American. NOTES 1. Media Action Network for Asian American, “Restrictive Portrayals of Asians in the Media and How to Balance Them,” www.manaa.org, 2008, http://manaa.org/?page_id=543. 2. Tak Toyoshima, Secret Asian Man—The Daily Days: A Collection of Daily Comic Strips (Tak Toyoshima, 2009). 3. Gene Luen Yang, American Born Chinese (New York: First Second Books, 2006). 4. Ericka Lee, The Making of Asian American: A History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015). Electronic Book. 5. Elen Wu, The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2014), 2. 6. Ibid., 4.

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7. Ibid., 5. 8. Ibid., 4. 9. Will Eisner, Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative (New York, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008), 11. 10. Ibid., 11. 11. Milton Caniff, Terry and the Pirates (Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, 1934–1946). 12. Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin Volume 1 (New York: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009). 13. Chuck Cuidera, Blackhawk #1 (Quality Comics, 1941). 14. Caniff. Terry and the Pirates, 1934–1946. 15. Ronald Brownstein, “Dragon Lady or Diplomat?,” http://www.chron.com/life/books/ article/Two-books-about-Hillary-Rodham-Clinton-1808569.php. 16. Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin Volume 1. 17. Cuidera, Blackhawk #1. 18. Hergé, The Adventures of Tintin Volume 1, 133. 19. Ibid., 138. 20. Ibid., 148. 21. Ibid., 152. 22. Ibid., 160–161. 23. Sax Rohmer, The Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu (London: Methuen Publishing, 1913). 24. Cuidera, Blackhawk #1. 25. The comic book is using “eye dialect” to make the reader “hear” how Chop-Chop is speaking (tlick = trick, closed = crossed) by confusing the /r/ with the /l/. 26. Toyoshima, Secret Asian Man, 42. 27. Tim Clodfleter, “Ethnic Angle: Cartoonist’s Cast of Characters is Headed by an Asian American” (Winston-Salem Journal, Winston-Salem, NC, October 26, 2007). 28. Ibid. 29. Toyoshima, Secret Asian Man. 30. George Gene Gustine, “Library of Congress Anoints Graphic Novelist as Ambassador for Young People’s Literature” (The New York Times, January 4, 2016). 31. Yang, American Born Chinese. 32. Ibid. 33. Gene Luen Yang, interview by Rachel Martin, “Growing Up Chinese American, Graphically” (The Bryant Park Project, National Public Radio, January 23, 2008). 34. Ibid. 35. The comics the researchers chose were those from four daily papers from markets in the upper Midwest. Whether this is a good representation is questionable. 36. Jack Glascock and Catherine Preston-Schreck, “Gender and Racial Stereotypes in Daily Newspaper Comics: A Time-Honored Tradition?” Sex Roles 51, no. 7 (2004): 427. 37. Scott McCloud, Reinventing Comics: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form (New York: Harper Collins, 2000), 106. 38. Ibid., 106 39. Eisner, Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, 11. 40. Yang, interview by Rachel Martin, “Growing Up Chinese American, Graphically.” 41. Ibid. 42. Yang, interview by Rachel Martin, “Growing Up Chinese American, Graphically.” 43. Ibid. 44. Eisner, Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, 14. 45. McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, 27 46. Eisner, Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative, 14. 47. Toyoshima. Secret Asian Man. 19. 48. Clodfelter, “Ethnic Angle: Cartoonist’s Cast of Character is Headed by an Asian American,” 2. 49. Toyoshima, Secret Asian Man, 17. 50. Ibid., 17.

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51. Ibid., 7. 52. Ibid., 17. 53. Ibid., 66. 54. Elaine Kim, Defining Asian American Realities through Literature (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 88. 55. The visual cue provided by Toyoshima is that the surveyor is a shade darker than Sam; this is the same manner in which Charlie is depicted. 56. Toyoshima, Secret Asian Man, 67. 57. Joanne Nagel, “Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Identity and Culture,” Social Problems 41, no. 1 (1994): 155. 58. Toyoshima, Secret Asian Man, 86. 59. Yang, American Born Chinese. 60. Derek Parker Royal, “Introduction: Coloring America: Multi-Ethnic Engagements with Graphic Narrative,” MELUS 32, no. 3 (2007): 16. 61. Yang, American Born Chinese, 31. 62. Chun, “Sayonara, Nate . . . Aloha, Sam!” 63. Toyoshima, Secret Asian Man, 67. 64. Ibid., 62. 65. Ibid. 66. Ibid. 67. Laurel R. Davis, “The Problems with Native American Mascots,” Multicultural Education, v9 n4 (2002): 11–14. 68. The star used on a political advertisement was argued by the Trump Campaign to represent a sheriff’s badge; however, most readers understood it to be the Star of David, commonly known as a symbol of the Jewish faith. Jeremy Diamond, “ Donald Trump’s ‘Star of David’ tweet controversy, explained,” cnn.com, July 5, 2016, http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/04/ politics/donald-trump-star-of-david-tweet-explained/. 69. Toyoshima, Secret Asian Man, 33. 70. McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, 58, 196, and 195. 71. Chun, “Sayonara, Nate . . . Aloha, Sam!” 72. Winyan Soo Hoo, “‘SHATTERED’: Comic Anthology Creators Probe Asian American Villian Stereotypes,” The Washington Post, November 12, 2012. 73. McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art, 194.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Brownstein, Ronald. “Dragon Lady or Diplomat?” http://www.chron.com/life/books/article/ Two-books-about-Hillary-Rodham-Clinton-1808569.php. Caniff, Milton. Terry and the Pirates. Chicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, 1934–1946. Chun, Gary. “Sayonara, Nate . . . Aloha, Sam!” September 6, 2009. http://www. secreteasianman.com/pressStarBulletin.htm. Clodfelter, Tim. “Ethnic Angle: Cartoonist’s Cast of Characters is Headed by an Asian American.” Winston Salem Journal. October 26, 2007. Cuidera, Chuck. Blackhawk #1. Quality Comics, 1941. Davis, Laurel R. “The Problems with Native American Mascots.” Multicultural Education 9, no. 4 (2002): 11–14. Diamond, Jeremy. Donald Trump’s ‘Star of David’ Tweet Controversy, Explained. July 5, 2016. http://www.cnn.com/2016/07/04/politics/donald-trump-star-of-david-tweetexplained/ (accessed October 10, 2016). Eisner, Will. Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative. New York, New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2008. Glascock, Jack, and Catherine Preston-Schreck. “Gender and Racial Stereotypes in Daily Newspaper Comics: A Time-Honored Tradition?” Sex Roles (SpringerLink Contemporary) 51, no. 7 (October 2004): 423–431.

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Gustines, George Gene. “Library of Congress Anoints Graphic Novelist as Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.” The New York Times. January 4, 2016. Hergé. The Adventures of Tintin Volume 1. New York: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009. Hoo, Winyan Soo. “‘SHATTERED’: Comic Anthology Creators Probe Asian American Villain Stereotypes.” The Washington Post. November 12, 2012. Kim, Elaine. Defining Asian American Realities through Literature. Vol. Spring. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987. Lee, Ericka. The Making of Asian American: A History. Electronic book. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2015. McCloud, Scott. Reinventing Comic: How Imagination and Technology Are Revolutionizing an Art Form. New York: Harper Collins, 2000. ———. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: Harper Collins, 1993. Media Action Network for Asian American. “Restrictive Portrayals of Asians in the Media and How to Balance Them.” www.manaa.org. 2008. http://manaa.org/?page_id=543 (accessed September 20, 2016). Nagel, Joanne. “Constructing Ethnicity: Creating and Recreating Ethnic Identity and Culture.” Social Problems 41, no. 1 (February 1994): 152–176. Rohmer, Sax. The Mystery of Dr. Fu-Manchu. Methuen Publishing, 1913. Royal, Derek Parker. “Introduction: Coloring America: Multi-Ethnic Engagements with Graphic Narrative.” MELUS 32, no. 3 (2007): 7–22. Toyoshima, Tak, interview by Cynthia Cheng. AARisings. (April 7, 2010). ———. Secret Asian Man—The Daily Days: A Collection of Daily Comic Strips. Tak Toyoshima, 2009. Wu, Ellen. The Color of Success: Asian Americans and the Origins of the Model Minority. Princeton, NJ: Princton University Press, 2014. Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese. New York: First Second Books, 2006. Yang, Gene Luen, interview by Rachel Martin. “Growing Up Chinese American, Graphically.” The Bryant Park Project. National Public Radio. January 23, 2008.

Chapter Two

History, Literacy, and Popular Culture Using Graphic Novels to Teach the Struggle for Racial Justice Richard Hughes, Meghan Hawkins, and Katie Lopez

In February 2012 officials in Washington, DC, led by President Barack Obama and US Congressman John Lewis (GA), broke ground on the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC). After a century of activism by African Americans and their allies as well as a litany of failed legislative proposals, the museum opened on the Mall in 2016 as the “only national museum devoted exclusively to the documentation of African American life, history, and culture.” 1 As Lonnie G. Bunch III, the museum’s founding director, explained, the museum will “tell the American story through the lens of African American history and culture.” 2 The success of the NMAAHC was a testament to the progress of American race relations, especially the place of African American history in the nation’s popular culture, in the twenty-first century. The National Civil Rights Museum opened in Memphis in 1991 and, by 2012, African American history was both a thriving academic field and a well-established component of the social studies curriculum and learning standards of the nation’s secondary schools. In terms of the general public, only 17 percent of Americans polled by Gallup in 2012 claimed that they worried “‘a great deal’ about the problem of race relations.” 3 However, by the time the NMAAHC opened in 2016, the number expressing “a great deal” of worry about race in the United States had risen to 35 percent. 4 The shooting of Trayvon Martin in 2012 and the riots in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting of Michael Brown by a white police officer 21

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in 2014 dominated headlines. Martin’s murder fueled the creation of the Black Lives Matter movement in the nation’s streets, schools, and on social media and, combined with additional violent incidents such as the killing of nine African Americans by a white supremacist in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015, race appeared to have returned to the center of the nation’s consciousness. In contrast to 2008, when 70 percent of Americans thought that race relations would improve due to Obama’s victory, Americans in recent years appear to be far more pessimistic about the divisive role of race in shaping public policy and American culture in general. 5 Competing interpretations of American history were never far removed from the growing controversy. After much debate, politicians in South Carolina removed the Confederate flag from the grounds of the state capitol. 6 Southern communities from Baltimore to Brownsville, Texas, reevaluated the presence of Confederate monuments on public lands. 7 Similarly, lawmakers in California passed bills restricting the use of symbols and names associated with the Confederacy in public facilities while educators in Texas deliberated over the role of race in the state’s history standards. 8 Yale University and Princeton University were just two of the more prominent institutions of higher education to experience fervent debate over campus art and buildings linked to historical topics such as slavery and racial segregation. Students and faculty at Yale debated changing the name of one of its colleges named after John C. Calhoun, a staunch defender of slavery in the nineteenth century. A similar struggle emerged at Princeton over the university’s school of public affairs and a residential hall named after Woodrow Wilson, Princeton’s president in the early twentieth century who reestablished racial segregation in the federal government as the nation’s president from 1912–1920. Responding largely to the efforts of student activists, both universities recommended reforms to address issues of diversity on campus. As Martha A. Sandweiss, a historian of Princeton explained, “History matters. Unless we engage it, we cannot fully address the structural inequities that continue to make American life.” 9 Such developments underscored the importance of teaching African American history and the centrality of race to understanding the “American story,” both past and present. In August 2013, as the nation prepared to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, John Lewis published the first book in his trilogy on his life and the civil rights movement. A speaker at the original march in 1963, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) in the sixties, and the most important supporter of the legislation that created the NMAAHC, Lewis, together with co-author Andrew Aydin and illustrator Nate Powell, wrote March: Book One (Top Shelf 2013) which received critical claim and became a New York Times bestseller. In subsequent years, Lewis followed the success of the first graphic novel with March: Book Two

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and Book Three. Book One covers Lewis’ life from childhood through 1960. The second volume includes the years 1960 to 1963 with the last part of the trilogy focusing on the years 1963 to 1965. This chapter examines the experiences of two US history teachers and their students in a Midwestern public high school as they read the first two volumes of Lewis’ trilogy. 10 Such efforts to enrich classroom instruction have become more common as teachers have increasingly examined the role of graphic novels in motivating students, 11 promoting multimodal literacy across the curriculum, 12 and engaging English language learners 13 and other students with special needs. 14 As graphic novels such as Maus (1987), 15 Persepolis (2003), 16 and American Born Chinese (2006) 17 reached popularity and garnered awards, teachers in the social studies have explored the potential for such literature to help students develop historical thinking skills 18 such as contextualization, sourcing, 19 historical empathy 20 as well as an appreciation of historiography and the interpretive nature of history. 21 According to Michael Cromer and Penney Clark, “graphic novels can help students to develop an understanding of the immense challenges of historiography, to problematize the locus of authority in historical accounts, and to deepen their understanding of history as interpretation.” 22 For teachers attempting to get students to engage issues of race in American history, graphic novels represent unique opportunities to challenge conventional ideas about race in American culture. Scholars such as Derek Parker Royal, 23 Anne Cong-Huyen, and Caroline Kyungah Hong 24 contend that the visual nature of graphic novels makes them especially wellsuited to challenge, or as Michael Chaney explained, “confront and revise,” traditional historical narratives and American popular culture that has so often both reflected and promoted dehumanizing racist imagery. 25 Similarly, historians and others are interested in broadening the more conventional historical narrative, often associated with textbooks and popular culture, to teach the “long civil rights movement” that began well before 1955 and includes a more complex array of historical voices and experiences associated with the protracted and ongoing struggle for racial justice. 26 While biographies, especially studies of King, dominated the early historiography of the movement, Jacqueline Dowd Hall and many other historians in recent decades have stressed the role of grassroots activists, labor and the relationship between race and class, local studies, the crucial roles of African American women and students, and the global context of civil rights activism. 27 Secondary and college teachers have emphasized the value of oral history, personal narratives, fiction, and music in helping students situate social activism within a larger historical context. 28 Especially relevant for discussions of the power of graphic novels are efforts by historians such as Rhonda Y. Williams to, in her words, explore “the centrality of expressive culture to black life, experience, politics, and struggle.” 29 Studies of the relationship between the experiences of African Americans and such topics

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as minstrel music, material culture, television, and film underscore the complex intersection of race and images within a contested American popular culture. 30 Perhaps no piece of recent scholarship is more emblematic of the current state of historiography of the civil rights movement than Hall’s “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past.” Hall argues that the “classical” narrative of the civil rights movement, due to its narrow focus on Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. and southern activism between the years 1954 and 1965, “distorts and suppresses as much as it reveals.” 31 Both reflecting revisionist interpretations of the movement before 2005 and shaping the future direction of scholarship and teaching, Hall’s seminal essay, which was originally her presidential address to the Organization of American Historians, has reframed the struggle for racial justice from a “satisfying morality tale” to a broader, more valuable narrative that is, according to Hall, “harder to simplify, appropriate, and contain.” 32 For Hall and other historians, the long civil rights movement rejects the idea of southern racism as the “nation’s opposite other” and instead situates the movement within a broader economic and institutional system of “exploitation, segregation, and discrimination” throughout the nation. The long civil rights movement also stresses the “Gordian knot that ties race to class and civil rights to worker rights as well as the central role of women’s activism in shaping the movement.” 33 Finally, historians increasingly reframe the “Montgomery to Memphis” story to encompass both the grassroots efforts of Americans to promote racial equality during the first half the twentieth century and the ongoing struggle of African American communities, despite a substantial political, economic, and cultural backlash by opponents, in the almost fifty years since King’s assassination. 34 For teachers of US history, this new paradigm is far from merely an academic development. America’s classrooms are more racially and culturally diverse than ever and, as the nation continues to grapple with issues of race, the long civil rights movement offers a meaningful and “usable past” capable of enriching contemporary debates within and beyond the classroom. In the March trilogy, graphic novels provide a sense of a much broader movement chronologically by starting and ending each book with the author’s poignant experiences at President Obama’s inauguration in January 2009. Tying the election of the nation’s first African American president to efforts that begin well before Brown v. Board of Education (1954) or the arrest of Rosa Parks in 1955, Lewis’ narrative then begins with the author’s childhood as the son of a sharecropping farmer in Pike County, Alabama, in 1940. Most of the trilogy takes place far from the political world of Washington and Lewis’ experiences as a student activist with SNCC counters traditional narratives that focus on King, Malcolm X, or figures such as President John F. Kennedy. Lewis’ account of the successful effort by older activists to

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censor his incendiary comments at the March on Washington in 1963 also promotes a more nuanced understanding of a movement that included real conflicts, often generational, over rhetoric, strategies, and ideology. Unfortunately, Lewis’ trilogy ends in 1965, the year traditional accounts of the “classical phase” of a movement stress the success of the Voting Rights Act as, according to Hall, the “triumphal moment in a larger American progress narrative.” 35 As a result, the March series does not provides students with any sense of broader issues such as the rise of Black Power and black radicalism or a larger historical context that included debates on the War on Poverty, affirmative action, housing, and the criminal justice system. While Book One describes Lewis’ powerful experience as a boy from Alabama visiting western New York in 1951, the author’s amazement at the lack of Jim Crow segregation does nothing to suggest what historian Thomas Sugrue has described as the “forgotten struggle for civil rights in the North.” 36 The graphic novel largely confines depictions of the dramatic white opposition to civil rights to caricatures of southerners and provides no hint of the intense fights over race, employment, housing, education, and politics that have occupied much of the North since the Great Migration of African Americans during World War I. Of course, the March series is, above all, a personal narrative of a civil rights activist rather than a comprehensive account of the movement. Similar to Lewis, many of the significant accounts of the movement, especially early on, were from former activists. Teachers have long used works such as, to name only a few, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965), Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi (1968), and James Farmer’s Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement (1998). Similar to slave narratives written by individuals such as Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs, these memoirs provide an intimate portrait of historical figures that allows students to, according to historian Sarah Gardner, “bear witness to the daily travails of ordinary people” and “confront the psychological and social turmoil experienced by activists.” 37 In 1998 John Lewis, together with Michael D’Orso, offered his own contribution to the genre with Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. 38 Despite a rich collection of powerful personal narratives of the movement by both African Americans and their white allies, research by Sam Wineburg and Chauncey Monte-Sano suggests their relatively little impact on the popular historical consciousness of American students. 39 Surveying thousands of high school students from throughout the nation to determine who they considered “famous Americans” (excluding presidents), the authors were surprised to discover that Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, and Harriet Tubman were the three individuals most often cited. Clearly African American history is well-established in American schools and yet the emphasis on King and Parks reflects a limited narrative of the movement which is

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often, according to many scholars such as Steven J. Lawson 40 and Herbert Kohl, 41 a sanitized version of non-controversial historical figures. The textbook used in the classrooms involved in this study, Emma Lapsansky et al., United States History: Reconstruction to the Present (2008), included 36 pages on the civil rights movement with references to an array of historical figures ranging from King to Stokely Carmichael. 42 However, the textbook does not include any information on John Lewis. March introduces readers to a figure who was, despite his later status as a longtime member of Congress, a relatively unknown student whose role in such efforts as lunchcounter sit-ins, boycotts, and the freedom rides led to his participation in later events such as the March on Washington and the march on Selma, Alabama, in 1965. Lewis’ age and his participation in grassroots organizing, which often revealed the movement’s internal struggles over such issues as specific tactics, organizational rivalries, or the philosophy of nonviolence gives students of history an intimate portrait of an activist coming of age within a far more complex national struggle over race relations. In contrast to textbooks or the images that dominated American media coverage of the movement in the fifties and sixties, most of the images in Lewis’ three graphic novels center on the sort of intimate social interactions, voices, and even quiet personal thoughts of grassroots activists rarely observed by those not on the front line of the struggle. The graphics convey, in Gardner’s words, the “messiness of history” that is both compelling and inspiring to students facing a contemporary world in which the goals of the movement and other efforts at social justice remain both contested and unfulfilled. 43 These strengths of the March series made the graphic novels attractive to Meghan Hawkins and Katie Lopez, two US history teachers responsible for a thematic unit on “civil rights” for sophomores at a largely white, middleclass, suburban high school. For students in this community, the contested issues of race relations in American culture, both past and present, often remain largely abstract if not ignored. The unit includes content regarding African-American rights following the Civil War, the civil rights movement, and the women’s rights movement. Although the teachers used a variety of different methods to teach the graphic novels to their students, they utilized the same common assessment to gauge the students’ prior knowledge on the civil rights movement. Both teachers used this approach to measure student growth throughout the unit. Before and after the unit students responded to two questions, “Name three people you associate with the civil rights movement. In two sentences, explain what you know about each person” and “In your own words, tell the story of one important event from the civil rights movement.” The results of the pretest underscored the students’ limited understanding of the American struggle for racial justice. Despite having encountered US history as students since elementary school and engaging in aspects of

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American popular culture such as television and film as adolescents, most of the sophomores in high school were incapable of demonstrating background knowledge associated with the civil rights movement. Both teachers found that few of their students could identify any historical figures other than Rosa Parks and Martin Luther, King, Jr. Some students mentioned Abraham Lincoln, Malcolm X, or even Gandhi, while far more simply responded, “I don’t know.” Similarly, students described few events associated with the movement other than the Montgomery Bus Boycott and King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. In terms of identifying an important event, students provided little beyond the gallant story of Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat, Abraham Lincoln freeing the slaves, and Martin Luther King, Jr., giving his memorable “I Have a Dream” speech to half a million spectators in Washington, DC. This response from a student was representative of most of the answers: “Honestly, I know of the civil rights movement and bits and pieces of it, but I do not know a lot in great detail. I know of some people involved and that slavery has been abolished but I really don’t know very many details.” After the pre-test, Lopez asked students read the book at their own pace prior to learning about the movement and then referenced, quoted, compared, and utilized the book as a supplemental resource for the remainder of the unit. Some students, despite their reading level, struggled with the format of graphic novels while others had far more experience with particular characteristics of graphic novels; therefore, both teachers offered a mini lesson on how to read a graphic novel that addressed such issues as panels, the direction of the text, differentiating between word bubbles and thought bubbles, and comparing graphic novels and comics. Lopez assigned a reading guide to assist students in speculating about the larger historical context since they had not yet experienced any class activities focused on content. For example, the beginning of Book One focuses on John Lewis’ childhood as the son of sharecroppers in the South in the 1940s and 1950s. As a result, the reading guide prompted students to ask, “What do you think Lewis’ family did for a living?” which encouraged students to use the images of vast expanses of land, description of poverty, and previous historical background to make assumptions about Lewis’ family and their economic status. As students read independently for a portion of five consecutive class periods, the teacher used lectures, class discussions, short video clips from episodes Two (Fighting Back, 1957–1962), 44 Three (Ain’t Scared of Your Jails, 1960–1961), 45 and Four (No Easy Walk, 1961–1963) 46 from the documentary Eyes on the Prize as well as the feature film Selma, 47 and the extensive analysis of primary documents to address the larger context of race and the South in the nineteenth century. Topics such as the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments, Jim Crow Laws, sharecropping, de jure v. de facto segregation, lynching and the abuse of freedmen, Booker T. Washington, and W. E. B. Du Bois set the stage for students to understand

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the true social and political impact of the civil rights movement on the lives of African Americans. This approach helped students demonstrate their understanding of vital background information via a reading guide as March, although focused on Lewis’ life, draws on key historical information from the 1860s. For example, the novel references the beliefs of Booker T. Washington and Lewis’ account describes both school segregation and the pervasive fear of lynching in rural areas. Reading the accessible graphic novels early in the unit allowed the teacher to use the books as a reference point for both required curriculum objectives and to compare and contrast with primary documents. The March series proved immensely valuable due to references to such terms and concepts as Brown v. Board of Education (1954), segregation, desegregation, tactics such as boycotts, voter registration, sit-ins, marches, and the Freedom Rides, individuals such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcolm X, and organizations such as the SNCC, the Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), and the Black Panthers. For example, students were able to develop literacy skills by identifying specific examples of de jure and de facto racial segregation via Lewis’ account of a trip to New York as a young boy. Elsewhere, students used guided written questions and whole-class discussion to demonstrate their ability to evaluate and integrate information about the movement from different types of sources to create a meaningful historical interpretation. For example, comparing the legal realities of race in the South and North at the time, the novel includes threatening images of hostile whites in the South as Lewis explained, “Stopping for gas and bathroom breaks took careful planning. Uncle Otis had made this trip before, and he knew which places along the way offered ‘colored’ bathrooms—and which were safer to just pass on by. Alabama. Tennessee. Kentucky. These were the states we had to be careful in as we made our way North.” 48 Students compared this scene in the novel with Lewis’ amazement at the relatively relaxed norms concerning race in the North. Students then examined primary documents that included an extensive list of Jim Crow laws throughout the nation. For example, • It shall be unlawful to conduct a restaurant or other place for the serving of food in the city, at which white and colored people are served in the same room, unless such white and colored persons are effectually separated by a solid partition extending from the floor upward to a distance of seven feet or higher, and unless a separate entrance from the street is provided for each compartment. (Alabama) • The County Board of Education]: shall provide schools of two kinds; those for white children and those for colored children. (Texas) • The board of trustees shall . . . maintain a separate building . . . on separate ground for the admission, care, instruction, and support of all blind persons of the colored or black race. (Louisiana) 49

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The activity culminated in a thoughtful discussion of different forms of segregation in contemporary society as students linked the graphic novels, primary source documents, and the role of race and class in shaping American schools in the twenty-first century. The use of these multiple sources not only promoted literacy skills, but also expanded historical and modern knowledge of topics of social change as students identified and deliberated the parallels between the civil rights movement of the twentieth century and contemporary issues of racial and social justice. Similarly, Lopez incorporated and compared the March series to additional documents related to lynching. Building on a lecture and photo analysis of lynching in American history, students worked individually to seek out examples of lynching or similar racialized violence in March. The example most students cited was John Lewis’ poignant description of the death of Emmett Till in 1955. Describing the novel’s large and poignant drawing of Till with barbed wire around his neck, looking fearful of an unseen enemy, Lewis writes, In Money, Mississippi, the body of fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, who was down from Chicago visiting relatives, was pulled from the bottom of the Tallahatchie River. The day before, as he left the Money country store with some friends, Emmett said “Bye, Baby” to the white woman behind the counter. The next day, he was dead. 50

Students then examined other documents pertaining to the impact of lynching such as the lyrics to “Strange Fruit,” sung by Billie Holiday in 1939 that uses haunting imagery of the South to describe the crisis of lynching in the United States. Blood on the leaves and blood at the root, Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze, Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees. 51

In an activity that mirrored the use of graphic novels, the teacher asked students to interpret the lyrics and explain the relationship between the song and the images of race in American history. Students summarized each verse and examined the lyrics from the provocative song that juxtaposed romantic images of the “gallant South” with the horrific violence of southern race relations. For example, students were able to explain that controversial lyrics such as “strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees” represented both the multiple bodies hanging from southern trees similar and a powerful historical argument about race relations in the region. Hawkins used March as the centerpiece of a unit designed to teach literacy skills. The school district’s curriculum designated specific Common Core Literacy in History/Social Studies Standards for focused instruction in the

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Civil Rights unit. These standards included skills such as analyzing the development of ideas throughout a text, analyzing how a text’s structure is used to convey meaning, and comparing texts by different authors on similar topics. Rather than abandon content in pursuit of acquiring skills, the teacher used the graphic novel as a vehicle to teach both content and literacy skills. Consequently, students in her classes read the graphic novels in small chunks throughout the unit that also included traditional instruction, primary source analysis, and historical content required by the district. The goal of this approach was to use the graphic novel as a companion text for a variety of primary and secondary sources. For example, after reading the panels of Lewis’ reaction to the murder of Emmett Till, students read a section from The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation, by Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, which analyzed local newspaper coverage of the Till trial. 52 Students compared the visual representation of Lewis’ non-violent training with Reverend James Lawson in Book One with an excerpt from an article by Lawson himself titled “Eve of Nonviolent Revolution?” 53 The teacher juxtaposed Lewis’ description of the sit-ins in Nashville to an oral interview with Franklin McCain, one of the Greensboro Four who participated in the first sit-in. 54 Elsewhere, students compared the opening scene in March to both actual film footage of the march on Selma and the portrayal of the event in the recent film Selma. After Lewis describes the ideological split that emerges in SNCC in Book Two, students analyzed the structure of Stokely Carmichael’s SNCC position paper on the meaning of black power. 55 Finally, students read “An Appeal for Human Rights” written by college students in Atlanta in 1960 and compared the group’s demands with those of SNCC and CORE shown in Book Two. 56 Beginning with the first page of March, students analyzed how texts use structure to emphasize key points and develop a narrative. March: Book One opens with John Lewis and fellow marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. The marcher next to Lewis asks him, “Can you swim?” foreshadowing potential violence from seen gathering in the distance. The opening sequence continues with images of white state troopers advancing on the peaceful marchers as cans of tear gas explode. A trooper in a gas mask assaults a protester whose hands grasp at the pavement and the scene goes black. The next page invites the reader to join Lewis as he prepares for President Obama’s inauguration on January 2009 before again flashing back to Lewis’ childhood in 1940. For an advanced reader, such chronological jumps are easy to follow and serve multiple purposes such as building suspense, engaging the reader, and extending the traditional timeline of the civil rights movement. For struggling readers, these purposes are less obvious, but much more accessible in graphic novel form. After reading these opening scenes, the teacher asked students to re-order the pages as they happened

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chronologically, and then to hypothesize as to the author’s intentions at each chronological jump, both forward and backward, throughout the graphic novels. Students in Hawkins’ classes also completed a guided reading organizer as they read, however, the focus was again on literacy skills. While reading Book One, students documented characteristics of John Lewis, examples of inequality, and historic references focusing on writing in their own words and citing specific pages. By the time students read Book Two, they completed a similar graphic organizer but with more content specific goals since they had already practiced citing specific evidence. Students later used the evidence they had documented while reading to support differentiated topic sentences provided by the teacher. For advanced students who finished the graphic novel quickly, both instructors provided enrichment assignments. For example, these students also read the prologue of Lewis’ earlier book on the movement titled Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (1998), which features many of the same stories and events as the graphic novels. Here Lewis describes the grassroots efforts of the civil rights movement with an analogy of children working together to stay safe and dry during a storm. Lewis recounts a story of a memorable storm from his childhood. The storm was so strong that it began to lift the small house that Lewis, his siblings, and cousins has sought shelter in. The children worked together, constantly moving from one corner to another to keep the house safely on the ground. Advanced students were able to conclude that the analogy stresses the importance of the frequently challenging efforts within the movement to create collective action. In comparing the graphic novels and the memoir, these students developed important literacy skills as they analyzed the structure of different types of historical narratives. The teachers’ commitment to using a variety of historical narratives to teach literacy skills stems from both the Common Core standards and recent district initiatives. Consequently, the teachers and their colleagues designed a common assessment based on Common Core Literacy Standards for History and the Social Studies. The teachers chose three specific standards as the focus of instruction during the Civil Rights unit described above. Each of those standards was subsequently broken down into specific learning targets in language accessible to teachers and students. At the beginning of the semester, prior to any instruction, students took a pretest that assessed their proficiency of each of the following skills from the nine–tenth grade strand of the Common Core State Standards in Literacy in History/Social Studies: • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.2: Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of how key events or ideas develop over the course of the text.

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• CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.5: Analyze how a text uses structure to emphasize key points or advance an explanation or analysis. • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RH.9-10.6: Compare the point of view of two or more authors for how they treat the same or similar topics, including which details they include and emphasize in their respective accounts. 57 The assessment used multiple-choice skill-based questions related to a historical primary source document. After opportunities to develop these skills, students answered similar questions based on another primary source at the end of the semester. Not surprisingly, students in general performed poorly on the pretest. Seventy-two students in Hawkins’ classes took both the pretest and posttest. Their average pretest score was 50 percent. According to common assessment guidelines in the district, students demonstrate “mastery” when they are able to answer correctly 80 percent of the questions related to a specific standard. Following these guidelines, only 4 percent of students demonstrated mastery on Standard 2 and 2 percent of students demonstrated mastery on Standard 5. Students performed the worst on Standard 6, which requires students to compare point of view, details, and emphasis in multiple texts. On the pretest, none of the students demonstrated mastery on Standard 6, answering on average only 45 percent of the questions pertaining to the standard correctly. Best practice calls for teachers to use pretest results to tailor instruction directly to the needs of students. Given the aforementioned lack of proficiency, Hawkins faced a challenge common to social studies teachers: how do you teach content area literacy? Most simply, students need opportunities to practice literacy skills with increasingly complicated texts. Research in history education suggests that traditional primary sources can be very daunting for students, specifically when it comes to comparing the ideas, structure, or emphasis of multiple primary sources. 58 The teacher found the graphic novels to be a valuable bridge for students to learn these skills as the more easily accessible novels provided the requisite content knowledge that students needed to analyze and synthesize challenging primary sources. By focusing first on just the graphic novel, students were given a chance to practice with a text that was within their skill level. The visual nature of the graphic novels made the task of summarizing much easier for students. The lack of text forced students to fill in the main ideas in their own words, a skill that is particularly difficult for students when presented with a traditional text. Students seemed more comfortable hypothesizing the author’s intentions with graphic novels than with traditional primary sources. The teacher concluded that students have been trained to believe that there are right and wrong answers when it comes to traditional texts, and felt less constrained when discussing the graphic novels. Many struggling readers focus exclusively on

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understanding what a text is saying and never get to the next step of practicing higher order thinking skills. The content access given to students by the graphic novels gave them the ability to engage in literacy skill practice which enriched whole-group discussions and resulted in written work that reflected an increased comprehension of the larger historical narrative. Although lower-level readers needed more time to read, students of all reading ability levels were able to access the content in the graphic novels. Because of this, students who were normally unwilling to volunteer answers were active participants in class. As one low reader reported in a student survey, the graphic novels “made it easier to focus on the task at hand and made it easier to take in the information.” Similarly, another self-professed struggling reader stated that he enjoyed the graphic novels because there “were more pictures and more of a story/plot rather than other sources which are just facts. This type of reading made me want to learn more by flipping the pages.” Not only did the graphic novels offer a foundation for practicing literacy skills, students were then able to compare more effectively a traditional primary source to the graphic novel. At the end of the Civil Rights unit, the teachers assessed the students again on the same three Common Core Literacy in History/Social Studies Standards. Working with a new primary source and demonstrating remarkable growth, students in Hawkins’ class raised the percentage of correct answers on skill-based multiple-choice questions from 50 to 74 percent. More impressively, nearly all students demonstrated mastery in all three of the standards. With the bar for mastery again set at answering 80 percent of the questions on a specific standard correctly, 94 percent of the students mastered Standard 2, 96 percent mastered Standard 5, and 97 percent mastered Standard 6. Students’ incorrect answers were scattered across the standards, rather than being concentrated within a specific standard. Particularly noteworthy was growth on Standard 6 questions. The average score increased from 45 percent on the pretest to 71 percent on the posttest. Among the seventy-two students who had both pre- and posttest scores, sixty-six (92 percent) demonstrated mastery across all three of the standards assessed. While attributing student growth to the graphic novels is difficult because the district implemented such assessments at the same time as the teachers introduced the graphic novels, both teachers are confident that the March series directly impacted student success. These gains were particularly noticeable among the subset of students who normally struggle with reading. Similarly, students also returned to the two questions on the content based common assessment as part of the end of semester exit survey: “Name three people you associate with the civil rights movement. In two sentences, explain what you know about each person” and “In your own words, tell the story of one important event from the civil rights movement.” Although many students still listed Martin Luther King, Jr., as a major figure (to be

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fair, he is frequently mentioned throughout the graphic novels), the answers also featured a rich variety of other historical actors from the movement. Thirty-six percent of Lopez’s students listed John Lewis despite the fact that he received no mention on the pretest. Most importantly, many students also included references to relatively lesser-known figures in the movement such as Diane Nash or Stokely Carmichael as well as organizations not directly tied to King such as SNCC. The number of historical figures included by students was even greater in Hawkins’ classroom. In contrast to the pre-assessment that rarely involved references other than King and Rosa Parks, almost two-thirds (64 percent) included Lewis and students in these classes identified a total of nineteen different civil rights leaders. Eight-four percent of students identified at least one different figure on their pretest with about two-thirds of the students capable of identifying at least two different figures on their posttest. Also noteworthy was that twenty-four students (34 percent) of students could not identify three individuals on their pretest (they either left part of the question blank or answered “I do not know a third person”) yet every student was later able to identify and describe three people associated with the movement. The end of the semester exit survey for multiple classes also illustrated the impact of the graphic novels on the students’ interest in US history and their development of important literacy skills. Over 48 percent of students reported that they “really enjoyed” the graphic novels with about an equal number expressing that they “liked” reading the first two books of the March series. Seventy percent of the students surveyed claimed that they “learned a lot about the civil rights movement.” When asked to explain the value of the graphic novels, one student reported that “having a visual to follow with what the story was telling” was helpful. Another student stated, “the time period and the setting was really easy to understand through the visuals. The illustrations enhanced the reader’s understanding of how conditions were back then.” When asked about using the graphic novel to find supporting evidence, 40 percent claimed that it was “much easier” to accomplish with March books while just over 47 percent concluded that it was “somewhat easier” to reach this Common Core objective. As one classmate explained, she liked reading the graphic novels because “you can easily collect information about the civil rights movement throughout the novel.” These students’ comments and the experiences of their teachers speak to the power of graphic novels to provide engaging and historically meaningful narratives through which to learn history and develop literacy skills. Even six months later, when some of the students involved in the study answered a follow-up survey, their reflections demonstrated their ability to identify important individuals and events of the movement. Furthermore, over 57 percent of the students surveyed reported to have “really enjoyed” reading the novels with an additional 36.4 percent claiming that they “liked” the novels.

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The students were perceptive in not dismissing the graphic novels due to their reliance on visuals. The process of confronting and revising powerful visual images that shape what historian Vincent Harding describes as, “our cultural and personal identity in a pluralistic society” has long been central to challenging racial injustice. 59 Lopez and Hawkins also found their use of graphic novels transformative as the March series increased student engagement and, according to Hawkins, “made the unit more about the students than about me.” Lopez echoed the students in that she found March’s intimate portrait of the civil rights movement to be “more personal than any textbook could ever offer.” Both teachers found that their use of the graphic novels provided students with an enjoyable and relatively accessible source of background knowledge that allowed them to create a rich classroom environment aimed at illuminating the history of a social movement. The result was that both teachers and students appreciated the struggle as, in Hawkins’ words, a “dynamic, diverse series of events driven by real people.” Although the rise of graphic novels may be a relatively recent development, this effort to revise historical narratives about race in the United States to include the struggles of real people is hardly new. In 1915, a century before the National Museum of African American History and Culture opened in the nation’s capital, African American veterans of the Union Army started the campaign to create the museum. The same year African American educators, led by Carter Woodson, met to create the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, which led to the first issue of the Journal of Negro History and, years later, African American History Month. These efforts were undoubtedly linked to the recent release of The Birth of a Nation, D.W. Griffith’s racist and incendiary film on the history of the South during and after the Civil War. The controversial yet immensely successful film focused on the criminality of freed slaves during Reconstruction and celebrated the role of the Ku Klux Klan in redeeming southern society. At the same time that African American veterans initiated the effort to tell a more inclusive American story, theaters in the South invited large groups of white Confederate veterans to experience the history that they had presumably witnessed themselves. Organizations such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) protested the film precisely because they recognized the power of a film that historian Amy Wood described as the “visual consecration of white supremacy.” 60 For white audiences throughout the South and in many northern cities, Birth of a Nation was indeed history and the conflict over the film became a “battle over historical authenticity.” 61 Both sides of the debate in 1915 recognized what John Lewis and his collaborators on the March series understood, that images in popular culture have been crucial in shaping larger and important historical narratives of race

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in the United States. In the case of Birth of a Nation, sympathetic white audiences embraced the racist caricatures as authentic history. As one observer claimed at the time, the film did “not just tell you about [the South’s history]. Birth of a Nation employs an art that makes you see it; feel yourself a part of it, and while it is being enacted before your eyes the blood tingles with the heroism and the marvels of it.” 62 In many ways, the art of Lewis’ trilogy March, similar to the artifacts in the NMAAHC, provides today’s generation of students with an instructive and inspiring counter-narrative to the racist stories and images that have dominated so much of American popular culture. In doing so, the format of such graphic novels also empowers students with the literacy and historical skills needed to construct their own “novel ways of storytelling,” capable of illustrating what it has and continues to mean to live, according to Hall, “through an undefeated but unfinished revolution.” 63 NOTES 1. Jacqueline Trescott, “Breaking Ground for the Next Generation: African American Museum Aims to Tell the Whole American Story,” Washington Post, February 23, 2012, C1, C4. 2. “About the Museum,” National Museum for African American History and Culture. Accessed August 10, 2016, https://nmaahc.si.edu/about/museum. 3. Jim Norman, “U.S. Worries about Race Relations Reach a New High,” Gallup Poll, April 11, 2016. Accessed May 30, 2016, www.gallup.com. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Richard Fausset and Alan Blinder, “South Carolina Settles Its Decades Old Dispute over the Confederate Flag,” The New York Times, July 9, 2015. 7. Baltimore Sun, “Take the Statues Down,” January 19, 2016; Christina R. Garza, “Petition Drive Seeks Removal of Jefferson Davis Monument,” Brownsville (TX) Herald, January 17, 2016; Jennifer Steinhauer, “Historical Monuments in the Midst of a ‘Purge Moment,” New York Times, September 1, 2015. 8. Melanie Mason, “California Lawmakers OK Bill That Would Ban Confederate Flag Displays,” Los Angeles Times, August 21, 2014; Michael Schaub, “Do New Texas Textbooks Whitewash Slavery and Segregation?” Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2015. 9. Corinne Ruff, “Historians of Slavery Find Fruitful Terrain: Their Own Institutions,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 21, 2016; Glenda Gilmore, “At Yale, A Right That Doesn’t Outweigh a Wrong,” New York Times, April 29, 2016; Alexandra Markovich, “Princeton Board Votes to Keep Woodrow Wilson’s Name on Campus Buildings, New York Times, April 4, 2016; Martha A. Sandweiss, “Woodrow Wilson, Princeton, and the Complex Landscape of Race,” The Nation, December 1, 2015. 10. John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, March: Book One (Marietta, GA: Top Shelf, 2013); John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, March: Book Two (Marietta, GA: Top Shelf, 2015); John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell, March: Book Three (Marietta, GA: Top Shelf, 2016). 11. Paula Griffith, “Graphic Novels in the Secondary Classroom and School Libraries,” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 54, no. 3 (November 2010): 181–189. 12. Caroline Sheffield, James S. Chisolm, and Penny B. Howell, “More Than Superheroes and Villains: Graphic Novels and Multimodal Literacy in Social Studies Education,” Social Education 79, no. 3 (May/June 2015): 147–150.

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13. Christian W. Chun, “Critical Literacies and Graphic Novels for English Language Leaners: Teaching Maus,” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 53, no. 2 (October 2009): 144–153. 14. Linda Smetana, Darah Odelson, Heidi Burns, and Dana L. Gibson, “Using Graphic Novels in the High School Classroom: Engaging Deaf Students with a New Genre,” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 53, no. 3 (November 2009): 228–40. 15. Art Spiegelman, Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale: My Father Bleeds History (New York: Pantheon, 1987). 16. Marjane Sartapi, Persepolis (New York: Pantheon, 2003). 17. Gene Luan Yang, American Born Chinese (New York: First Second, 2006). 18. Sarah A. Mathews, “Using Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of American Empire to Develop a Critical Stance: Possibilities and Pitfalls,” The History Teacher 48, no. 2 (February 2015): 225–44. 19. William Boerman-Cornell, “Using Historical Graphic Novels in High School History Classrooms: Potential for Contextualization, Sourcing, and Corroboration,” The History Teacher 48, no. 2 (February 2015): 209–224. 20. Jeremiah Clabough and Kenneth T. Carano, “Using Graphic Novels to Promote Social Studies Literacy,” Middle Level Learning 53 (May/June 2015): 10–14. 21. Michael Cromer and Penney Clark, “Getting Graphic with the Past: Graphic Novels and the Teaching of History,” Theory and Research in Social Education 35, no. 4 (Fall 2007): 574–91. 22. Ibid. 23. Derek Parker Royal, “Drawing Attention: Comics as Means of Approaching U.S. Cultural Diversity,” in Lan Dong, ed. Teaching Comics and Graphic Narratives (Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2012): 67–79. 24. Anne Cong-Huyen and Caroline Kyungah Hong, “Teaching Asian-American Graphic Narratives in a ‘Post-Race’ Era,” in Dong: 80–93. 25. Michael Chaney, “Drawing on History in Recent African American Graphic Novels,” MELUS 32, no. 3 (Fall 2007): 175–200. 26. Jacqueline Dowd Hall, “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past,” Journal of American History 91, no. 4 (March 2005): 1233–63. 27. Kevern Verney, The Debate on Black Civil Rights in America (Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2006), 87–114. 28. Julie B. Armstrong et al., eds., Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom’s Bittersweet Song (New York: Routledge, 2002). 29. Rhonda Y. Williams, “Raising the Curtain: Performance, History, and Pedagogy,” in Armstrong, 69–82. 30. Verney, 146–62. 31. Hall, 1233. 32. Ibid., 1235. 33. Hall, 1239. 34. Verney, 107. 35. Hall, 1234. 36. Thomas J. Sugrue, Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North (New York: Random House, 2008). 37. Sarah E. Gardner, “Coming of Age in the Movement: Teaching with Personal Narratives,” in Armstrong, 97–110. 38. John Lewis with Michael D’Orso, Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998). 39. Sam Wineburg and Chauncey Monte-Sano, “‘Famous Americans’: The Changing Pantheon of American Heroes,” The Journal of American History 94, no. 4 (2008): 1186–1202. 40. Steven J. Lawson, Civil Rights Crossroads: Nation, Community, and the Civil Rights Struggle (Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2003). 41. Herbert Kohl, She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott (New York: The New Press, 2007).

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42. Emma Lapsansky et al., United States History: Reconstruction to the Present (Boston: Prentice Hall, 2008). 43. Gardner, 98. 44. Episode Two: “Fighting Back,” Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement (Blackside, Inc. 1987). 45. Episode Three: “Ain’t Scared of Your Jails,” Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement (Blackside, Inc. 1987). 46. Episode Four: “No Easy Walk,” Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement (Blackside, Inc. 1987). 47. Selma, directed by Ava DuVernay (2014; Paramount Home Video, 2015), DVD. 48. Lewis, March: Book One, 38–39. 49. “Jim Crow Laws,” American Radio Works, accessed August 2016, http:// americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/remembering/laws.html. 50. Lewis, March: Book One, 57. 51. Billie Holiday (written by Lewis Allan), “Strange Fruit” Commodore Records, 1939. 52. Gene Roberts and Hank Klibanoff, The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (New York: Knopf, 2006), 86–89. 53. Clayborne Carson, ed., The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle (New York: Penguin Books, 1991), 130–1. 54. Ibid., 114–16. 55. “Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee Position Paper: The Basis of Black Power,” The Sixties Project at the University of Virginia, accessed August, 2016, http://www2.iath. virginia.edu/sixties/HTML_docs/Resources/Primary/Manifestos/SNCC_black_power.html. 56. Carson, 117–18. 57. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers, Common Core State Standards in Literacy in History/Social Studies (Washington, DC: National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, Council of Chief State School Officers, 2010). 58. M. Anne Britt, Charles A. Perfetti, Julie A. Van Dyke, and Gareth Gabrys, “The Sourcer’s Apprentice: A Tool for Document-Supported Instruction,” in Peter Stearns, Peter Seixas, and Sam Wineburg, eds. Knowing, Teaching, and Learning History: National and International Perspectives (New York, NY: New York University Press, 2000) 437–470; Sam Wineburg, Historical Thinking and Other Unnatural Acts: Charting the Future of Teaching the Past (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2001). 59. Vincent Harding, Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of Movement (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990): 7. 60. Amy Louise Wood, Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890–1940 (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009): 150. 61. Ibid., 170. 62. Ibid., 164. 63. Hall, 1263.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Armstrong, Julie et al. Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom’s Bittersweet Song. New York: Routledge, 2002. Baltimore Sun, “Take the Statues Down,” January 19, 2016. http://www.baltimoresun.com/ news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-confederate-monuments20160119-story.html. Boerman-Cornell, William. “Using Historical Graphic Novels in High School History Classrooms: Potential for Contextualization, Sourcing, and Corroboration.” The History Teacher 48, no. 2 (2015): 209–224. Britt, Anne M., Charles A. Perfetti, Julie A Van Dyke, and Gareth Gabrys. “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: A Tool for Document-Supported Instruction.” In Knowning, Teaching, and

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Learning History: National and International Perspectives, 437–470. New York: NewYork University Press, 2000. Carson, Clayborne. The Eyes on the Prize Civil Rights Reader: Documents, Speeches, and Firsthand Accounts from the Black Freedom Struggle. New York: Penguin Books 1991. Chaney, Michael. “Drawing on History in Recent African American Graphic Novels.” MELUS 32, no. 3 (2007): 175–200. Chun, Christian. “Critical Literacies and Graphic Novels for English Language Learners: Teaching Maus.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 53, no. 2 (2009): 144–153. Clabough, Jeremiah and Kenneth T. Carano. “Using Graphic Novels to Promote Social Studies Literacy.” Middle Level Learning 53 (2015): 10–14. Cong-Huyen, Anne and Caroline Kyungah Hong. “Teaching Asian-American Graphic Narratives in a ‘Post-Race’ Era.” In Teaching Comics and Graphic Narratives, 80–93. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland and Company, 2012. Cromer, Michael and Penney Clark. “Getting Graphic with the Past: Graphic Novels and the Teaching of History.” Theory and Research in Social Education 35, no. 4 (2007): 574–91. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement. “Ain’t Scared of Your Jails.” Episode Three. Directed by Orlando Bagwell. Written by Steve Fayer. February 4, 1987. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement. “Fighting Back.” Episode Two. Directed by Judith Vecchione. Written by Steve Fayer. January 28, 1987. Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Movement. “No Easy Walk.” Episode Four. Directed by Callie Croslley and James A. DeVinney. Written by Callie Crossley and James A. DeVinney. February 11, 1987. Fausset, Richard and Alan Blinder. “South Carolina Settles Its Decades Old Dispute over the Confederate Flag.” The New York Times, July, 99, 2015. Gardner, Sarah. “Coming of Age in the Movement: Teaching with Personal Narratives.” In Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom’s Bittersweet Song, 97–110. New York: Routledge, 2002. Garza, Christina. “Petition Drive Seeks Removal of Jefferson Davis Monument.” Brownsville (TX) Herald, January 17, 2016. Gilmore, Glenda. “At Yale, A Right That Doesn’t Outweigh a Wrong.” New York Times, April 29, 2016. Griffith, Paula. “Graphic Novels in the Secondary Classroom and School Libraries.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 54, no.3 (2010): 181–189. Hall, Jacqueline. “The Long Civil Rights Movement and the Political Uses of the Past.” Journal of American history 91, no. 4 (2005): 1233–63. Harding, Vincent. Hope and History: Why We Must Share the Story of Movement. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1990. Holdiay, Billie. Commodore Records. 1939. Kohl, Herbert. She Would Not Be Moved: How We Tell the Story of Rosa Parks and the Montgomery Bus Boycott. New York: The New Press, 2007. Lapsanky, Emma et al. United States History: Reconstruction to the Present. Boston: Prentice Hall, 2008. Lawson, Steven. Civil Rights Crossroads: Nation, Community, and the Civil Rights Struggle. Lexington, KY: University of Kentucky Press, 2003. Lewis, John, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. March: Book One. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf, 2013.Lewis, John, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. March: Book Three. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf, 2016.Lewis, John, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell. March: Book Two. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf, 2015. Lewis, John and Michael D’Orso. Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1998. Markovich, Alexandra. “Princeton Board Votes to Keep Woodrow Wilson’s Name on Campus Buildings.” New York Times, April 4, 2016. Mason, Melanie. “California Lawmakers OK Bill That Would Ban Confederate Flag Displays.” Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2015. Mathews, Sarah. “Using Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of American Empire to Develop a Critical Stance: Possibilities and Pitfalls.” The History Teacher 48, no. 2 (2015): 225–44.

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National Museum for African American History and Culture. “About the Museum.” Accessed August 10, 2016, https://nmaahc.si.edu/about/museum. Norman, Jim. “U.S. Worries about Race Relations Reach a New High.” Gallup Poll. Accessed May, 30, 2016, www.gallup.com. Roberts, Gene and Hank Klibanoff. The Race Beat: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation. New York: Knopf, 2006. Royal, Derek Parker. “Drawing Attention: Comics as Means of Approaching U.S. Cultural Diversity.” In Teaching Comics and Graphic Narratives, 67–79. Jefferson, NC: MacFarland and Company, 2012. Ruff, Corinne. “Historians of Slavery Find Fruitful Terrain: Their Own Institutions.” The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 21, 2016. Sandweiss, Martha. “Woodrow Wilson, Princeton, and the Complex Landscape of Race.” The Nation, December 1, 2015. Sartapi, Marjane. Persepolis. New York: Pantheon, 2003. Schaub, Michael. “Do New Texas Textbooks Whitewash Slavery and Segregation?” Los Angeles Times, July 7, 2015. Selma. Directed by Ava Duvernay. 2014. Paramount. Sheffield, Caroline, James Chisolm, and Penny Howell. “More Than Superheroes and Villains: Graphic Novels and Multimodal Literacy in Social Studies Education.” Social Education 79, no. 3 (2015): 147–150. Smetana, Linda, Darah Odelson, Heidi Burns, and Dana Gibson. “Using Graphic Novels in the High School Classroom: Engaging Deaf Students with a New Genre.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 53, no. 3 (2009): 228–40. Spiegelman, Art. Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale. New York: Pantheon, 1987. Steinhauer, Jennifer. “Historical Monuments in the Midst of a ‘Purge Moment.’” New York Times, September 1, 2015. “Student Nonviolent Coordination of Committee Position Paper: The Basis of Black Power.” The Sixties Project. Accessed August, 2016, http://www2.iath.virginina.edu/sixtiest/ HTML_docs/resources/primary/manifestos/SNC_black_power.html. Sugrue, Thomas. Sweet Land of Liberty: The Forgotten Struggle for Civil Rights in the North. New York: Random House, 2008. Trescott, Jacqueline. “Breaking Ground for the Next Generation: African American Museum Aims to Tell the Whole American Story.” Washington Post, February 23, 2012, C1, C4. Verney, Kevern. The Debate on Black Civil Rights in America. Manchester, England: Manchester University Press, 2006. Williams, Rhonda. “Raising the Curtain: Performance, History, and Pedagogy.” In Teaching the American Civil Rights Movement: Freedom’s Bittersweet Song, 69–82. New York: Routledge, 2002. Wineburg, Sam and Chauncey Monte-Sano. “‘Famous Americans:’ The Changing Pantheon of American Heroes.” The Journal of American History 94, no. 4 (2008): 1186–1202. Wood, Amy Louise. Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890 1940. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Yang, Gene Luan. American Born Chinese. New York: First Second, 2006.

Chapter Three

Karma in Comics Discovering Hidden Super Powers through Creating Tonia A. Dousay

Ask an educator about using comics in the classroom, and the responses will likely fall somewhere along a spectrum from “absolutely” to “never in a million years.” Historically speaking, comics lurked in the shadows of education, sometimes being accused of causing juvenile delinquency (Gavigan and Tomasevich 2011). For insight into American historical opinions about comics, see Zorbaugh’s (1949) fascinating study on what adults thought about using comics as reading material for children. In particular, opinions regarding different types of comics, newspapers comic strips versus comic magazines, and the possible moral impact on readers highlight arguments that still plague classroom adoption today. Around the 1960s, though, scholarly articles and curriculum guides began to emerge that promoted the use of comics in the classroom. For example, Suhor (1967) was one of the first authors to suggest using comics to help learners understand the concepts of understatement and symbolism. One of the earliest documented examples of using comics for language learning curriculum came from Taylor (1973), who suggested comics as a means of connecting to learner’s individual interests. Since these early days, studies on attitudes (Arlin and Roth 1978; Davies and Brember 1993; Cirigliano 2012), integration strategies (Jacobs 2007; Ranker 2007; Thompson 2007), and impact (Aubrey 2009; Short, Randolph-Seng, and McKenny 2013) of comics on learning have opened the proverbial floodgates for classroom adoption. Using comics in the classroom extends beyond simply reading and interpreting visual elements text. At least, it should. From the National Council of Teachers of English (2005) to multiple scholars and professional writers (Lewin and Shoemaker 2011; Roswell 2007; Williams 2008), the resources 41

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exist to help teachers turn students into creators of comics. Even Common Sense Media (2014) provides a vetted list of apps, software, and websites for students to use as they create comics. Yet, much of the current classroom trend focuses on how struggling readers can improve through reading comics or how art instruction benefits from evaluating visual literacy and comic design components (Burton 2004; Yang 2008). One of the reasons teachers are reluctant to consider creating comics in the classroom relates to a fear of using the wrong terms or unfamiliarity with the genre (Connors 2012). Thus, effective and full use of comics in the classroom eludes the majority of teachers, but it does not need to be this way. TYPES OF USE When looking at the different ways comics might be used in formal instruction, two possibilities stand out; reading and creating. Each type of use has its own purpose or intent with varying degrees of applicability. Based upon the earlier identified challenge of effective use, an overview of the two types might help reveal ways in which teachers might reach full potential. Reading As previously noted, some teachers have used comics to facilitate language acquisition or other literacy education for more than sixty years. Generally speaking, educators associate reading comics with language arts classrooms (Jacobs 2007). Indeed, the visual layout, use of color, and often stylized dialogue provide ample frameworks through which learners can benefit. Whether teachers want to engage readers with selected comics to reinforce vocabulary or explore non-spoken communication cues, a bevy of books, articles, and websites exists to help teachers. For instance, Dong (2012) worked with more than a dozen scholars and teachers to compile an excellent guide for reading comics and graphic novels in tandem with historical texts to strengthen connections in American, ethnic, women’s and gender, cultural, and genre studies. The power of visual communication and narrative dialogue within these various areas helps learners deconstruct and reconstruct meaning through iterative and engaging interaction. More interesting, perhaps, has been the permeation of reading comics into other subject areas. Much like language arts, the visual appeal of comics combined with varied narratives makes the medium a valuable tool for science educators looking to pique student interest and engage learners (Tatalovic 2010). For example, Hosler’s (2000) Clan Apis invites readers to learn about honey bees through the eyes of the main character, Nyuki, and Ottaviani’s (2009) Dignifying Science graphic novel retells the stories of scientific discoveries from the perspective of famous women in science, like Marie

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Curie and Hedy Lamarr. To help bolster the argument for reading comics in science classrooms, Hosler and Boomer (2011) argued for and studied the replacement of standard science textbooks in introductory biology courses. The researchers found that both science majors and non-majors exhibited a significant increase in median content knowledge scores when using the science graphic novels in place of the regular text. Shifting into the social sciences, Christensen (2006) summarized how she used graphic novels to stimulate discussion among her secondary students about political and social conflicts in Bosnia, Palestine, Iran, Sudan, and Holocaust Germany. Similarly, Pustz’s (2012) anthology on comics and American cultural history provides an excellent overview of teachers using comics to investigate experiences related to cultural history and artifacts as well as historical identity and contemporary history. These examples illustrate the successful ways in which comics have grown from a lesser known tool in the language arts classroom in to other subject areas. However, more recent research on and practice with comics involves that of student-created comics. Creating When incorporating comics in classroom curriculum, they can also be used as a form of assessment, empowering students to take responsibility for the content they learn and how they demonstrate mastery in a variety of areas simultaneously. Rooted in the call to encourage shifting learners from consumers of media to creators (Dyson 1997; Alvermann, Moon, and Hagood 1999; Alvermann and Hagood 2000), Morrison, Bryan, and Chilcoat (2002) helped usher in the idea of student-created comics in all subjects of secondary education. Creating comics provides an opportunity for learners to constructively and reflectively engage in the learning process (Pelton and Pelton 2009). In other words, comic creation challenges students to select appropriate content; distinguishing between relevant and non-relevant components, writing suitable dialogue and narrative, applying applicable visual design elements, and reviewing the finished product for accuracy. Depending upon the subject area, this process takes a few different forms. Adams (2000) summarized how the Tin Drum project helped students demonstrate text interpretation. The activity required students to create comics that illustrated a portion of Günter Grass’ novel of the same name. From an artistic standpoint, students drew upon illustrative techniques and devices used throughout traditional comics in order to depict depth and meaning, demonstrating both understanding of the text and the visual impact. Using illustrations from graphic novelists like Mandy Coe and cartoonists like Will Eisner and Scott McCloud, students explored the idea of comics and graphic novels as a serious medium and transitioned into analyzing elements of comic art techniques. This flow encouraged contextualizing how cultural per-

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spectives and words are conveyed through line, shape, color, and arrangement. The teacher then assigned excerpts from the Tin Drum for students to graphically illustrate. The resulting artifacts demonstrated students’ ability to translate a text-based material into one based entirely on visual literacy. For formative assessment, Pelton and Pelton (2009) worked with middle school students to create comics demonstrating math concept retention. The researchers began the activity by showing students a comic they had created over the scientific process of condensation as a way of modeling the expected outcome. Next, students worked with the researchers to create a collaborative comic depicting fractions in relationship to pizza slices. Lastly, the students created their own comics over a specified mathematical or scientific concept. The Pelton and Pelton project provides a clear example of scaffolding the creative process so that students are clear regarding necessary skills and expectations. In terms of more discipline-specific use of comics as assessment, Wissman and Costello (2014) worked with an eighth-grade reading intervention class to examine aesthetic transactions, or the selection of images and extrapolation of text, comics in response to reading a young adult novel. Students in this research project were allowed to select a specific scene of the novel to illustrate in comic format, which included selecting appropriate images drawing upon the theme of the novel and writing the narration for the depiction. The researchers noted a much deeper interaction with the content and reported improved demonstration of understanding. These projects illustrate the increased trend of creating comics, but questions and controversy still exist regarding how the medium works as a valid form of assessment (Kingsley and Brinkerhoff 2011). APPLYING COMICS AS A FORM OF ASSESSMENT To effectively consider comics as a form of assessment, the conversation must address pedagogy and standards in conjunction with expectations. Pedagogical foundations help frame why certain design activities like comic creation work better than others, and teachers can use this theoretical lens to better understand the rationale behind the assessment. Of course, the persistent need to connect all activities and assessments to prescribed content and skill standards also necessitates a conversation about relevant standards. Having this information readily available might help some teachers decide to adopt the lesson plan described herein or at least make it easier to justify the lesson in required documentation for administrators and stakeholders. Lastly, expectations related to rubrics and scoring artifacts concludes the assessment conversation, providing a foundation for how teachers might grade the created comics or encourage modifying the lesson plan for adoption.

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Pedagogy The act of asking students to create a comic demonstrates constructionism in its most basic definition. That is, the students derive meaning by way of constructing or learning by making (Papert and Harel 1991). Knowledge and skills necessary to complete the creative activity converge as content related to the core subject merges with the construction task. In the case of creating comics, students are tasked with taking a subject prompt (condensation, fractions, novel scene, etc.) and identifying appropriate images and narrative to recreate a visual message representing the prompt. A quick scan of this scenario reveals at least three ways in which the product could be used to assess student learning. First, accuracy of the content depicted in the comic demonstrates general mastery for the subject area. Second, images selected and sequenced for the comic provide an opportunity to evaluate a student’s media literacy skill development, including attention to copyright, audience appropriateness, and cohesive design. Third, the narration written for and placed within the comic book serves as a prime opportunity to evaluate students’ communication skills. Given the interconnected nature of the output, either portfolio or performance-based assessment methods are appropriate frameworks to consider (Reeves and Okey 1996). When considering a portfolio approach, instructors need to build in opportunities over time for comic creation or alternating with similar constructionist activities to allow for observing growth over time (Herman, Aschbacher, and Winters 1992). The performance assessment perspective specifically focuses on a summary judgement of how the student performed in creating comic, considering technique and final output (Wiggins 1993). A possibility exists wherein the assessment is viewed as performance-based and used in conjunction with a portfolio depending upon an institution’s assessment reporting needs. Additionally, in either case, standards must be identified to clarify assessment expectations (Sharikzadeh 2003). Standards To be clear, standards in this context apply to both content or skill standards that may be dictated by an individual institution, accrediting organization, and/or governmental agency as well as macro criteria by which individual skills may be evaluated. Example standards found in the United States classified in the former include Common Core State Standards (CCSS) (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers 2010), individual US state educational standards, ISTE Standards for Students (International Society for Technology in Education 2016), and other similar inventories. Criteria standards that may be used in the case

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of the latter include visual aesthetics, grammatical construction, length/ layout specifications, content accuracy, and so on. The explanation provided herein is not intended to be comprehensive, but rather give direction for educators and administrators seeking practical guidance for implementing student-created comics as a means of alternative assessment. Depending on the type of educational setting, content and skill standards take varying roles of priority in this assessment development. States participating in the CCSS Initiative likely also opt in to one of the methods of aligned computer-based testing developed in tandem with the standards (Porter et al. 2011). Thus, comic creation used as assessment must be enacted in close alignment with these standards. Alternatively, passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) presents opportunities for the use of more alternative assessments (National Conference of State Legislatures 2015). ESSA replaces the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), which served as the long-standing federal guideline for specific funding, standardized testing, school accountability, and teacher quality (Klein 2015). However, bringing ESSA to fruition began in 2014 and took most of 2015 for lawmakers to author, revise, and negotiate through differing opinions related to scaling back direct federal oversight, addressing poorly performing schools, and determining which agencies and/or executive offices would hold authority for different provisions (Severns 2015). The final legislation includes allowing for state-determined academic assessments that measure achievement, higher-order thinking skills, and student growth with considerations for the use of portfolios and/or performance-based tasks (National Conference of State Legislature 2015). Thus, student-created comics represent an appropriate activity to explore further use. Regardless of standardized testing requirements, applicable CCSS (2010) include but are not limited to: 1. CCSS.ELA-Literature.RL8.2 Determine a theme or central idea of a text and analyze its development over the course of the text, including its relationship to the characters, setting, and plot; provide an objective summary of the text. 1 2. CCSS.ELA-Writing.W8.3 Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. 2 3. CCSS.ELA-Writing.W8.6 Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing and present the relationships between information and ideas efficiently as well as to interact and collaborate with others. 3 4. CCSS.ELA-Language.L8.5 Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings. 4

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5. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH6–8.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions. 5 6. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6–8.7 Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts. 6 7. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6–8.9 Analyze the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic. 7 Note that standards presented here were taken from grades 6–8/grade 8, but are conceptually similar across secondary grade levels. Learning environments not bound by the CCSS should work within their expected content standards, and searching for concepts similar to those described above may help with alignment efforts. 8, 9 Relevant ISTE Standards for Students (International Society for Technology in Education 2016) include but are not limited to the digital citizenship goals of respecting the rights and use of intellectual property and engaging in ethical behavior when using technology; knowledge construction goals of locating and evaluating resources to create meaningful artifacts; and the creative communicator goals of creating original works to communicate complex ideas. Whether generating assessment rubrics or detailing standards alignment in lesson plans, the aforementioned content and skills standards should help any educator design and implement student-created comics activities. Pedagogical Expectations Having a pedagogical framework established and identifying relevant content and skill standards assists with identifying individual criteria by which a student-created comic might be evaluated. Generating a rubric closely aligned with the previously described standards provides an objective basis for grading student-created comics. Individual criteria include splash pages, image selection, script, content, message design, length, submission process. The splash pages represent a way in which students can mimic the standard comic book interface and meet requirements related to clearly identifying a title and authorship as well as giving credit for any attributed resources. 10 Through the image-selection criterion, students demonstrate abilities to create all original imagery or appropriately source images to create a cohesive story. The comic script, to include all dialogue and written elements, provides a mechanism for assessing spelling and grammar as well as evaluating dialect or other linguistic techniques applied as a result of the subject area source content. Related to the subject area, content represents one of the most important aspects of assessment. The intent is to use comics as a medium for students to express understanding. Therefore, the content criterion checks for

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comprehension of the subject area concept used as the primary story element. Message design, as a means for grading the comic, addresses the overall construction of the comic, including color palette choices, readability of text and images, and layout considerations. Length refers to page limits placed on the assignment as a constraint. In some cases, teachers may want to determine if students are able to distill large blocks of content into a concise summary. Alternatively, teachers may want students to take a specific concept and extrapolate the idea into a broader context. Either scenario should result in a specified page limit for students to follow. Lastly, submission process may take a variety of forms depending upon the teacher’s needs and intent. The learning environment that allows for flexible timelines may opt to use this criterion to differentiate between an on time submission and a delayed submission for partial credit. Similarly, this criterion might be used to evaluate students’ ability to acclimate to a new process or system for submitting assignments. In all cases, these criteria represent an adapted rubric that has been used for assessing student-created comics in a post-secondary learning environment Dousay (2015). If using a portfolio assessment framework, additional criteria may be considered to evaluate growth over time. Having reviewed the idea of student-created comics and assessment possibilities, the practitioner looking to implement such a strategy would benefit from surveying a sample lesson plan. Student-created comics are appropriate for any secondary subject area, and the earlier examples in mathematics, science, and language arts provide an easy transition into exploring application in social studies. SAMPLE STUDENT-CREATED COMIC LESSON The following example provides an overview of such an approach developed for the eighth-grade secondary social studies classroom. Adams (2000) eloquently observed that incorporating comics creation in the classroom effectively changes the conversation of how media is perceived, thereby enabling learners to both comprehend and use something already embedded in an increasingly technological and visual world. Integrating student-created comics into social studies curriculum combines the notions of transforming media with the assumption that students often feel disconnected from historical events (McMichael 2007). The storytelling mechanism employed in this instructional unity requires students to engage with folklore surrounding American historical figures and remix what they’ve learned into their own words and images. Three individual lessons compose this sample instructional unit. The first lesson examines the folklore of several characters in the American Revolu-

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tion with suggested primary and secondary sources to assist students with research literacy. The purpose of this lesson is to introduce key American historical figures and associated folklore in order to better understand the common thread of culture and how it is transmitted through literature and, by extension, history. In the second lesson, students explore the truths and fallacies behind the folklore from the first lesson. The discriminatory skill development behind this lesson allows students to see the development of the stories throughout history and time as they compare and contrast elements in alignment with subject standards. Folklore and popular culture are used to create a commonality within a given culture. The third lesson focuses on the actual creation of a comic by each student. The lesson does not focus on a specific technology, application, or operating system due to the fact that there is no unified technology throughout schools, however the aforementioned Common Sense Media (2014) resource provides an excellent list that teachers should consider. 11 The lesson should focus on the structure of creating the comic book, including visual and traditional literacies and writing styles that are commonly found in comics, and the appropriate retrieval and use of pictures. This unit explores the development of culture, individual historical figures, and the influence of popular culture on storytelling. The American Revolution and the lore surrounding that time period of American history serve as the basis for the unit. However, these plans can be adapted easily for related areas, including religious and cultural studies, and are modular in design to cover other periods of American or world history simply by referencing in the relevant historical figures and events. See table 3.1 for a list of possible historical figures to use for specific time periods of American history. Focusing on key figures in culture aligned with the relevant grade level standards allows for analyzing documents with the main purpose of exploring culture and the development of culture within the context of history. Standards addressed by this unit include both national and state. First, the unit design focuses on Dimension 4 from the College, Career, & Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards (National Council for the Social Studies [NCSS] 2013). The NCSS C3 Framework calls upon social studies teachers to help contribute to college and career readiness and organizes recommended standards into four dimensions: (1) developing questions and planning inquiries, (2) applying disciplinary tools and concepts, (3) evaluating sources and using evidence, and (4) communicating conclusions and taking informed action. 12 Specifically, the unit addresses standard D4.3.6–8. Presenting adaptations of arguments and explanations on topics of interest to others to reach audiences and venues outside the classroom using print and oral technologies (e.g., posters, essays, letters, debates, speeches, reports, and maps) and digital technologies (e.g., Internet, social media, and digital documentary). 13 This particular standard encourages students to produce a variety

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Table 3.1. Possible characters to use for student-created comics Time Period

Historical Character

Colonial War

George Washington Betsy Ross Paul Revere

Civil War

William Sherman Abraham Lincoln Robert E. Lee

Western Expansion

Butch Cassidy Billy the Kid Wyatt Earp

World War I

Gen. “Black Jack” Pershing Sgt. Alvin York W. Henry Johnson

Progressive Era

Franklin D. Roosevelt Al Capone Eliot Ness

World War II

Dwight Eisenhower Douglas MacArthur Harry S. Truman

Civil Rights Era

Martin Luther King Malcom X Rosa Parks

Cold War Era

John F. Kennedy Ronald Reagan Richard Nixon

of artifacts to demonstrate the ability to work individually and in groups as they transform content into new creations. Further, the lessons incorporate CCSS and state standards by having students look at primary and secondary sources and having students use digital technology to create a comic book using those sources. Note that this sample lesson includes Wyoming Social Studies Content and Performance Standards Wyoming State Board of Education, “Wyoming Social Studies Content and Performance Standards,” based upon the learning environment for which it was developed. The specific state standards addressed in this unit include: 1. SS8.2.2 Examine and evaluate how human expression (e.g., language, literature, arts, architecture, traditions, beliefs, and spirituality) contributes to the development and transmission of culture. 14 2. SS8.4.5 Identify relevant primary and secondary sources for research. Compare and contrast treatment of the same topic in several primary and secondary sources. 15

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The specific CCSS addressed in this unit include: 1. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.7 Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts. 16 2. CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.9 Analyze the relationship between a primary and secondary source on the same topic. 17 The specific NCSS (2004) thematic standard addressed in this unit is that of culture and cultural diversity, specifically encouraging learners to consider the connections between the assumptions, beliefs, and values of a culture and the actions, policies, and products of people in multiple situations. The central focus for this unit involves analyzing and understanding the creation of folklore to understand the implications within American culture. To begin the unit, students should have access to one primary document and multiple secondary documents on the first day of the lesson with the guidance that they will retell the historical figure’s story in his or her own words. Concept mapping and storyboarding serve as practice activities to help students document and process the content. These tools help students organize research related to the historical figure, indicating which of the documents provided specific details and beginning the narrative writing process. Considerations for image selection may also be made by way of placeholder sketches or notes. Dedicate ample class time to working on the storyboard, allowing for feedback from both teacher and peers. Actual creation of the comic occurs during the third lesson of the unit, and an opportunity should be provided that allows students to showcase, share, and read one another’s comics. Additionally, students need to be familiar with the following terms and concepts in order to complete this unit: • Subject area • folklore • primary source document • secondary source document • Comic composition • • • •

splash page storyboard script frame

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Discussion within this unit focuses on folklore and its relationship to American culture. Careful attention should be paid to the use of exaggerating characteristics of a historical figure and how the traits relate to cultural norms. Folklore should come from a variety of sources including songs, images, poems, and stories. Through deconstructing the historical events surrounding the figure, further discussion should address folklore formation. A review of historical events and relevant documentation should dominate the guided instruction. The formative assessments in this unit are used to check student understanding and contribute toward the creating a comic book based upon the folklore and historical research. During this lesson, students should be focused on being responsible digital citizens and adhering to copyright laws. 18 Provide class time to create the comic so that troubleshooting and redirection may be provided in a timely fashion, allowing students to focus on the artistic and academic skills needed to complete the activity. Lesson 1: Folklore of the American Revolution Compelling Questions: (1) Is folklore an important part of American cultural ideas? (2) How does it matter if the stories are true? Supporting Questions: (1) What are the pieces of folklore trying to convey? (2) Is folklore always about an individual? (3) When is folklore developed? Learning Targets: Explain the folklore that has been presented. Analyze documents from multiple sources to determine perspective and relevance. Preview/Opener: Play the song “John Paul Jones” by Johnny Horton as soon as the class begins. The song helps illustrate the retelling of folklore or a legend. At the conclusion of the song, engage students in a discussion about prior knowledge, relevance, and song composition. Extend the discussion by introducing other historical figures, including Betsy Ross, George Washington, and Paul Revere. Have students generate a concept map illustrating how many students knew about which figures, how the students knew about the individual, and any examples of folklore regarding the figures. As students exhibit difficulty identifying with the figures, transition into guided instruction. Guided Instruction: Focus on one figure and display a collection of photos and paintings depicting him or her while reading excerpts from documents detailing the figure’s life and folklore; e.g., “Paul Revere’s Ride” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Ask students if the details of the poem are plausible and accurate, adding responses to the earlier drafted concept map. Conclude the guided instruction by providing students with historical documentation to use in the practice along with the folklore. Transition into the practice activity.

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Practice Activities: Display a list of potential historical characters from which students may elect to research. A supplementary handout primary sources for each character should be made available to facilitate the activity with guidance on conducting research for secondary sources. Students should mimic the class-generated concept maps to begin the process of deconstructing the folklore surrounding the figure. Inform students that this concept map will help them in the next lesson. Closure: Spend time with each student as he or she creates a concept map for the activity. Provide redirection where necessary, paying special attention to the relevance of resources identified by students, distinctions between historical fact and folklore, and helping students identify pertinent details. Ask for one student to share with the class which figure he or she researched and up to three interesting details regarding the history and folklore discovered. Lesson Assessments: This lesson is assessed informally as a formative appraisal of student progress in meeting the aligned standards. Group discussion and individual conversations form the basis for determining redirection. Lesson 2: Truth behind the Folklore Compelling Questions: (1) How is folklore generated from historical events? (2) How do the traits of a character exemplify values of the culture? Supporting Questions: (1) What characteristics are most often exaggerated? (2) How do we reconcile the historical and folklore differences of a historical figure? Learning Targets: Illustrate the difference between folklore and actual history. Analyze documents from multiple sources to evaluate trustworthiness and applicability. Preview/Opener: Replay “John Paul Jones” by Johnny Horton as students ready their notes and research. At the conclusion of the song, divide students into pairs and have them collaborative rewrite the story. Ask students share their retelling with the class and record similarities and differences between stories and historical documentation. Allow for up to twenty minutes of sharing before transitioning into guided instruction. Guided Instruction: Direct instruction should focus on the documented history surrounding the figures introduced in the previous lesson. Use the opportunity to discuss historiography and how folklore and truth intertwine. Refer back to the student-created concept maps and ask students to identify exaggerated characteristics and/or events. Conclude the guided instruction by engaging students in a discussion about how the historical events transformed into the folklore known today. Practice Activities: Instruct students to use their concept maps to begin generating a storyboard for retelling their historical figure in a comic book.

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Provide resources illustrating the visual communication basics of comics; for adaptable handouts, see Dousay (2015). Also provide the grading rubric so that students may plan accordingly. Closure: Spend time with each student as he or she works on the comic storyboard and allow for peer-to-peer reviews of storyboards. Provide redirection where necessary, noting where students plan to procure images or issues with accuracy in the generated narrative. Lesson Assessments: This lesson is assessed informally as a formative appraisal of student progress in meeting the aligned standards. Group discussion and individual conversations form the basis for determining redirection. Lesson 3: Retelling the Story Compelling Questions: (1) How do written and oral accounts influence folklore? (2) How do historical discoveries influence established folklore? Supporting Questions: (1) When retelling a story, what parts are most important to convey? (2) How do you depict a character, exaggerated or realistic? Learning Targets: Depict a historical or folklore story about a historical figure based on primary and secondary sources. Preview/Opener: Begin class by playing a well-known theme from a television show or movie based on a comic; e.g., Spiderman, Batman, Superman, X-Men, The Avengers. If possible, also provide a selection of comic books available from the school library. This opener allows students to immediately immerse in the emotional draw of comics and provide a context for the practice activity. Guided Instruction: Guided instruction should refer back to the comics resources provided in lesson 2 and focus on how to transform the concept map and storyboard into a comic. Introduce or reinforce the concept of intellectual property and resources related to finding images available for use in the public domain or licensed through Creative Commons (2014). 19 This component of the unit specifically addresses standards related to media literacy. Practice Activities: Depending upon the technology available, provide initial guidance on how to use the app or software for creating the comics (see the Unit Resources section for more detail). Then, instruct students to begin developing their comic from the storyboard. Closure: Spend time with each students as he or she creates the comic, answering questions as necessary. Encourage peer troubleshooting for technological issues that arise. Once comics are submitted, arrange to have all comics printed. Optionally, bind the class set of comics for cataloguing in the school library. Provide time in class for students to share, present, and showcase their comics.

Table 3.2. Sample rubric criteria and levels for assessing student-created comics Criteria

Exceptional

Needs Improvement

Unsatisfactory

The opening splash panel contains the story title and author’s name in an appealing color, font, and design

The opening splash panel contains the story title and author’s name but is poorly designed or hard to read

No story title or author name is provided

Credits Splash

Proper credit, attribution, and copyright ownership are provided for all media used in the story

An attempt at proper attribution and credit was made, but several errors or ambiguities exist

No attempt to include proper attribution or credit was made

High-quality images and/or video adhere to copyright guidelines, are audience appropriate, and align to story theme

Selected images and/or video adhere to copyright guidelines and are audience appropriate, but are of low quality or do not align to story theme

Selected images and/or video do not adhere to copyright guidelines and/or are not audience appropriate

Narration and/or thoughts are present with many grammatical errors

Narration and/or thoughts are lacking with many grammatical errors

Images

High-quality, original images and/or videos were created, are audience appropriate, and align to story theme

Script

Narration and/or thoughts Narration and/or thoughts are well-written with no are well-written with few grammatical errors grammatical errors Storyline content accurately reflects selected historical figure and associated folklore

Storyline content deviates from known folklore surrounding the historical figure but contains relevant facts

Storyline content deviates completely from known folklore and cannot be verified through primary or secondary sources

Message Design

All elements (shapes, panels, and colors) come together to articulate intended goals/objectives and are visually pleasing

A few elements detract from the presentation; i.e., unnecessary shapes, panels, or contrasting colors, difficult to read text, etc.

Four or more elements from the presentation; i.e., unnecessary shapes, panels, or contrasting colors, difficult to read text, etc.

Length

The story is told across 3–5 pages, not including title or credits splash

The story is longer than 5 pages, not including title or credits splash

The story is less than 3 pages, not including title or credits splash

Submission

The comic was submitted by the due date

The comic was submitted within a week of the due date

The comic was submitted more than a week after the due date

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Content

Karma in Comics

Satisfactory

Title Splash

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Lesson Assessment: This lesson assessment is summative and encompasses the entire unit. The sample rubric in table 3.2 provides a rubric that can be adopted or adapted depending upon selected standards and learning environment priorities. CONCLUSION This chapter provides a brief overview of the history and trend of integrating comics in the classroom. Initial discussion revealed the more common use of reading comics to assist with literacy education and subsequent progression of comics into other subject areas as a means of stimulating interest. Kingsley and Brinkerhoff (2011) noted increasing interest in student-created comics, but questions still persist regarding integration and assessment strategies. Therefore, a sample unit for adoption and adaption has been provided in the hopes that practicing teachers will use, modify, and reshare in addition to sharing experiences with the lesson and proposed assessment strategies. The alignment of the activity with state and national standards provides an easy to implement curriculum primed for use along with suggested research studies. Together, teachers can use this proposed strategy to help students unlock the powers of creation. The author would like to recognize the contributions of Mr. Jason Hayes, a graduate of the University of Wyoming, who worked with the author as a preservice teacher to develop the lesson plan developed herein. NOTES 1. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers, “Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects,” 36. 2. Ibid., 43. 3. Ibid., 43. 4. Ibid., 53. 5. Ibid., 61. 6. Ibid., 61. 7. Ibid., 61. 8. Wyoming State Board of Education, “Wyoming Social Studies Content and Performance Standards,” 10. 9. Ibid., 17. 10. wikiHow, “How to Design Comic Books: 11 Steps (with Pictures),” accessed October 13, 2016, http://www.wikihow.com/Design-Comic-Books. 11. Common Sense Media, “Digital Literacy and Citizenship Classroom Curriculum,” accessed October 13, 2016, http://www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/curriculum. 12. Ibid., 12. 13. National Council for the Social Studies, “College, Career, & Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards,” 59.

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14. Wyoming State Board of Education, “Wyoming Social Studies Content and Performance Standards,” 10. 15. Ibid., 17. 16. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and Council of Chief State School Officers, “Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects,” 61. 17. Ibid., 61. 18. “Digital Citizenship,” Common Sense Media, accessed October 13, 2016, https://www. commonsensemedia.org/educators/digital-citizenship. 19. “Use & Remix,” Creative Commons, accessed October 13, 2016, https:// creativecommons.org/use-remix/.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Adams, Jeff. “Working out Comics.” Journal of Art Design Education 19, no. 3 (2000): 304–12. doi:10.1111/1468-5949.00233. Alvermann, Donna E., and Margaret C. Hagood. “Critical Media Literacy: Research, Theory, and Practice in ‘New Times.’” The Journal of Educational Research 93, no. 3 (January 2000): 193–205. doi:10.1080/00220670009598707. Alvermann, Donna E., Jennifer S. Moon, and Margaret C. Hagood. Popular Culture in the Classroom: Teaching and Researching Critical Media Literacy. Newark, DE: International Reading Association, 1999. Arlin, Marshall, and Garry Roth. “Pupils’ Use of Time While Reading Comics and Books.” American Educational Research Journal 15, no. 2 (1978): 201–16. doi:10.3102/ 00028312015002201. Aubrey, Scott. “Creating a Global Cultural Consciousness in a Japanese EFL Classroom.” English Language Teaching 2, no. 2 (2009): 119–31. Burton, Lee. “What Is This Media Literacy Thing? Primary and Secondary Classroom Ideas from across Australia.” Screen Education, no. 38 (2004): 93–98. Christensen, Lila L. “Graphic Global Conflict: Graphic Novels in the High School Social Studies Classroom.” The Social Studies 97, no. 6 (2006): 227–30. doi:10.3200/ TSSS.97.6.227-230. Cirigliano, MM. “Exploring the Attitudes of Students Using an Edutainment Graphic Novel as a Supplement to Learning in the Classroom.” Science Educator 21, no. 1 (2012): 29–36. Common Sense Media. “Digital Literacy and Citizenship Classroom Curriculum,” 2014. http:// www.commonsensemedia.org/educators/curriculum. Connors, Sean P. “Toward a Shared Vocabulary for Visual Analysis: An Analytic Toolkit for Deconstructing the Visual Design of Graphic Novels.” Journal of Visual Literacy 31, no. 1 (2012): 71–92. Creative Commons. “About—Creative Commons.” Accessed May 10, 2014. http:// creativecommons.org/about. Davies, Julie, and Ivy Brember. “Comics or Stories? Differences in the Reading Attitudes and Habits of Girls and Boys in Years 2, 4 and 6.” Gender and Education 5, no. 3 (1993): 305–20. doi:10.1080/0954025930050306. Dong, Lan. “Reading and Teaching Graphic Narratives.” In Essays on Theory, Strategy and Practice: Teaching Comics and Graphic Narratives, edited by Lan Dong, 5–10. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, Inc., 2012. Dousay, Tonia A. “Reinforcing Multiliteracies through Design Activities.” In Essentials of Teaching and Integrating Visual and Media Literacy, edited by Danilo M. Baylen and Adriana D’Alba, 27–47. New York: Springer International Publishing, 2015. doi:10.1007/ 978-3-319-05837-5. Dyson, Anne Haas. Writing Super Heroes: Contemporary Childhood, Popular Culture, and Classroom Literacy. New York: Teachers College Press, 1997. Gavigan, Karen W., and Mindy Tomasevich. Connecting Comics to Curriculum: Strategies for Grades 6–12. Denver, CO: ABC-CLIO, LLC., 2011.

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Herman, Joan L., Pamela Aschbacher, and Lynn Winters. A Practical Guide to Alternative Assessment. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, 1992. Hosler, Jay. Clan Apis. Columbus: OH: Active Synapse, 2000. Hosler, Jay, and K. B. Boomer. “Are Comic Books an Effective Way to Engage Nonmajors in Learning and Appreciating Science?” CBE-Life Sciences Education 10, no. 3 (2011): 309–17. doi:10.1187/cbe.10-07-0090. International Society for Technology in Education. “ISTE Standards for Students,” 2016. http:// www.iste.org/standards/standards/for-students-2016. Jacobs, Dale. “More than Words: Comics as a Means of Teaching Multiple Literacies.” English Journal 96, no. 3 (2007): 19–25. doi:10.2307/30047289. Kingsley, Karla V., and Jonathan Brinkerhoff. “Web 2.0 Tools for Authentic Instruction, Learning, and Assessment.” Social Studies and the Young Learner 23, no. 3 (2011): 9–13. Klein, Alyson. “No Child Left Behind: An Overview.” Education Week, April 10, 2015. http:// www.edweek.org/ew/section/multimedia/no-child-left-behind-overview-definitionsummary.html?scrlybrkr=54f9ffc7#. Lewin, Larry, and Betty Jean Shoemaker. Great Performances: Creating Classroom-Based Assessment Tasks. 2nd ed. Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision & Curriculum Development, 2011. McMichael, A. “PC Games and the Teaching of History.” The History Teacher 40, no. 2 (2007): 203–218. Morrison, Timothy G., Gregory Bryan, and George W. Chilcoat. “Using Student-Generated Comic Books in the Classroom.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 45, no. 8 (2002): 758–67. National Conference of State Legislatures. “Summary of the Every Student Succeeds Act, Legislation Reauthorizing the Elelmentary and Seconday Education Act,” 2015. http:// www.ncsl.org/documents/educ/ESSA_summary_NCSL.pdf. National Council for the Social Studies. “College, Career, & Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards.” Silver Spring, MD, 2013. http://www.socialstudies.org/ system/files/c3/C3-Framework-for-Social-Studies.pdf. ———. “National Standards for Social Studies Teachers.” Silver Spring, MD, 2004. http:// www.socialstudies.org/standards/teacherstandards. National Council of Teachers of English. “Comic Book Primer.” Lesson Plan: The Comic Book Show and Tell, 2005. http://www.readwritethink.org/files/resources/lesson_images/ lesson921/ComicBookPrimer.pdf. National Governors Association Center for Best Practices, and Council of Chief State School Officers. “Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects.” Washington, DC, 2010. http://www. corestandards.org/assets/CCSSI_ELAStandards.pdf. Ottaviani, Jim. Dignifying Science: Stories About Women Scientists. 3rd ed. Ann Arbor, MI: G. T. Labs, 2009. Papert, Seymour, and Idit Harel. “Situating Constructionism.” In Constructionism, 1–11. New York: Ablex Publishing Corporation, 1991. Pelton, Leslee Francis, and Timothy Pelton. “The Learner as Teacher: Using Student Authored Comics to ‘Teach’ Mathematics Concepts.” In EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology, 1–9. Honolulu: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE), 2009. Porter, Andrew, Jennifer McMaken, Jun Hwang, and Rui Yang. “Common Core Standards: The New U.S. Intended Curriculum.” Educational Researcher 40, no. 3 (2011): 103–16. Ranker, Jason. “Using Comic Books as Read-Alouds: Insights on Reading Instruction From an English as a Second Language Classroom.” The Reading Teacher 61, no. 4 (2007): 296–305. doi:10.1598/RT.61.4.2. Reeves, Thomas C., and James R. Okey. “Alternative Assessment for Constructivist Learning Environments.” In Constructivist Learning Environments: Case Studies in Instructional Design, edited by Brent Gayle Wilson, 191–202. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications, 1996.

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Roswell, Jennifer. Family Literacy Experiences: Creating Reading and Writing Opportunities That Support Classroom Learning. Portland, ME: Stenhouse Publishers, 2007. Severns, Maggie. “How Congress Finally Killed No Child Left Behind.” Politico December (2015): 1–8. http://www.politico.com/story/2015/12/paul-ryan-congress-no-child-leftbehind-216696. Sharikzadeh, N. “Assessment in Constructive Learning Environments.” In International Conference on Emerging Technologies, 21:1–7. Minneapolis, MN, 2003. Short, Jeremy C., Brandon Randolph-Seng, and Aaron F. McKenny. “Graphic Presentation: An Empirical Examination of the Graphic Novel Approach to Communicate Business Concepts.” Business Communication Quarterly 76, no. 3 (2013): 273–303. doi:10.1177/ 1080569913482574. Suhor, Charles. “Comics as Classics?” The Teachers Guide to Media & Methods 3, no. 9 (1967): 26–29. Tatalovic, Mico. “Science Comics and Cartoons.” Science in School, 2010. http://www. scienceinschool.org/2010/issue14/web. Taylor, Harvey M. “The Role of the Reading Teacher in Adult Basic Education—TESL.” Ann Arbor, MI, 1973. http://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED119488. Thompson, Terry. “Embracing Reluctance When Classroom Teachers Shy Away from Graphic Books.” Library Media Connection 25, no. 4 (2007): 29. Wiggins, Grant P. Assessing Student Performance: Exploring the Purpose and Limits of Testing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Inc., Publishers, 1993. wikiHow. “How to Design Comic Books: 11 Steps (with Pictures),” 2016. http://www. wikihow.com/Design-Comic-Books. Williams, Rachel Marie-Crane. “Image, Text, and Story: Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom.” Art Education 1, no. 6 (2008): 13–19. Wissman, Kelly K., and Sean Costello. “Creating Digital Comics in Response to Literature: Linking Arts, Aesthetic Transactions, and Meaning-Making.” Language Arts 92, no. 2 (2014): 103–17. Wyoming State Board of Education. “Wyoming Social Studies Content and Performance Standards.” Cheyenne, WY, 2014. https://edu.wyoming.gov/educators/standards/social-studies/. Yang, Gene. “Graphic Novels in the Classroom.” Language Arts 85, no. 3 (2008): 185–92. Zorbaugh, Harvey. “What Adults Think of Comics as Reading for Children.” Journal of Educational Sociology 23, no. 4 (1949): 225–35. http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2307/2264558.

Part II

Looking Around Teaching in Postsecondary Schools with Popular Culture

Chapter Four

Making Academia Cool Serious Study of Sequential Art at the University Pearl Chaozon Bauer and Marc Wolterbeek

In the late twentieth century, sequential art rose from the lowly comic book and achieved the status of serious literature, worthy of inclusion in the university curriculum. However, teaching graphic novels and manga is no easy task, partly because this is a new field lacking an established pedagogy, partly because most college students are unfamiliar with the aesthetics of sequential art. This chapter offers four practical models of teaching sequential art to lower- and upper-division students and aims to place sequential art in the context of meaningful but enjoyable academic learning. At Notre Dame de Namur University (NDNU), graphic novels are introduced in two lower-division courses: ENG1030 Freshman Composition and ENG1036 Literary Engagements. In the first, which emphasizes critical reading of non-fiction, students are grounded in Scott McCloud’s essential terms and concepts about sequential art, as found in Understanding Comics, and then introduced to semiotic and thematic analysis of Art Speigelman’s Maus. Classes are devoted to deep analysis of single pages and panels, which are placed in larger thematic contexts. In Literary Engagements, a similar methodology characterizes the approach to a literary work, Alan Moore and David Lloyd’s V for Vendetta. Both visual and verbal signs in the text are placed in the context of the broader socio-political messages of the work. While these first-year courses devote only one unit, consisting of a few weeks, to the study of sequential art, two upper-division courses explore this art form in much greater depth. One of them, ENG2632 Graphic Novels and Manga, is exclusively focused on sequential art and applies an essentially formalist method, engaging students in comparative study of form, theme, and character. The aim in text selection is to choose works that are critically 63

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acclaimed, a relatively easy task when choosing Anglo-American graphic novels as opposed to Japanese manga. 1 Because manga are so closely connected with anime, students view and analyze at least one animated film. The second upper-division course investigating works of sequential art, ENG2636 The Mythology of Superheroes, places American superheroes and Japanese protagonists in the context of traditional mythology, specifically Greco-Roman and Shinto. Students who enroll in this course have varying expectations, some anticipating a mythology class, others a comic book course. During the first half of the semester, they engage in serious study of two classics, Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Tales of Times Now Past; during the second half, they read primary texts presenting Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and other superheroes whom they compare to classical prototypes, and they read two manga and view Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, investigating the mythological elements of these works. Students engage in close critical analysis of the readings and also consider broad thematic concerns such as vigilantism, heroism, and the hero’s journey. SEQUENTIAL ART IN LOWER-DIVISION COURSES Because we developed these four courses sequentially, they constitute a unified curriculum. While enjoying a popular art form, students profit from sound academic study, acquiring valuable analytical skills and thinking critically about ethical issues. In lower-division courses, sequential art helps to develop student critical thinking skills by analyzing visual codes that students encounter daily. Both Freshman Composition and Literary Engagements utilize the sequential art model to examine imagery and language of forms, genres, and cultural products. Before students can have conversations about society, history, and politics, they must understand how the landscape and culture in which we live have a massive impact on all of us, both consciously and unconsciously; in other words, our actions and thoughts are directed by an intricate set of cultural messages and conventions, which depend upon our innate ability to interpret them. At the core of this unit is a comprehension of semiotics, which is the study of language, signs, and symbols, and the laws that govern their interpretation. 2 By investigating how meaning is created and communicated, we deduce how visual and linguistic systems create meaning. I explain to my students that each of us is a semiotician because we constantly interpret meaning based on these systems. An everyday example is a stop sign: when faced with a red octagonal-shaped image, we deduce that we are supposed to stop moving. Not all images are easily decipherable. For this reason, we need to recognize the context in which these signs are communicated so we may act and respond to them appropriately.

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In both classes, students conclude the unit by writing a visual analysis paper that closely examines one panel or motif from the primary text to help them understand the bond between art and language. Students ponder questions such as what happens in the act of reading and analyzing sequential art? How do our brains actually process the visuals and text we are reading? Why and how do we need to process these codes appropriately? The assignment thus helps students theorize the reader’s experience of visual codes in order to make meaning more explicit, all the while thinking critically about the effects these codes have upon their daily lives. As visual learners, twenty-first-century students gain a deeper understanding of signs through the graphic novel art form. Bearing in mind that my students are in their first year of university, I provide an overview of semiotics that is digestible, comprehensible, and enjoyable. I break it down simply: verbal and visual signs have two components, the signifier (that is, the word or image) and the signified (the meaning or significance of this word or image). Saussure’s two-pronged model helps to clarify how the bond between the signifier and the signified is always arbitrary, meaning that it could stand for a different signified depending on its varying associations. 3 Jacques Derrida’s concept of freeplay, a kind of indeterminacy in the meaning, also assists in explicating how the meaning of signs is always unanchored. Because signs have no innate or transcendental truth, the signified never has any immediate self-present meaning. 4 Indeed, Saussure and Derrida reflect upon only the verbal aspect of language, but as Scott McCloud argues, words always have a visual dimension. The graphic novel is a perfect medium to demonstrate how in verbal and visual signs, meaning is never present at face value; there is no escaping the process of conscious and subconscious interpretation which occurs regularly. Introducing first-year students to semiotics in this manner is useful for two reasons. First, because Freshman Composition and Literary Engagements are writing-intensive courses, students gain a greater awareness of their writing process through this primer. Second, lessons in signs comprehension illuminate that there is a science behind meaning-making. Analyzing a text is not simply a pointless enterprise; there is great relevance in appropriately interpreting meaning that considers the context around which the text and image are developed. To assist Freshman Composition students to grasp the signifier/signified model, I turn to Maus I at the point in which Vladek commences his tale about life in Poland before World War II. 5 I remind the students that a signifier is the form that the sign takes and the signified is the concept it represents. The most prominent signifier on the page is Vladek’s stationary bike. It figures in three of the eight panels, and panels three to seven actually come together to form a single panel with the bike as its central image. The signified concept that the bike represents is exercise. Vladek says in panels

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one and two, “Come—we’ll talk while I pedal. . . . It’s good for my heart, the pedaling.” As semioticians, we deduce that Vladek is on the bike for his health, but because the bike is itself only a sign that derives its meaning from other signs, the bike also represents other signified concepts such as Vladek’s inability to move on with his life postwar: he is after all on a bike that never goes anywhere. Because the bike physically separates Artie from Vladek in many of the panels, it can also signify their strained father-son relationship. In almost all of the panels on this page, Artie’s body language indicates his discomfort with his father’s presence. For example, in panel one, Artie’s skewed shoulder shows his unease with his father’s touch. In panels two to seven, Vladek’s pedaling physically separates him from his son, and in panel five, Artie looks confined and entrapped in the bike’s (and panel’s) frame. From the visuals, students grasp how texts and images have an effect on one another and take on new meaning when they act reciprocally. More importantly, they realize why it is important to learn how to conduct critical readings of texts and images that they encounter. In Literary Engagements, the Guy Fawkes mask in V for Vendetta illustrates Saussure’s point that a symbol complicates the arbitrary bond between the signifier and signified because in a symbol, there is what Saussure calls “the rudiment of a natural bond between signifier/signified.” 6 Alan Moore’s article “Viewpoint: V for Vendetta and the Rise of Anonymous” helps to ground this idea in lay terms: It was the strip’s artist, David Lloyd, who had initially suggested using the Guy Fawkes mask as an emblem for our one-man-against-a-fascist-state lead character. When this notion was enthusiastically received, he decided to buy one of the commonplace cardboard Guy Fawkes masks that were always readily available from mid-autumn, just to use as convenient reference. To our great surprise, it turned out that this was the year (perhaps understandably after such an incendiary summer) when the Guy Fawkes mask was to be phased out in favour of green plastic Frankenstein monsters geared to the incoming celebration of an American Halloween. It was also the year in which the term “Guy Fawkes Night” seemingly disappeared from common usage, to be replaced by the less provocative “bonfire night.” At the time, we both remarked upon how interesting it was that we should have taken up the image right at the point where it was apparently being purged from the annals of English iconography. It seemed that you couldn’t keep a good symbol down. 7

Even though the Guy Fawkes reference had seemingly lost its popularity in the mid-1980s, V for Vendetta inadvertently brought it back in vogue. In class, we compare the title page with the first moment that Moore and Lloyd introduce the mask on page 10. The foregrounded text box, “Chapter One:

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The Villain,” is placed directly to the right of V, who is wearing a Guy Fawkes mask. Typically, a villain is the character who transgresses rules and makes trouble. But because V is defined as such, he becomes the anti-hero, possessing qualities of both villain and hero. If the villain-protagonist’s mask is a loaded emblem for “one-man-against-a-fascist-state,” then each panel in which the symbol surfaces will always be signified with “revolution” from both a villain’s and a hero’s perspective. Because the unused mask on panel three of the same page signifies free access (i.e., everyone can wear it), V as mask-wearer represents everyone. It stands to reason then that the characters around V, as well as the readers of the novel, are all villain-protagonists primed for revolution. To reiterate this notion, V utters to his murderer, “Did you think to kill me? There’s no flesh or blood within this cloak to kill. There’s only an idea. Ideas are bullet proof.” 8 V believes that he is an emblem and that his external body is simply its vehicle. Because ideas live long after the physical body disappears, the revolutionary flame lives on in others. Thus, when Evey approaches V’s dead body at the end of the graphic novel, she realizes that there is no need to unmask V because she will become the new face behind the mask. In the last panel of page 251, Evey dons the mask to become our new revolutionary vigilante. Only after students have a better grasp of how and why we must learn to read signs do we turn to a socio-historical or socio-political discussion of Maus or V for Vendetta. This is a skill that many first-year students lack because they perceive cultural and historical discussions separate from closereading analysis, yet this practice teaches them how to bridge their knowledge about a text’s background to the text itself. SOCIO-HISTORY IN MAUS AND SOCIO-POLITICS IN V FOR VENDETTA Maus exhibits an artist’s attempt to translate on paper one of the most incomprehensible moments in history. Book I concludes with Vladek and Anja’s imprisonment at Auschwitz, and one of Maus’ most foreboding panels depicts their entrance to the concentration camp on page 157. Speigelman foregrounds the slogan on the gate, “ARBEIT MACHT FREI,” with bold, dark lettering. Not all of his readers will know the deeper meaning of the German phrase “Work sets you free.” “FREI” is ironic because it does not signify freedom but death in the hands of Nazi Germany. Additionally, Spiegelman superimposes his own textbox over the slogan in such a way that Vladek’s voice overshadows the sign: “And we came here to the concentration camp Auschwitz, and we knew that from here we will not come out anymore.” The double irony is that Vladek and Anja do come out alive and are set “FREI.” The second textbox on the bottom right reads: “We knew the

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stories—that they will gas us and throw us in the ovens. This was 1944 . . . we knew everything, and here we were.” 9 To help students understand the gravity of this historical moment, I show photos and film stills of the gas ovens as well as read personal accounts from other Auschwitz survivors. The graphic novel not only covers Vladek’s terrifying past but also Art’s own account of coming to terms with his father’s narrative. Page 41 in Maus II offers an example of how Spiegelman’s graphic novel tells not one but two survivor’s tales: Vladek’s account of escaping the terrors of World War II is woven into Art’s trauma of having a father who cannot move beyond his harrowing past. The panels on this page describe the aftermath of the publication of Maus I, and the text in Art’s speech balloons parallels Vladek and Art’s experiences. In panel two, for example, Art says, “Vladek started working as a tinman in Auschwitz in the spring of 1944. . . . I started working on this page at the very end of February 1987.” 10 In class, I provide historical background about the work that prisoners were employed to do at the camp, as well as encourage discussions of Art’s feelings as a writer of his father’s story. In the last panel of this page, Spiegelman shows himself slumped over his drawing board, struggling with his new-found fame, his mother’s suicide, and his depression. His cartoon image is no longer a full-fledged mouse but a man wearing a mouse-mask. His desk sits atop a mound of mouse carcasses that represent those who did not survive Aushwitz. Students often comment that this panel suggests the artist’s guilt of making money off the dead. The students also point to the speech balloon to the far right (“Alright Mr. Spiegelman . . . we’re ready to shoot!”) 11 and discuss the double meaning for “shoot” as a word used in photography as well as in war, and they notice that the tower outside the sole window of Art’s office looks like the Nazi watch towers from his father’s past. Evidently, Art can never distinguish his life as separate from his father’s history. While analyzing this page, the class listens to NPR interviews in which Speigelman shares his process of writing Maus, and when the students hear Art’s voice, they feel as if he is actually speaking to them. The layering of the visual and verbal enhances the students’ reading of chapter 2: “Auschwitz (Time Flies).” In Literary Engagements, we also examine the socio-political background to V for Vendetta while closely reading its signs and symbols. I begin by explaining to the students that this graphic novel is a fictional tale of what the world could become if a Hitler-like figure rose to power. In this dystopian future, Moore and Lloyd foreground the battle between anarchy and fascism, and Moore’s introduction blatantly discusses the graphic novel’s creation within its social, historical, and political context. During the time in which the text was originally published, between 1982 and 1985, Margaret Thatcher was prime minister, the British economy suffered its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s, and riots were on the rise. V for Vendetta is Moore and Lloyd’s revolt against Thatcher’s conservative poli-

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tics, their government’s desire to eradicate homosexuality, tabloid presses circulating the idea of concentration camps for persons with AIDS, and riot police patrolling the streets. Nuclear war has devastated Moore and Lloyd’s fictional UK, and fascist government rules the country where “all the black people and the Pakistanis . . . the radicals, and the men who, you know, liked other men,” are placed in campsites, separated from the public. 12 The graphic novel’s Larkhill Resettlement Camp becomes a possible consequence of Thatcherist ideology, except the Larkhill Resettlement Camp on page 29 is merely an imitation of what once was. V reproduced this copy in his hiding place to subvert the system, and it is here that he tortures people working under the fascist regime. Intertextuality adds depth to these panels: the readers’ prior knowledge of the novel’s sociopolitical background emphasizes the nightmarish quality of these panels. The repetition of the word “nightmare” in panels four and six of this page stresses this horror, and the page culminates with a low-angle shot that reflects Lewis Prothero’s nightmare. This viewpoint makes the subject look strong and powerful: the subject here is not a person but an idea symbolized by the signage atop the barbed wire. Both readers and the dwarfed Prothero look up at the sign, which is reminiscent of the slogans on Nazi concentration camps. On page 258, Moore and Lloyd also employ dramatic lens angles for effect: they utilize a bird’s eye view of the rioters. At this point in the narrative, the government has informed the public of V’s death, yet the people remain on the streets waiting for him to appear. As Mr. Finch describes them a few pages before, They’re still there. Not doing anything, mind. Just waiting. It’s funny . . . they’re not the terrorist’s followers or anything. They’re just rioters. . . . But he’s become some sort of all-purpose symbol to them. Hasn’t he? People need symbols, Dominic. He understood that. We’ve forgotten it. Those people outside lost families during the war. We’ve kept the lid on their bitterness for years, but we haven’t helped them deal with it. Maybe he didn’t either, but he certainly took the lid off. 13

The perspective in panel eight makes the subjects appear rather small and insignificant, but panel nine zooms in on the bitter and angry faces of V’s followers. In cinema, a bird’s-eye view is often used for battle scenes, and the perspective gives an overall establishing shot that the war against the government is not over. In panel five of the same page, Evey, as the new V, approaches and informs the public that “reports of [his/her] death were . . . exaggerated,” and she promises that “tomorrow, Downing Street will be destroyed, the head reduced to ruins, an end to what has gone before.” The bird’s eye view in panel nine reveals the public’s fury that will boost V in her vengeance. I remind the students of our original discussion of V’s mask as a

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symbol; as Mr. Finch articulates, V has become an “all-purpose symbol” to them, and we see in the men’s contorted faces that they are geared for V’s revolution. These class discussions and close-reading exercises provide a basis for students planning their visual analysis papers. Because I demonstrate exactly how to bridge thoughtful discussion to specific texts and images, they are able to write stronger papers that do not merely summarize or describe the panel or motif they have chosen; rather, they closely examine every aspect of the sequential art. They use Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics as a reference to help them utilize correct terminology when discussing composition, figures, writing, lines, shading, and symbolism. McCloud also assists them to make better inferences about how these details inform their understanding of the image and the text as a whole. They are thus able to use specific details from the text to help them develop a coherent and cohesive argument about how the panel or motif produces meaning. After students learn to analyze sequential art, their close reading skills become much more effective, and they are able to transfer their new-found abilities when reading other types of literature. They have a deeper appreciation for the skills that their English classes from elementary to high-school have helped them acquire because students realize the importance of reading the meaning behind the texts and images we encounter through careful assessment. For this reason, reading sequential art in Freshman Composition and Literary Engagements helps them prepare not only for the upper-division courses on sequential art that we offer at Notre Dame de Namur, but also for upper-division reading and writing classes in all disciplines. SEQUENTIAL ART IN UPPER-DIVISION COURSES The two upper-division courses build upon concepts introduced in the firstyear classes and expand on them by devoting much more time to sequential art. Graphic Novels and Manga focuses exclusively on this art form and provides a rich curriculum including three graphic novels, two manga, and a full-length animated film. Mythology of Heroes and Superheroes allocates only half a semester to the sequential art, with the first half dedicated to building foundations about the hero’s journey; because the emphasis is less formal and more thematic, it is possible to include a substantial number of texts, including three comic books, two graphic novels, two manga, and an animated film. Graphic Novels and Manga engages students in formal analysis of texts at the micro level—that is, panel-by-panel, page-by-page analysis—and at the macro level—consideration of a text’s overall structure as well as character and thematic developments. On the first day of class students are introduced

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to basic terminology and concepts about sequential art and read pages from a variety of texts (The Time Machine, Tintin, Planetary, Bleach, and Naruto), first discussing individual pages in small groups and later reporting to the class as a whole. During class discussion, I interject comments about formal structure (such as paneling and page lay-out), language (text boxes, speech balloons, sound words), artwork (color, perspective, production), as well as theme and character. During the first half of the semester students read three graphic novels— Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons’ Watchmen, Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, and Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns. I first place contemporary sequential art in a broad historical context, showing examples from early cave art to Hogarth, and I explain twentieth-century development from comic strips to comic books and finally to graphic novels. Before considering the three graphic novels, students work in groups on assigned chapters from Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics; each group presents its findings to the class as a whole. Students thus acquire a sound formal basis for analyzing sequential art before they turn to close analyses of texts. Class discussions of each graphic novel begin with detailed analysis of the opening pages. For example, when we begin analyzing Watchmen, students are asked about the significance of the smiley face on the title page. Students soon explain its context—it is a button lying in a pool of blood in the gutter, as depicted on the first panel of the first page. It usually takes some time for one of them to realize that the bloody arrow on the smiley face could represent the hand on a clock, resembling the Doomsday Clock that figures at the beginning of each chapter. We consider how this recurring motif emphasizes the importance of the theme of time in the novel. When analyzing the first page of the novel, I begin with a general question—what’s going on?—to ground the class in plot and context, and students soon point out that most of the word balloons consist of quotations from Rorschach’s journal, as revealed in the text box in the first panel. I then ask the class to consider perspective, and eventually a student explains that the first six panels zoom from the street level, much like a camera, allowing me to make the analogy between the panels of sequential art and the panes of analog film. I comment that the figure walking on the sidewalk carrying a doomsday sign is Rorschach, as we discover later in the novel. Students then turn to the last page of the first chapter and soon perceive that the layout of this page is identical to that of the first page, with the viewer’s eye zooming away from a scene below. Students thereby gain an appreciation of Moore and Gibbons’ attention to symmetrical structure. After this close analysis, students share their outlines of the chapter, indicating each scene change and listing major characters, and thus discussion pivots to larger structural and thematic issues. One student begins, and I write the students’ comments about the first plot development on the white

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board. Each scene is listed on the board, and formal intricacies within scenes are noted. For example, the first scene depicts the police investigation into the Comedian’s death in the “present,” but the panels illustrating the investigation alternate with red panels showing the actual murder, which took place in the past. Such structure reveals an advantage sequential art holds over other arts, such as conventional literature or film. Students contribute to the construction of the outline, and by the end of the class the entire chapter is mapped on the board. I ask the class what conclusions may be drawn, and I observe that this first chapter serves as an exposition for the entire novel, introducing the class to an element of Aristotelian structure. The next few classes continue a chapter-by-chapter analysis of the novel, with particular attention paid to the intense symmetry of chapter 5, titled “Fearful Symmetry.” I provide students with fuller information about Aristotelian structural theory (rising action, climax, falling action), and we apply this theory to the novel while considering character and the theme of vigilantism. During these discussions, I share philosophical and moral issues raised by various writers in Mark White’s The Philosophy of Watchmen. This general approach of beginning with close analysis and then moving to larger considerations also characterizes class discussions of the next two graphic novels, Sandman and The Dark Knight Returns. The opening pages of Sandman prove difficult for most students, for unlike Watchmen, which employs conventional panels and page layouts, Sandman experiments with a variety of techniques, with rectangular and circular panels placed on fullpage spreads. The content is also highly allusive, making references to multiple storylines as well as allusions to popular culture, comic art, and Neil Gaiman’s own universe of the Eternals. After analyzing the expository first chapter of Sandman, classes progress to the larger structure of Preludes and Nocturnes, the first volume of this graphic novel, as well as to characterization and themes. Micro analysis is not abandoned, however, and one day is spent closely analyzing a single chapter, “24 Hours,” which Gaiman originally planned to organize by allocating each page to one hour, a plan he was forced to abandon when he realized he needed more than one page for exposition. This formal structure is contrasted with Chapter Five of Watchmen, “Fearful Symmetry,” which succeeds in establishing spatial symmetry, as opposed to the problematic temporal organization of “24 Hours.” The structure of The Dark Knight Returns is more complex because each of this novel’s four books has its own rising action and climax, and all four parts belong to an overarching structure encompassing the whole work. While examining these formal dimensions, students also consider characterization, in particular the presence of a female Robin named Carrie, and themes, especially vigilantism. I share philosophical viewpoints expressed in

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Batman and Philosophy, a collection of essays edited by Mark White and Robert Arp. The transition from the first half of this course to the second half introduces students to manga, from twelfth-century emaki to Hokosai’s cartoons and twentieth-century developments. The task of choosing texts is more challenging with manga than it is for graphic novels for two reasons: few manga have achieved the iconic status of the three graphic novels, and many manga are not translated into English with the original right-to-left reading pattern. Presently students read Katsuhiro Otomo’s critically acclaimed Akira (despite its left-to-right reading format in English) and Takeshi Obata’s Death Note, an immensely popular work with a left-to-right reading format. In approaching these manga, class discussions begin with close analysis of openings and move on to larger concerns, as with the graphic novels. For example, in considering Akira, the class examines the opening color pages with their full-page and two-page spreads, contrasting the silence of these pages with the noisy, word-heavy style of graphic novels. Students notice the frequent use of sound words and motion lines, and they compare the cinematographic moment-to-moment panels with scene-to-scene panels in graphic novels. Study questions direct students to list characters, map structures, and compare the artwork and content to those of Watchmen. Students also watch segments of the acclaimed film, which we compare with the manga. From this cyberpunk masterpiece students turn to Death Note, first grounding themselves in the Japanese reading pattern then moving on to a discussion of character and themes, including the mythological figure of the shinigami (or death god), popular in contemporary manga, and serious contemplations on vigilantism, crime, and punishment. The final segment of this class explores animated film, beginning with a presentation on the history of animation that is supplemented by film clips from classics. The class then views Satoshi Kon’s Paprika (2006) in its entirety, and I share a shot-by-shot chart of the opening scenes to demonstrate traditional film analysis and to anchor the class in this difficult work. I also distribute a list of the main characters and a summary of Freudian and Jungian theory about dreams that we refer to as we discuss the film. The learning outcomes of this class state that students are expected to develop an ability to analyze sequential art critically, to appreciate the aesthetic value of sequential art and animated film, and to understand key differences between graphic novels and manga. These outcomes are tested in the final exam, which asks students to write a comparative analysis of graphic novels and manga. The course thus demands rigorous discipline while engaging students in delightful readings and film viewings. The Mythology of Heroes and Superheroes has very different aims than Graphic Novels and Manga, as the emphasis is not upon the formal dimensions of the readings, even though close critical readings of texts are often

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undertaken. Instead, its aim is to introduce students to ancient mythology and to make connections between ancient and modern concepts of heroism and superheroism. The course falls into four segments: Greco-Roman mythology, Japanese mythology, twentieth-century American superheroism as revealed in comic books and graphic novels, and contemporary Japanese responses to mythology as seen in manga and animated film. Students enter the course with varying expectations. Some anticipate a traditional mythology class and are surprised to discover that they will be reading comic books (and graphic novels and manga) during the second half of the semester; others expect to read sequential art, only to learn that they will read Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Tales of Times Now Past, a twelfthcentury collection of Japanese stories (a setsuwa), during the first half. All students undertake rigorous academic study of classical texts that allow them to place graphic novels and manga in the context of mythological characters and themes. The transition from the study of traditional mythology to modern embodiments consists of student presentations on various chapters of Christopher Knowles’ Our Gods Wear Spandex, which places twentieth-century superheroes in the context of classical mythology and nineteenth-century spiritualism and gives a thorough overview of major figures in the DC and Marvels universes. The class then turns to the fun stuff: American superheroes! I provide an overview of the DC and Marvel universes, demonstrating the creation, by Jack Kirby and others, of a new mythology with links to the past. The study of Superman, Batman, and Wonder Woman includes close analysis of first appearances and origin stories and compares these superheroes with mythological prototypes. Students receive color copies of the original comic books and write study questions in preparation for class discussions. After I give an introduction to the histories of the characters, students engage in close analysis of comic books, focusing on character and theme and also considering formal elements and drawing mythological parallels. Students learn the difference between explicit and implicit allusions to classical mythology. For example, Superman, whom his creators Siegel and Schuster likened to Samson and Hercules, is not directly based on a classical model and belongs to the solar archetype (or Messiah figure) described by Knowles. Similarly, Batman has implicit connections with the Golem figure of Jewish folklore as well as the modern myth of the vampire. In contrast, the story of Wonder Woman is explicitly based on the classical myth of the Amazons and reflects her creator’s feminist agenda. All three are crime fighters and vigilantes, and class discussion includes a consideration of social ethics. From comic books, the class turns to two graphic novels that present the DC and Marvel universes: Kingdom Come and Marvels. Students engage in critical reading of Kingdom Come by working in small groups on assigned

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pages, which they analyze in terms of plot, character, and mythological elements. In preparation for class discussions of Marvels, students conduct research on a single character who appears in that work and presents his or her findings to the class. These class discussions focus less on close formal analysis and more on heroic character and mythic themes, and again parallels are drawn with classical myth. The turn to manga involves a dramatic shift in thinking about heroism and superheroism and about the role of mythology in contemporary literature and society. Japanese mythology, like Japanese society, tends to be eclectic, drawing upon diverse religions and mythologies. InuYasha, for instance, contains elements of Shintoism and Buddhism, and there are close parallels with stories in Tales of Times Now Past. The protagonist, a school-age girl who lacks appreciation for heritage, develops physical and intellectual strengths comparable to Atalanta’s (in Ovid’s Metamorphoses) and Wonder Woman’s. She discovers that she is an incarnation of a previous heroine (thus introducing the Buddhist theme of reincarnation), fights a centipede woman (analogous to a centipede demon who appears in Tales of Times Now Past), and befriends a dog demon (not unlike the kitsune or fox fairies that are prevalent in Shinto myth). Descendants of Darkness draws upon Shinto, Buddhist, Christian, and other mythologies (or religions) and also introduces a modern mythological figure, the shinigami (death god), who closely resembles the Western Grim Reaper. Class discussions of these works typically begin with close readings of opening pages before turning to broader considerations about plot, character, and theme. This course continues with a viewing and analysis of Miyazaki’s Spirited Away (2001), which depicts a girl who enters the spirit realm and discovers her true self. Students are provided with a scene-by-scene analysis and encouraged to add their own notes. The film is replete with mythological elements drawn from Shintoism and critiques contemporary society for its loss of cultural heritage, a theme also found in InuYasha. The class ends with a viewing of shorts from the Wachowskis’ Animatrix, an international collaboration of American and Japanese film directors, including both parts of “The Second Revolution” and “Maticulated.” I supplement this viewing with the insemination of the Matrix story in Matrix Comics, and we discuss the development of new digital age mythologies centered upon the interactions of humans and machines. The course aims to introduce Greco-Roman and Shinto mythology in the context of contemporary sequential art as well as to instill in students an appreciation of the formal literary components of this art. Students develop the ability to think critically about ethical issues relating to heroism and superheroism and learn to appreciate cultural and gender diversity. These learning outcomes are tested in the final exam, which gives students the

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choice of comparing modern American superheroes with classical prototypes or contemporary manga with Japanese mythology. While these two courses have very different aims, both aspire to teach students critical reading and thinking though close textual analyses and thoughtful consideration of ethical behavior. Students come to understand that sequential art has a broad range, from lowly comic books to elevated graphic novels and manga, and fun readings provide a vehicle for serious considerations about life and art. Graphic Novels and Manga emphasizes a comparative approach (the course was previous entitled Comparative Literature) and limits itself to formal differences between Anglo-American and Japanese creative art; the course aims to establish a better understanding of cultural diversity. Mythology of Heroes of Superheroes also satisfies NDNU’s cultural diversity requirement, but this course has a much wider scope, encompassing Western and Eastern mythology, though the focus is upon Greco-Roman and Shinto. It allows students to make broad connections between ancient and modern, Western and Eastern mythologies, yet grounds itself on specific texts and examples. Both courses develop basic skills learned in first-year classes and foster deep understanding of form, theme, and culture. CONCLUSION At NDNU we have laid the groundwork for a four-year curriculum including sequential art in the English Department, and we continue to seek innovative ways of expanding this field of study. For example, the second-year requirement of the English major, ENG1041 Classics of World Literature, Part 2, will include a graphic novel such as Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing, George Pérez’s Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals, or Shirow Masamune’s Ghost in the Shell, and in Senior Seminar, students have the option of writing a thesis about this art form and others related to it, such as gaming. The department also plans to revive Literary Theory as a major requirement, which could include a segment on the growing body of criticism associated with this field, and the summer Seminar in Humanities Program, New Approaches to Teaching English, may include sessions about new methods of teaching sequential art. Another avenue of expanding this study lies in collaboration with the Art Department, which offers majors in graphic design and traditional art. A cross-listed elective course could involve the creation of short pieces of sequential art produced by English and art majors working together for possible publication in The Bohemian, NDNU’s literary magazine. The English Department may also develop cross-listed offerings with the Communication and/or Computer Science Departments that would introduce students to digi-

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tal media, specifically on-line gaming, which engages players in virtual narratives. As we expand the curriculum within the English Department and throughout the university, we will continue to emphasize serious scholarly pursuit and innovative teaching. A key to making the courses “serious” explorations of this new art form is instilling academic rigor and high expectations in the study of sequential art. These goals may be reached by implementing structured assessment and engagement through regular assignments, oral presentations, class discussions, and formal essays that are closely connected to the stated learning outcomes. Rather than making comic books “uncool,” these courses aim to make the academic experiences of reading sequential art enjoyable and valuable. NOTES 1. For a discussion of the place of sequential art in the literary canon and the difficulties in choosing manga, see Marc Wolterbeek’s “Teaching Graphic Novels and Manga at the University,” The International Journal of Comic Art 17, no. 1 (Spring/Summer 2015): 557–568. 2. Ferdinand de Saussure asserts that “language is a system of signs that express ideas, and is therefore comparable to a system of writing. . . . Semiology would show what constitutes signs, what laws govern them.” Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, trans. Wade Baskin (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 16. 3. Saussure asserts the arbitrary nature of the linguistic sign: “The bond between the signifier and the signified is arbitrary. Since I mean by sign the whole that results from the associating of the signifier with the signified, I can simply say: the linguistic sign is arbitrary” Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, trans. Wade Baskin (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 67. 4. In “Structure, Sign, and Play in the Discourse of the Human Sciences,” Jacques Derrida explains freeplay as a literary concept of existence without a centralized reference. He writes: “Freeplay is the disruption of presence. The presence of an element is always a signifying and substitutive reference inscribed in a system of differences and the movement of a chain. Freeplay is always an interplay of absence and presence, but if it is to be radically conceived, freeplay must be conceived of before the alternative of presence and absence; being must be conceived of as presence or absence beginning with the possibility of freeplay and not the other way around.” Jacques Derrida, Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (London: Routledge, 1980), 294. 5. Art Spiegelman, Maus (New York: Pantheon, 1991) 12. 6. In Course in General Linguistics, Saussure clarifies that “one characteristic of the symbol is that it is never wholly arbitrary; it is not empty, for there is the rudiment of a natural bond between the signifier and the signified. The symbol of justice, a pair of scales, could not be replaced by just any other symbol, such as a chariot” Ferdinand de Saussure, Course in General Linguistics, trans. Wade Baskin (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966), 68. 7. Alan Moore, “Viewpoint: V for Vendetta and the Rise of Anonymous,” BBC News, May 8, 2010, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16968689. 8. Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V for Vendetta (New York: DC Comics, 2005), 236. 9. Art Spiegelman, Maus (New York: Pantheon, 1991), 157. 10. Ibid., 41. 11. Ibid. 12. Alan Moore and David Lloyd, V for Vendetta (New York: DC Comics, 2005), 28. 13. Ibid., 252.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY Busiek, Kirk, and Alex Ross. Marvels. New York: Marvel, 2012. Derrida, Jacques. Writing and Difference. Translated by Alan Bass. London: Routledge, 1980. Eisner, Will. Comics and Sequential Art. New York: Norton, 1985. Gaiman, Neil. The Sandman. Prelude and Nocturnes. Vol. 1. New York: DC Comics, 1991. Knowles, Christopher. Our Gods Wear Spandex. San Francisco: Weiser Books, 2007. Masamune, Shirow. Ghost in a Shell. Translated by Frederik Schoot and Toren Smith. Vol. 1. Milwaukie, Oregon: Dark Horse Manga, 2004. McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperCollins, 1994. Miller, Frank. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. New York: DC Comics, 2002. Moore, Alan. “Viewpoint: V for Vendetta and the Rise of Anonymous,” BBC News, May 8, 2010, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-16968689. Moore, Alan, Stephen Bissette, and John Totleben. Swamp Thing. Vol. 1. New York: DC Comics, 1987. Moore, Alan, and David Lloyd. V for Vendetta. New York: DC Comics, 2005. Moore, Alan, and Dave Gibbons. Watchmen. New York: DC Comics, 1987. Otomo, Katsuhiro. Akira. Vol. 1. Translated by Yoko Umezawa, Linda York, and Jo Duffy. Milwaukie, Oregon: Dark Horse Manga, 2001. Ovid. Metamorphoses. Translated by Rolfe Humphries. London: John Calder, 1957. Pérez, George. Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals. New York: DC Comics, 2004. Sassurre, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Translated by Wade Baskin. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966. Spiegelman, Art. Maus. New York: Pantheon, 1991. Takahashi, Rumiko. InuYasha. Vol. 1. Translated by Gerard Jones. San Francisco: VIZ Media, 2003. Tsugumi, Ohba, and Takeshi Obata. Death Note. Vol. 1. Translated by Pookie Rolf. San Francisco: VIZ Media, 2005. Ury, Marian, ed. and trans. Tales of Times Now Past. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1979. Waid, Mark, and Alex Ross. Kingdom Come. New York: DC Comics, 1997. White, Mark, ed. Watchman and Philosophy (A Rorschach Test). Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2009. White, Mark, and Robert Arp, eds. Batman and Philosophy: The Dark Knight of the Soul. Blackwell Philosophy and Pop Culture Series. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2008. Wolterbeek, Marc. “Teaching Graphic Novels and Manga at the University.” The International Journal of Comic Art 17, 1 (Spring/Summer 2015): 557–568.

Chapter Five

Meditation Mediating the Writing Process Jillian L. Wenburg

Find a comfortable seat. Breathe deeply as you inhale through the nose and exhale through the mouth. Pay no attention to phone vibrations, email alerts, news updates, coffee shop background music, or the newest earworm song playing on the overhead speakers. Notice the writing prompt. Notice the distractions. Notice sensations of the body. For many students, all they notice is unadulterated fear. Students benefit from mindful meditation practices which facilitate writing ability and assist with daily college living. 1 Meditative practices provide integral tools for the completion of writing projects; incorporating these practices into the classroom can help students overcome struggles with cognizance and facilitate the writing process. Elements of mindful meditation reduce writing process anxiety and allow students the chance to engage with the process, rather than fear it. Benefits of meditation in the classroom as well as specific curricular exercises demonstrate here how more instructors can intervene through mediating the writing process with meditation. Ultimately, this project will ground readers with an understanding of meditation as well as how to apply it specifically for a composition- or writing-based classroom. To engage students with process, which they must learn, will use, and invariably are not that “bad” at, instructors must utilize alternative teaching methods and demonstrate new writing strategies. Key mindfulness tips can help students in pre-writing including how to better engage in peer workshopping, identifying positive and functional writing environments, and how to achieve success over the mind monster of writer’s block. The notion of pre-writing and process dates back to Lucy Calkins’ 1986 work, The Art of 79

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Teaching Writing. 2 While the model suggested here moves to integrate moments, showing students how mindfulness can assist in all aspects of the writing process remains imperative. This also provides students with the understanding that writing an essay is not just a one-step process; it involves reflection, brainstorming, multiple drafts, peer review, analyzing for writing issues, and development of the thought process. Integrating, as well as teaching, mindful meditative techniques remains imperative for successful results. Positive classroom models allow students to practice effectively during writing or study time. Anxiety symptoms manifest as writer’s block; Michael Rose states, “anxious writers often exhibit avoidance of courses and majors involving writing.” 3 However, “blocked writers might be prone to following a rigid set of rules based on their schematic knowledge about writing, such as always writing the introduction first” and other proscriptive rules. 4 Writing is anxiety producing. Writing does not cause the block; it is the block which causes anxiety. Rose argues anxiety comes from the block “‘blocked writers are not always anxious’ and that in many instances, anxiety appears to be the effect a block, not the cause.” 5 Writers fear a variety of things: evaluation, 6 judgment, plagiarism, and more. Thus we, as instructors and mentors, must find ways to help students identify and conquer these blocks. The use of meditation as a writing anxiety/block tool encourages a bridging of Eastern and Western thought to improve problem solving. 7 Mindfulness can be particularly useful in reaching resistant students, however, even those with a regular meditation practice can take value from the parallels between the writing and meditation processes. I have led several campuswide workshops on teaching writing as a meditation process, then integrated this instruction into my composition classrooms. POPULARITY Meditation isn’t just for the hippie, granola-loving yoga teacher. Apps like Buddhify or Get Some Headspace have propelled meditation into the popular culture mainstream. At a Wisdom 2.0 guided meditation retreat in San Francisco, speaker Loïc Le Meur advocated for the Get Some Headspace app, claiming “You don’t have to sit in a lotus position. You just press ‘play’ and chill out.” 8 This is the trend. As David Hochman asserts, branches of the military test Mind Fitness Training while multinational corporations Nike, Target, General Mills, and Aetna financial and insurance company “encourage employees to sit and do nothing, and with classes that show them how.” 9 When I tell students to take a meditative moment in class, instead of “go take a restroom break” a lot of students choose to do just that, meditate, instead of meandering into the hall and playing Pokémon Go.

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The mainstream entry of meditation has not diminished the quality of the meditation; just because the popularity of meditation has increased, does not mean that meditation has lost value or efficacy. “This isn’t the old San Francisco hippie fluff,” Chade-Meng Tan, a veteran Google engineer and implementer of the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institutes, argued. 10 Tan asserts that meditation remains more than just taking a meditative moment, but that these moments can be strategically deployed to achieve success through multiple outlets. Tan’s point proves valid; despite meditation’s commodification, meditation’s quality can be increased. However, in the field of meditation, such as in yoga, effectiveness remains grounded in one’s own personal experience, with leaders encouraging “It’s your journey” or “It’s your meditation.” In essence, a meditation practitioner gets out what one puts in to the process. Thus, the field and study remains somewhat unquantifiable. What would create a successful meditation? The number of people engaging it? The number of people successfully engaging? However, quantifying meditation resolves nothing. Why place meditation into this bound structure? Instead of quantifying the unquantifiable, this chapter invites you to see a way to implement it with your students, see if it sticks, and if not, know that new techniques abound which you can try instead. Many students come to my workshops and mention later that the life skills aspect of the meditation workshop resonates long after the workshop; it allows them to be a better student and human across campus. I have given versions of this workshop to focus on writing anxiety, upper-level master’s degree candidates, and the general student body for school anxiety; all were filled or nearly full classroom classrooms. One session exceeded capacity, forcing students to ironically begin in lotus position on the floor at the beginning of the workshop. What these anecdotal examples show is that the current student demographic shows interest in these type of learning strategies: let’s work with students to utilize these twenty-first-century teaching strategies to capacity. In implementing these teaching strategies, it is imperative to expose students to the concept of mindfulness and meditation in a cohesive and informed manner. Instructors could demonstrate meditation practices in class, guiding students through a metta, or loving-kindness practice. Or, instructors could encourage a reflectiveness component to each essay, allowing for a written meditative practice. Even through the practice of pre-writing, meditation could be brought in. Instructors could take students outside to practice a walking meditation after just receiving the assignment prompt, encouraging students to walk in silence while reflecting, and then assigning a follow up written assignment about the experience. By taking the time to teach various types of meditative practices as they correlate to writing, at best, the instructor has the chance to revolutionize the student’s experience; at worst, it engenders a moment of peacefulness. Students rush and rush more. This

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leads to problems not only in writing, but with total learning comprehension. As Elena Aguilar suggests, “slowing down can lead to great change,” so let us work to extend that gift to students. 11 Whereas most students rush to complete the paper, let us teach and instruct about how to think deeply about the prompt before even setting fingernail to keyboard or pen to paper. Let us allow our students to find ways to complete the assignment, instead of just asking for the expectation of completeness. DEFINITION Mindfulness and meditation binds the thought patterns of many educators and students. Religious! Buddhist! Hippiedippie! Yoga? Dalai Lama? While all these terms might be connected to mindfulness and meditation, they are not the terms that best write the definition. Many students and instructors are ill-informed about meditation and, as a consequence, hesitant to implement these useful techniques. In the workshop example that follows, work to teach those basic elements, such as the importance of finding a comfortable seat, finding the breath, allowing transitory thoughts to pass through, or the importance of reflecting upon the meditative sit. Clearly, confusion abounds, meanwhile students languish from underutilizing tools that could bring much mental sanity as well as boost productivity and success. In the anecdotal studies of my classrooms, I have seen a broad positive shift including improvement in student grades, better understanding of student expectation and goals, and increase in general classroom affability since we have implemented setting intention sessions. Mindfulness and meditation deepen the way in which students reflect upon assignments. George Spencer-Brown, boundary algebraist and Laws of Form author, saw the application of meditation extend to his field of mathematics and science. Spencer-Brown argued: “To arrive at the simplest truth, as Newton knew and practices, requires years of contemplation. Not activity. Not Reasoning. Not calculating. Not busy behavior of any kind. Not reading. Not talking. Not making an effort. Not thinking. Simply bearing in mind what it is one needs to know.” 12 What helps students in writing are not active lessons and busy work; we can fix copy-editing and commas in a five minute editing session after class. What I cannot do as a teacher is provide the student with the idea of what to write about or how to better frame the idea of writing. Since many grammar errors at the college level are individualized, turning class time toward mindful practices around writing and anxiety worked effectively, allowing for best use of precious classroom minutes. Some may resist meditation due to its connection to religion, thus it is important to frame meditation’s context alongside writing appropriately. Can meditation be religious? Certainly. Can it also be anxiety decreasing and

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totally unaffiliated from religion? Yes. Teachers must make that point abundantly clear to students; if not, the baggage students will carry with them into the exercise may transcend into the writing activity and create problems. Stymie this confusion at the pass. Be clear that this is a mindfulness exercise. Just changing the parameters of the conversation from “meditation” to “mindfulness” may help with palatability for the college classroom. As Tobin Hart affirms: Opening the contemplative mind in schools is not a religious issue but a practical epistemic question. . . . Inviting contemplative study simply includes the natural human capacity for knowing through silence, pondering deeply. . . . These approaches cultivate an inner technology of knowing and thereby a technology of learning and pedagogy without any imposition of religious doctrine whatsoever. . . . Opening contemplation can begin with simply appreciating the object, idea, or person before us. This quality of attention moves us emotionally closer to the object of our inquiry. . . . Long dormant in education, the natural capacity for contemplation balances and enriches the analytic. It has the potential to enhance performance, character and the depth of the student’s experience. 13

We have the ability to reach students at this level with the tools to deal with high-stress, high-stakes assignments. These tools can help students as they proceed through the college classroom and emerge successfully with their degrees on the other side of that journey and enter into their real-world employment scenario. APPLICATION Contemplative education has been used across multiple platforms, educational contexts, and modalities. The American Council of Learned Societies proposed a Contemplative Practice Fellowship program in 1997, with the goal to “promote the use of meditation and related discipline in higher education.” 14 After this impetus, the program achieved success in implementing meditative practices in “fields as diverse as medicine, business, psychology, religion, architecture, literature, dance, and music.” 15 What I am suggesting here is not new in its germination. What I hope this work brings is both a justification as well as a delineation of the ways in which it could be executed in the classroom. When implementing these practices, it is useful to consider other applications of classroom mindfulness. A helpful definition derives out of Olen Gunnlaugson’s work, where he cites Naropa University’s approach to contemplative education: Contemplative education is learning infused with the experience of awareness, insight and compassion for oneself and others, honed through the practice of

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Jillian L. Wenburg sitting meditation and other contemplative disciplines. The rigor of these disciplined practices prepared the mind to process information in new and perhaps unexpected ways. Contemplative practice unlocks the power of deep inward observation, enabling the learner to tap into a wellspring of knowledge about the nature of mind, self and other that has been largely overlooked by traditional, Western-oriented liberal education. 16

The Naropa institution’s mindfulness focus invites applications across disciplines. Teachers without institutional dedication, such as in the Naropa model, also utilize meditation with degrees of success; there are countless examples of execution across mathematics, writing, and other subjects. One practice from Richard Brady, mathematics instructor for Sidwell Friends School in Washington, DC, encouraged his entire group of mathematics students to read Chung Tzu and Thich Nhat Hanh. 17 Brady, who studied with Hanh, found the act of centering with students using a ringong (mindfulness bell) allowed students to respond with a pause to reflect before commenting. 18 Before quizzes, Brady invites the class to meditate and also passes out “breathe cards,” a tangible device to remind students to find themselves in the moment and to stop, pause, and breathe. 19 Brady even brings writing of the free-writing nature. Brady’s brilliance lies within his setting up of the context of mindfulness. The students read and understand the goal of meditation, reminded through regular class practices, and encouraged through breathe cards. Integrating these tools into a writing classroom would be seamless. Consistent application serves to show students how the practice can be implemented throughout their education and life. Brady provides a Hahn metaphor to best illustrate the usefulness of these practice. The complete lesson from Hahn derives from his Miracle of Mindfulness with this lesson: [Hahn states] While washing the dishes one should only be washing the dishes, which means that while washing the dishes, one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes. At first glance, that might seem a little silly: why put so much stress on a simple thing? But that’s precisely the point. The fact that I am standing there and washing these bowls is a wondrous reality. I’m being completely myself, following my breath, conscious of my presence, and conscious of my thoughts and actions. There’s no way I can be tossed around mindlessly like a bottle slapped here and there on the waves. While washing dishes, you might be thinking about the tea you’re going to drink afterwards, and so try to get them out of the way as quickly as possible in order to sit and drink tea. But that means that you are incapable of living during the time you are washing the dishes. When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must be the most important thing in your life. Just as when you’re drinking tea, drinking tea must be the most important thing in your life. 20

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Brady teaches them, through Hahn, to do the homework “in order to do their homework, not to get it finished, and they understand.” 21 We must allow students to understand the function of the meditation and writing work and be reflective upon it while engaging with it. This helps students then begin to engage with others in the same deep way. Brady encourages Mary Rose O’Reilly’s concept of “Deep listening.” 22 He explains, “Deep listening is a most important useful form of contemplation. As a way of beginning to teach students to listen deeply, I have asked them to pair up after writing responses,” sharing after one another reads their work in its entirety. 23 As writing instructors, we can use the same lesson, applying it to a peer review or in-class written assignment asking students to deeply listen. EXECUTION Brady treats deep listening sort of like an Addiction Anonymous meeting; he describes “no questions are asked; no reactions to what’s been shared are given.” 24 This involves a long exposition from one student while others listen before discussing. Be clear in intent when assigning a deep listening exercise. Students should not confuse deep sharing with bombastic longwindedness. Many of my college composition students are fine communicators; to that end, they can wax poetic for hours, sometimes, without ever articulating a consequential point. Mindful sharing forces them to think about what they are doing and why they are doing it. Knowing that a deeply engaged listener hears helps the sharing student stay grounded in disciplinary work and to convey an argument with articulate precision. In executing a mindfulness-based curriculum, develop context for the students. Examine the numerous resources available digitally when implementing contemplative education, particularly the Mindfulness in Education Network, a network of educators and interested meditation practioners. Gunnlaughson suggests, as does Brady, setting context or a guided visualization “informed by Nhat Hahn’s writings.” 25 While I appreciate the devotion to Hahn, I utilize a variety of readings to introduce contemplative thinking. If we are trying to discourage the students’ association of meditation to just a practice for a monk folded into lotus position, why is that all it seems students in mindfulness programs read? Why not bring in the idea to meditate upon a current news event, a reflection upon a fortune cookie, or a mindful moment with the opening lines to a recipe. It isn’t the work that students are reading that makes them mindful; it is the practice itself which is the goal. Teach students mindfulness skills and practice, rather than just assigning a passel of mindfulness readings. There are caveats to this approach. It is important that students understand the reflectiveness aspect of the mindful approach. After implementing mind-

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fulness exercises, I found students seem excited to look at writing as an interior thinking activity, rather than just a complex written coding activity. However, there was risk that students could become so reflexive that they ceased to do deep thinking. When they were forced to become analytical about their writing, they really struggled with the information that the reflective meditation demonstrated. Society encourages these young adults to find their voices and unlock their true selves. However, unbridled free thinking is the last thing I want to read as a college composition instructor, and that is what some students initially thought I wanted to see in post-mindful exercises. Let me be clear: students already know how to express themselves. Youth have been encouraged since day one to find themselves, explore themselves, color with the shade they are feeling, let the “real me” out, ad nauseam since they picked up a pen or laptop. Now, I am asking them to do an intrinsically more difficult thing: To deeply think about their topic of choice, reflect carefully upon it, and write a developed analysis, reflection, or argument. So, why should instructors focus on mindfulness and meditation? These strategies force students to get into their head enough to think about what they are saying without just trying to parrot or mimic back. We don’t want students to become like The Big Bang Theory’s Leonard when he attempts to love Cornhusker football in a bid to win Penny’s favor. As the episode showcases, mimesis usually doesn’t always work well; we want our student to move beyond, as Sheldon explains, mimesis is, “An action in which the mimic takes on the properties of a specific object or organism.” 26 We want our students to do more than mimic; we want to demonstrate competent understanding and awareness of issues and the thought process to determine world complexities. While it is important to ground how and why meditation works (and I will do cursorily here for the necessary buy-in to implement these practices), more significant is that this is a growing trend across numerous disciplines. A quick examination of the books surrounding “contemplative education practices” on Amazon reflects this trend. Contemplative education practices are inherently useful, allowing thinkers and student scholars to begin to implement the reflective practices needed in order to evaluate and improve upon their own work. However, much scholarly work stops here without providing examples and curricular materials. Let’s talk about specific applications and share our practices and tools in order to explore varied approaches. An activity as vacuous as writing brings many preconceived notions and stereotypes of “am I doing it right?” and, much more likely, “I am doing this so wrong.” So, if planning to merge both writing AND meditation together, it is best to have a clearly identified plan of attack to avoid that undergraduate or graduate student to float aimlessly. As a yoga instructor, I establish grounding as one of the first acts of every single practice. With meditation

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and writing, too, grounding remains pivotal. We must allow students to find themselves where they are at in both writing and meditation, and then allow them the opportunity to implement what practices work for them, and, as Dharma leaders at many Buddhist meditation centers say, “leave the rest.” The first way in which this work may provide applicability for instructors is that it contextualizes the way in which writing is meditation and meditation can be writing. In my work with students, I see them begin to become empowered as they center themselves as meditative writers rather than just writers. Through student affirmation of stating, “I am a contemplative writer” or “I practice meditation writing,” the student becomes grounded with a sense of authority, competence, and importance. It dispenses with the notion that this writing functions just as an easy throwaway assignment. Writing hearkens from the deep recesses of the mind and the heart. Thus, will a “contemplative writing” student elect to choose the ever ubiquitous essay “What has recreational pot done for Colorado?” Probably, yes, I will forever get those essays as a Colorado higher education instructor. However, students seem to find empowerment as they view themselves as mindful writers. They aren’t just writing a paper. They are thinking, evaluating, weighting, considering, and mindful—they are present. Secondly, I seek to compare the way that one sits to meditate is the way one sits to write. Thus, students don’t just see themselves as meditators; I teach them how to meditate and how each time one sits down to type, they are, in essence, engaging in a meditation. The curricular examples that follow explore how taking one’s seat to write is comparative to taking one’s seat to meditation. Work not just for a mindfulness class, but a mindfulness program. At my small institution there are over forty people on a listserv that connects educators interested in mindful contemplative education practice. Facilitate instructor collaboration. Envision this moving beyond the classroom and to the wider campus. Some suggestions for implementation include: 1. Introduce a mindfulness stress release workshop voluntary for students to attend. 2. Introduce a mindfulness/writing class workshop. 3. Establish a collaborative brown-bag lunch session for other educators. Educators can collaborate with students to share their experience with contemplative education. 4. Create a study club around Mindfulness in Education Network (MiEN) for colleagues. Each week or month, rotate as another colleague shares an article summary from the network or other source. 5. Integrate mindfulness activities into daily classroom work. 6. Workshops are a low-stakes way to start grounding your contemplative practice.

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7. Some of you may very new to this. Become educated about mindfulness. Read mindfulness texts. Create a book list. Attend a yoga class. Listen to mindful meditations. 8. Invite students to go to a yoga class. If you are near a yoga teacher training school, yoga teachers need practice hours and might be willing to provide pro bono classes. Contact yoga instructors in your area to donate their time. Visit a local Dharma center and talk with them about workshops or meetings your students might be able to attend. 9. Craft your writing prompts with purpose. Give your students rigorous prompts and allow them to rise to the occasion. Challenge your students. LECTURES The lecture outlines for student workshops are embedded with Open Mind (OM) assignments. Instructors could also use these OM assignments in the classroom. The first lesson teaches both meditation skills as well as how to implement meditation into writing. The second lecture teaches meditation as an anxiety reducing skill for school. Ultimately, see the way in which mindfulness and meditation can help your students in their writing assignments, take what works for you and, as those Dharma leaders say, leave the rest. Lecture 1—Meditation and Writing Workshop One Outline Materials Meditation Worksheet below for note taking. Yoga block. Lecture This workshop equates the writing process to the meditation process. Walk students through the elements of writing, while educating them about the meditative process. This lecture will demonstrate to students how writing is a meditation and how to meditate. The Open Mind (OM) assignments included can be incorporated into the lecture or assigned for homework. Finding a Comfortable Seat Begin by asking students to take a comfortable seat. Give students a moment to get settled in a chair or on the floor. After a few minutes, I demonstrate how ease in sitting on the floor can occur with a simple yoga block placed under the seat. I share how I couldn’t sit in meditation pose comfortably on the floor until I used a yoga block beneath my seat. (Demonstrate). Three simple inches of foam core can be the difference between a one minute and

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one hour sit for me. I extend the metaphor to writing. Without finding a comfortable seat, students won’t be able to write. I encourage students to find the best equipment to write. Perhaps they require a place, seat, chair, snacks, or sound. Turn off wireless or set boundaries for how often to check email or missed phone calls. Better yet, shut off wireless and turn off the phone. Ask students where they work best. Show students how altering environmental elements can allow them to find a “comfortable seat” in order to encourage ideas. Equipment proves essential for best meditation and writing scenarios. Talk through locations and elements that allow them steadiness and ease (sthira and sukha) in their work. Consider the best time to write. At a higherlevel thinking time, do high-level tasks, at lower-level times, works on the works cited and format. OM Assignment Take fifteen to thirty minutes to review the assignment prompt and start writing. Write anything that comes to mind, including bullet points, questions, or possible sources to check. Make sure to consider arguments and counter-arguments. Take a minute to list things to complete the assignment. When time is up, review the initial response. Is there an argument there? If so, there is your thesis. If not, turn to the questions. Use these as research prompts to help formulate a position. Look up the sources of interest listed before writing, since they will usually help with specificity. This initial meditation will allow you to have goals when you sit down and write the full project. Set Your Intention An important part of meditation and writing is an intention. I discuss the importance of goals, even small ones, and provide tentative detailed research schedules. In meditation, it is important to set an intention for the practice. Similarly, ask students to set an intention when they sit down to write. A good time to implement this occurs at peer-review sessions. When we peer review, I share how not all writing is writing. It happens when walking or in the moment before sleep. Ask students to evaluate why they are struggling or when they are thinking about their paper? That could be a point of access for the paper. As Tina Welling notes: Many of us consider negative emotions to be not useful but rather waste material from unpleasant events we prefer to forget. We dump this waste in the place we don’t understand and don’t value. . . . We humans dump our wastewhat we don’t know what to do with—into our unconscious, where our bodies, instead of our consciousness, express it. 27

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I share this quote with students so they understand that setting an intention is pivotal for writing work. Focus. Let self-limiting excuses go. Instead of complaining about the experience. Embrace it and appreciate the moment for the teaching opportunity it is. The struggle could be the germination of a great idea to come. OM Assignment (Before a class-wide peer review) Writers: At the top of your draft, write down the top three items you need help with in your paper. Reviewers: Spend time focusing on what the intent of the peer asked. To clarify: don’t give grammar feedback if your writer didn’t ask for that. The intention goal should focus the review. Bonus round: Write down what you offer in a peerreview session on the top of a scratch piece of paper. When you get into small groups, share with your peers what you can offer the reviewee. If you are a strong content specialist, offer those skills to your team. Own the knowledge and skillset you have honed in the classroom. Drishti Gaze The Drishti gaze is a concept in meditation or yoga, where a meditator finds a focus point several feet in front of the eyes. Drishti is a still, forward gaze that allows you to dissipate distraction. Similar to meditation, writing students need to allow distractions to filter away to find the best writing space. I see the Drishti concept as an apropos metaphor for focusing review sessions. Instead of reviewing for all problems on a first read through, look for one element of style—Drishti focus. Review the entire paper just for overuse of adverbial phrases. Then, examine for active verbs. Next, look for strong subjects, and so on. One item per pass. OM Assignment Hand out a style worksheet, grammar concentration worksheet, or the assignment rubric. Ask students to evaluate one paragraph for one element; apply the Drishti gaze concept, extreme focus. Then move on to the next style point. Work through only one paragraph with this kind of specific focus. Show students how precision focus can help. I also will do this OM assignment with the whole class. In a peer-review session, we’ll pass papers and look for one element through the whole paper. Then we’ll pass again and look for another element. This prevents the “editing only” peer-review session, gets a number of different eyes on one paper, and also exposes students to many different approaches to the assignment. It also allows the instructor to focus what Drishti moments to focus on, including more content-based review items, rather than just grammar.

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Ujjayi Breath Breathe. Focus. Let external thoughts go. The breath remains a foundational element in meditation and is foundation for writing students to find as well. One specific breathing practice is called the Ujjayi, or victorious breath. This breath invites a wave-like ocean breath that allows practitioners to find empowerment and focus. Ask students to place their tongue on the roof of their mouth, inhale through the nose, and exhale leaving the tongue at the roof of the mouth so the air swirls around the back of the throat, making what most yoga instructors call “a Darth Vader–like sound” while air circulates around the epiglottis. Breathing in this way can center and focus the mind. OM Assignment In the middle of your work, stop and engage the breath. Move through ten rounds of Ujjayi breaths. Stop and think for a moment. Sometimes we steamroll through an assignment. Stop. Take a moment. Write a reflective paragraph evaluating your progress to date. Discuss challenges or generate recommendations to yourself as you proceed. Give yourself space to find the growth in your writing and to observe, recognize, and honor it as it is happening. Meditation/Practice/Focus The last component of meditation is the actual meditation. Some people dread meditation sits when they know they are anxious or worry they don’t have time to practice. They realize they simply just to have to do it. The same happens with writing. Students dread and complain, but know ultimately, it is rear-in-seat time that gets it done. Suggest to students, to write best, just as in meditation, get the environment set. Then, recognize extra assistance may be required. Sometimes, meditation practitioners will study with great masters, take workshops, or need to make accommodations to enter into the practice. Your writer, too, might need to have permission to get help. Invite students to own any limitation that they might have. If students feel comfortable sharing, consider as a class how to troubleshoot the situation. Other conversations could happen privately in office hours. Perhaps, for example, one of your students struggles with a learning disability that prevents him from thinking and composing at the same time. When talking with that student, encourage him to visit the campus Accommodations Office. You can help him to find tools that help. For that student, perhaps writing on a screen that has a sepia background and using Dragon dictation software enables him to find a better flow as he composes. This is one very particular example, but showcase to students the wide variety of sources available to them to help. Encourage them to avail themselves of local writing programs

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and writing centers. Tell them about workshops. Host additional workshops. Mainly, share with them to ask for help, ask for clarity, and ask for understanding. I also suggest starting early, just like my meditation practice. If you practice meditation first thing in the morning and complete your practice, it can start the day centered. Similar to writing, the earlier writers start a project, usually the better the result. These suggestions about practice and focus are centered around ownership and control of when working and what the output is. These types of simple suggestions put students in the control center of the command module that is their brain. These suggestions can help ease the mind monster of writer’s block. OM Assignment After students are in the midst of writing their draft and after some good initial brainstorming sessions, share with students a Pico Iyer quote, “The very act of putting [words] down—getting them out of the beehive of the head and onto the objective reality of paper—is a form of clarification.” 28 Assignment: Reflect about what Pico Iyer said. You’ve already done the hard part: the thinking. What you have left to do is just clarifying those thoughts so that other people can understand it. Engage in a coffee klatsch session: Take ten minutes to think about your paper and what you hope to achieve in it and how you hope to do it. In groups of four, share your work as a discussion. Work on articulating your language and discussion points so that others can follow. While sharing, other group members should write down what they hear the speaker saying. When the speaker has finished, they can collate those notes and see what the listeners heard. Even though the speaker might have thought a point was conveyed, perhaps it was not effectively communicated. Or, perhaps a point was conveyed that was not the writer’s intent. This type of clarification exercise helps students learn how to communicate about their work more effectively. Now, encourage the students to begin to write a first draft based on the feedback and initial brainstorming they have done. A secondary OM assignment to address this area of the discussion walks students through a brief, five-minute meditation. This may be some students’ first time meditating, so take time to help them find comfort in a seated floor or chair position. Dim the lights. Then, invite the students to participate in a meditation moment with you. Try some iteration of the following: Take a deep breath in until the air pushes against the lower pelvis, fully filling the belly and then exhale with a large breath, open mouth sigh. Inhale again deeply and exhale again two more times. Arrive in your body. Notice the sensations of the body. Tension. Anxiety. Breathe some space into that anxiety. Imagine the anxiety as a hard rock in the pit of your stomach. Picture

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the color of your anxiety. Notice the shape. As you breathe, envision each breathe transforming that rock into a darker color; perhaps it moves from blue to indigo to red to black, until it is black as the darkest meteorite or coal thrown aside from the steam engine train. Picture the anxiety rock. Now imagine it begin to crumble, as you realize it is just dark ash. Imagine a light dusting of air that comes through and blows a few specs away making the space smaller and smaller. Imagine the mountain slowly getting blown away until all that remains is the space where the anxiety was. Picture the largeness of that space. Imagine an idea growing there and filling that space with positive energy. . . . Take a moment to breathe into that space. Not wanting to change or alter it, but to breathe deeply into and feel the feelings that come up for you. Accepting. Know that this meeting didn’t allow you to come to this place of calm. You were the one to place yourself here. You can return to this space any time you feel anxious. Calming the body and the mind allow you to observe and make reflections with a clear head uncluttered by preconceptions and distractions. Your five minutes of peaceful relaxation start now. Enjoy the space. Note to Instructors Read each sentence slowly and give about a thirty- to sixty-second pause between each instruction. At the end of the meditation, give students about four to eight minutes of total silence before gently bringing them out of the meditation, perhaps with a ringing of a bell or with a few sentences to bring them back to their body and space. You may close the lecture with the meditation or with any of the OM assignments. I like to end the workshop with a meditation, but if this was a class situation, have used the writing exercises to help launch students into a writing workshop time. Writing Workshop 1 Handout Writing Anxiety and Initial Writing Process—Reduce anxiety and engage with the writing process rather than fearing it. We will practice mindfulness tips to help in pre-writing, and how to achieve success over the mind monster of writer’s block. We’ll end class with a meditation and visualization that is sure to help ease some anxiety and help you conquer your final writing project. Session Leader: [information here] Meditation Outline— 1. Find a comfortable seat. 2. Set your intention.

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3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

Drishti. Focus. Meditation. Reflection. Awareness.

Workshop Two—Mindful Meditation: Meditation for Anxiety Materials If you wanted to have an extended yoga session, invite students to bring yoga mats. This would not be essential to the workshop, however. Provide outline handout (below) for note-taking, adding space for students to comment. Provide yoga pose description handout (also below). If you are not trained to teach yoga, I highly recommend inviting a yoga instructor to come help teach students how to safely practice these poses. Lecture This lecture begins with a discussion of how meditation and mindfulness works. I set the stage for buy-in from students by discussing current meditation research that demonstrates simple quiet yields productivity. Deepak Chopra’s meditation research will provide a good resource to garner materials that best suit your students. Talk about sleep, eating, massage, exercise and general self-care. It can be helpful to share with students that chronic stress can yield multiple health problems. Discuss racing thoughts that won’t go away. Meditation helps to center and ground. Discuss with students how meditation reduces anxiety. OM Breath 1—The Stimulating Breath This is adapted from yoga breathing to raise energy and awareness. Inhale and exhale quickly through the nose. Relax the mouth and the lines around the mouth. Keep breaths in and out equal in duration. This should be a LOUD exercise. Work to have around three cycles per second. For novice practitioners, try a ten- to fifteen-second practice. Have students use this breath for study energy. OM Breath 2—Relaxing Breath or 4-7-8 Breath Place your tongue lightly behind the front two teeth. Inhale and exhale through the mouth. Exhale out completely. Inhale for around four seconds through the nose. Hold for seven seconds, and then exhale out noisily through the mouth for eight seconds. Repeat four cycles. This is useful for relaxing before working on a paper or beginning to study.

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OM Breath 3—Breath Counting Simply breath and count. Inhale and exhale. Count one. Inhale and exhale. Count two. Try this for one to ten minutes to center and calm the mind. OM Breath 4—Ujjayi or Victorious Breath This breath invites a wave-like ocean breath that allows practitioners to find empowerment and focus. Ask students to place their tongue on the roof of their mouth, inhale through the nose, and exhale leaving the tongue at the roof of the mouth so the air swirls around the back of the throat, making what most yoga instructors call “a Darth Vader–like sound” while air circulates around the epiglottis. Breathing in this way can center and focus the mind. OM Breath 5 Relaxing on your floor on your bellies, place your hands with index and thumbs pointing together creating a diamond shape. Inhale deeply through the nose noticing the diaphragm rise. Hold all the air in your belly for about twice the time of the inhale. Exhale taking twice as long to release air out of the mouth. This is similar to the relaxing breath. Placing the body in this configuration can help with relaxation and focus. There are other breathing exercises you can share with the students for energy, focus, and calm including alternate nostril breathing or kapalabhati breathing. This is the yogic practice of pranayama or breath. Movement The next component of the lecture discusses how movement of any type can help with anxiety. I like to show The Big Bang Theory clip from “The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplification” when Sheldon and Penny start to run. 29 This particular clip can show students it is ok if they are new to yoga or stretching or running, the idea is just getting out there and trying! The goal of movement is that it can release that pent-up anxiety. Running, tai chi, yoga, even mindful walking can all help with this. OM Movement 1—Mindful Walking Have the students take a five-minute stroll around the department building or around the building outside. No phones! Then ask them to consider the following: While walking, pay attention to how the foot strikes the pavement, any tension in the body, the way the arms sway, the inhale and exhale of the breath. While walking, if you find the mind start to wander, simply say “wandering,” and then return back to what the body and breath is doing. This

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activity can show students how staying focused on one activity at hand while engaging with it, they can clear the mind. OM Movement 2 Show students yoga poses that help with anxiety. These poses can be projected on a screen. I provide students with a handout with these yoga poses drawn out or described (see below) so they can pull that out and practice when needed. Show the students each one of the following poses or have a yoga instructor come and demonstrate. Then have the students practice with the poses so they become safe to practice them at home. The following poses are helpful in easing anxiety: eagle, headstand (only practice if advanced practitioner), child’s pose, savasana, half moon, supported shoulderstand, tree, legs up the wall/vipariti, forward fold or uttanasana, or fish pose. Meditation I share with students the way in which meditation can help ease anxiety. The previous workshop lecture can discuss some elements of meditation. I opened my workshop with Lisa Simpson’s meditation experience from “Make Room for Lisa,” as she and Homer enter a sensory deprivation tank. 30 There are other pop culture examples that can show how pervasive meditation is and might lead the way to encouraging your students to practice. OM Meditation I invite students to try the practice of meditation with me. I demonstrate proper body position and alignment and discuss the breath. Then I invite students to participate in one of the three following meditations: white light, body scan, or Tonglen. If you are unfamiliar with these meditations, I encourage you to access online guided meditations that will lead students through this or invite a meditation practitioner in to lead this portion of the workshop. • White light: In this meditation, invite students to envision a bright white light of healing energy pouring through the crown of the head and then radiating through each body part soothing and relaxing it. • Body scan: Moving from the crown of the head, through the torso, each arm and digit, the pelvis, each leg, invite students to relax each part of the body. • Tonglen: This meditation invites students to think about the giving and receiving of energy. On the in breath, invite the practitioners to take in the negative energy from their world and life and exhale out positive thoughts, compassion, and healing energy. This meditation can provide a sense of control.

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While meditating encourages students to breathe deeply, check in with the body, scan the body for areas of tightness, and then work to relax and move some space around those areas. Observe the breath and allow the mind to open. When the time to meditate is complete, prepare to finish and slowly open back to the present world. Last Tips: Meditation Hacks and Links Most students also like to know if there is a quick fix, so in this lecture, I provide them some simple “hacks” to also allow for some anxiety ease. 1. Take a walk, dance, run, move. 2. Animal time, your own, pet store, humane society, volunteer. 3. Count 1. Count 30. Count 60. Count 90. Count 180 seconds. Simply being in the present moment with nothing to do can ease anxiety. 4. Consider falling leaves and lava lamps. Find something to allow you to space out for a while. There are apps that can help with this, but simply finding a whooshing river, melting candle, or other calming visual sight can help with anxiety. 5. Write one page. With a writing stick (a pen! Not a computer!). Slowing down and writing things out can help. 6. Take a drive or a ride. 7. Say thank you to someone (reminiscent of the Tonglen breathing exercise). 8. Watch guided meditation. Some suggestions include: a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

UCLA Mindfulness Research Center Chopra Center for Wellbeing Podcast Spotify YouTube search Guided Meditations AudioDharma Mindfulness in Education Network Phone Apps—Buddhify

Practice In my workshop, I ask students to practice the raisin meditation, which is derived from The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness. 31 I bring in a raisin or some other small food item and pass one around to each student. I used blueberries in my class.

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OM Hack Assignment First, hold the blueberry in your hand. Notice the weight of the berry. See the berry. Notice the color and tautness of the skin. Are there any blemishes or discolorations? Are there variations in color? Touch the berry. Does the berry rebound back when you push against it? Smile at the berry. Let it tell you its story back. Think about where it grew and what it grew from and what it took to get that berry to your hand. Place the berry gently in the mouth, but don’t chew yet. Let it find its way around the mouth. Notice where you move the berry to in your mouth. Take a moment before gently biting down on the berry. What is the taste? Where do you taste it on your tongue? What are they flavors? Do they remind you of other flavors? Where else have you tasted this taste? Swallow the berry. Notice the lingering taste in your mouth. Feel the berry move slowly down the esophagus. Imagine it moving into the belly and the body getting sustenance and nourishment from this item from nature. Take a moment to follow up, by noticing any feeling or tastes or any last sensations. This kind of deep practice will allow you to find focus in the activity that you are doing and to put some of those anxious thoughts aside. Lecture Two—Mindfulness and Meditation: Study/Paper Anxiety Workshop Handout #1 Session Leader: [information here] 1. Background 2. Breathe a. Bellows Breath b. 4-7-8 breath—Relaxing Breath c. Breath Counting 3. Movement a. Releases anxiety b. Walking/running/tai chi/yoga/any movement c. Yoga poses for anxiety • eagle (garudasana), child’s pose (balasana), resting pose (savasana), half moon and revolved half moon (chandrasana and ardha chandrasana), supported shoulder, tree (vrkasana), legs up wall/vipariti, forward fold (uttanasana), fish pose, headstand (salambasana sirsasana)—only if experienced practitioner

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4. Meditation a. b. c. d. e.

Body position and alignment Breath White light meditation Body scan meditation Tonglen meditation

5. How to do it? a. b. c. d. e. f. g.

Get started Breathe deeply Check in Body scan Observe the breath Allow mind to be free Prepare to finish; slowly open

6. Meditation Hacks and Links a. b. c. d. e. f. g. h. i.

Count Take a walk, dance, run, move, watch Bob Ross paint Animal time, pet store, humane society, volunteer 1. 30. 60. 90. 180 seconds. Falling leaves and lava lamps Write one page. With a writing stick. Drive/ride Say thank you Watch guided meditation • • • • • • •

7. Practice

UCLA Mindfulness Research Center The Chopra Center for Wellbeing Podcast 20+ Hour Playlist on Spotify YouTube AudioDharma Mindfulness in Education Network Phone Apps—Buddhify

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Lecture Two: Worksheet #2 Yoga Pose Descriptions Yoga Postures for Relaxation/Anxiety Reduction Only practice if you are comfortable with practicing and if you have a trained practitioner to guide you through these postures safely. • Savasana; corpse pose: Lie flat on the back, feet gently pointed out with arms resting comfortably at either side of the chest. Palms can face up or down. • Garudasana; eagle pose: Extend both arms overhead. Release the arms and swing one arm underneath the other so that the crook of one elbow rests in the crook of the opposite elbow. (Start with the right arm under first, then in the second series, place the left arm on the bottom.) Draw the palms back so that the palms of each hand are facing one another. Work to place both palms together. If this is uncomfortable, simply wrap the shoulders with the opposite hand. At the same time, draw the leg up (start with the right leg up first; when you switch arms so that the left arm is on the bottom, draw the left leg up). Tap the right leg to the outside edge of the stable left foot. If you are able, you can wrap the right leg all the way around the left leg. Hold the pose, sinking into the stable leg and breathe. Switch sides. • Balasana; child’s pose: Come to a seated pose on the knees with knees slightly apart. Allow the crown of the head to come down to rest on the mat. Place the hands above the head relaxed on the floor or gently rest the arms alongside the legs. • Vipariti; legs up the wall pose: Lie flat on the back. Extend the legs and arms straight into the air. This pose can also be practiced against a wall for additional support without arm extension. • Ardha chandrasana; half moon: From a standing position, extend both arms straight into the air. Launch the right leg forward and come to balance on the right leg with the left leg extending straight back. Allow the right arm to come to rest on the mat or onto a block. Extend the left arm straight into the air. Switch and do the same movements on the opposite side. • Uttanasana; forward fold: From a standing position bend at the waist and allow the arms to dangle toward the floor. Bend the knees gently if there are lower back issues or pain. Allow the arms to dangle or box the elbows or ragdoll the arms and gently swing side to side. • Matsasana; fish pose: Lay flat on the back with legs extending straight out and the weight of the upper body on the elbows. Allow the crown of the head to gently arc back and touch the mat as the chest shoots skyward. Avoid this pose if there are any neck and spine issues.

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• Sarvangasana; shoulderstand: Lie flat on the back. Contract the lower abdominals and push the legs up coming to rest most of the body weight on the upper and midback. Place the hands fingertips up at the base of the spine for support. Don’t place the legs straight in the air; keep a slight bend in the hips so feet and legs point backward rather than straight up and down, thus protecting the cervical spine. Never turn the head in this pose. Do not do the pose if there are neck issues. • Vrksasana; tree pose: Draw the right leg up and touch the toe to the inner left foot, the calf, or the upper thigh. Draw the hands to heart center or extend straight into the air, emulating tree branches. Switch sides. CONCLUSION Implementation of these practices prove easy to incorporate into the classroom, a workshop, or through individual student workshops. Students can begin to utilize these practices to better understand the pre-writing process and think deeper about their subject matter. In our fast-paced world, it also provides students with the permission to take the time to think about their work’s contribution and how it operates within the context of the concepts they are thinking about. Further, it provides students with a toolkit of thinking practices that can be implemented not only in the classroom but also in their day-to-day lives. Teaching contemplative meditation practices allows the instructor to become more than just a writing instructor, perhaps taking on the role of a life coach and mentor. The classroom remains more than just a lesson or hoop that students need to jump through, it is an opportunity for students to practice with the real world problems they will encounter in their senior year, in five, or in twenty-five years. Remain invested in applying these metacognitive skills to your own teaching practices; think about how the activity works, how it functions, and how it can contribute to students’ futures. Staying true to the meditative spirit, also remember to breathe, and allow yourself permission to fail, learn, and grow as an instructor through the utilization of new strategies and practices. NOTES 1. See Paul Grossman, Ludger Niemann, Stefan Schmidt, and Harald Walach, “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Health Benefits: A Meta-Analysis,” Journal of Psychosomatic Research 57(1) (2004): 35–43, accessed April 12, 2016, http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia. edu.documents/30863901/MBSRMAJPR2004.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ56TQJRTWSM TNPEA&Expires=1475685945&Signature=6YqavVvDsGKj0gsb3fdZlybPlSw%3D& response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DMindfulness-based_stress_ reduction_and_h.pdf; Leonard L. Riskin, “The Contemplative Lawyer: On the Potential Contributions of Mindfulness Meditation to Law Students, Lawyers, and Their Clients,” Harvard Negotiation Law Review 7 (2002): 1–67, accessed October 4, 2016, http://scholarship.law.ufl.

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edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1436&context=facultypub; and Marc B. Schure, John Christopher, and Suzanne Christopher, “Mind-Body Medicine and the Art of Self-Care: Teaching Mindfulness to Counseling Students through Yoga, Meditation, and Qigong,” Journal of Counseling and Development: JCD 86(1) (2008): 47, accessed March 16, 2016, https://www. researchgate.net/profile/John_Christopher5/publication/263063893_Mind-Body_Medicine_ and_the_Art_of_Self-Care_Teaching_Mindfulness_to_Counseling_Students_Through_Yoga_ Meditation_and_Qigong/links/55a2bb8408aec9ca1e64fcb4.pdf. 2. The Art of Teaching Writing (Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1986). 3. Mike Rose, Writer’s Block: The Cognitive Dimension (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984), 4. 4. Quoted in Craig Wynne, Yuh-Jen Guo, and Shu-Ching Wang, “Writing Anxiety Groups: A Creative Approach for Graduate Students,” Journal of Creativity in Mental Health 9(3) (September 25, 2014): 367, accessed March 15, 2015, doi: 10.1080/ 15401383.2014.902343. 5. Quoted in Wynne et al., “Writing,” 367. 6. Wynne et al., “Writing,” 368. 7. Jared T. Ramsburg, “Meditation in the Higher-Education Classroom: Meditation Training Improves Student Knowledge Retention during Lectures,” Mindfulness 5(4) (August 2014): 441, doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2015.09.001. 8. David Hochman, “Mindfulness: Getting Its Share of Attention,” New York Times, November 1, 2013, accessed March 14, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/fashion/ mindfulness-and-meditation-are-capturing-attention.html?_r=0. 9. Ibid. 10. Ibid. 11. Elena Aguilar, “Teachers: How Slowing Down Can Lead to Great Change,” Edutopia, December 11, 2013, accessed March 14, 2015, http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teachers-slowingdown-lead-to-change-elena-aguilar. 12. George Spencer-Brown, Laws of Form (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979), 110. 13. Tobin Hart, “Opening the Contemplative Mind in the Classroom,” Journal of Transformative Education 2(1) (January 2004): 29–30, 32, 43, accessed June 12, 2016, doi: 10.1177/ 1541344603259311. 14. Ed Sarath, “Meditation in Higher Education: The Next Wave?,” Innovative Higher Education 27(4) (2003): 215, accessed October 8, 2016, https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/ bitstream/handle/2027.42/44536/10755_2004_Article_464855.pdf;seq. 15. Sarath, “Meditation,” 215. 16. Olen Gunnlaugson, “Establishing Second-Person Forms of Contemplative Education: An Inquiry into Four Conceptions of Intersubjectivity,” Integral Review 5(1) (June 2009): 26, accessed March 15, 2016, http://www.integralreview.org/documents/Gunnlaugson,%20 Intersubjectivity%20Vol.%205,%20No.%201.pdf. 17. Richard Brady, “Learning to Stop, Stopping to Learn: Discovering the Contemplative Dimension in Education,” Journal of Transformative Education 5(4) (2007): 3–4, accessed April 13, 2015, http://www.mindingyourlife.net/articles/learning.pdf. 18. Ibid., 4. 19. Ibid., 5. 20. Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Mediation, trans. Mobi Ho (Boston: Beacon Press, 1979), accessed June 15, 2016, http:// terebess.hu/zen/mesterek/Thich%20Nhat%20Hanh%20-%20The%20Miracle%20of%20 Mindfulness.pdf, 4–5. 21. Brady “Learning,” 12. 22. Quoted in Brady, “Learning,” 13. 23. Brady, “Learning,” 13. 24. Ibid., 14. 25. Gunnlaughson, “Establishing,” 33. 26. The Big Bang Theory, “The Cornhusker Vortex,” TBS video, 1:34, November 2, 2009, http://www.tbs.com/videos/the-big-bang-theory/season-3/episode-6/the-cornhusker-vortex. html (accessed July 15, 2016).

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27. Tina Welling, Writing Wild (Novato, CA: New World Library, 2014), 57. 28. Pico Iyer, “Writing Undoes Me,” Lion’s Roar (Shambhala Sun), November 1, 2005, http://www.lionsroar.com/writing-undoes-me/ (accessed February 12, 2016). 29. The Big Bang Theory, “The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplication,” YouTube video, 1:34, posted by Canal de TBBTVideos, October 17, 2010, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Dcke_ fM6V38 (accessed July 15, 2016). 30. The Simpsons, “Make Room for Lisa,” YouTube video, 1:32, posted by Elevation Flotation and Yoga, June 22, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFM1SiXgr8A (accessed July 15, 2016). 31. Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn, The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness (New York: Guilford Publications, 2007), 55–57.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aguilar, Elena. “Teachers: How Slowing Down Can Lead to Great Change,” Edutopia, December 11, 2013. Accessed March 14, 2015, http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teachers-slowingdown-lead-to-change-elena-aguilar. Bache, Christopher M. The Living Classroom: Teaching and Collective Consciousness. New York: SUNY Press, 2008. The Big Bang Theory. “The Cornhusker Vortex.” TBS video, 1:34. November 2, 2009. Accessed July 15, 2016, http://www.tbs.com/videos/the-big-bang-theory/season-3/episode-6/ the-cornhusker-vortex.html. ———. “The Cruciferous Vegetable Amplication.” YouTube video, 1:34. Posted by Canal de TBBTVideos, October 17, 2010. Accessed July 15, 2016, https://m.youtube.com/watch?v= Dcke_fM6V38. Brady, Richard. “Learning to Stop, Stopping to Learn: Discovering the Contemplative Dimension in Education.” Journal of Transformative Education 5(4) (2007): 372–394. Accessed April 13, 2015, http://www.mindingyourlife.net/articles/learning.pdf. ———. “Mindfulness & Mathematics: Teaching as a Deep Learning Process.” The Mindfulness Bell 38 (2005): 39–40. Accessed June 15, 2016, http://www.mindingyourlife.net/ articles/reflections.pdf. ———. “Teaching and Learning the Way of Awareness.” Mindfuled—Mindfulness in Education Network. 2011. Accessed February 15, 2015, http://www.mindfuled.org/2011/09/12/ richard-brady-teaching-and-learning-the-way-of-awareness/. Burggraff, Susan & Steven Grossenbacher, “Contemplative Modes of Inquiry in Liberal Arts Education.” Liberal Arts Online 7(4) (2007). Accessed March 20, 2015, http://www.wabash. edu/news/docs/Jun07ContemplativeModes1.pdf. Calkins, Lucy. The Art of Teaching Writing. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1986. Grossman, Paul, Ludger Niemann, Stefan Schmidt, and Harald Walach. “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and Health Benefits: A Meta-Analysis.” Journal of Psychosomatic Research 57(1) (2004): 35–43. Accessed April 12, 2016, http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia. edu.documents/30863901/MBSRMAJPR2004.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ56TQJRTW SMTNPEA&Expires=1475685945&Signature=6YqavVvDsGKj0gsb3fdZlybPlSw%3D& response-content-disposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DMindfulness-based_stress _reduction_and_h.pdf. Gunnlaugson, Olen. “Establishing Second-Person Forms of Contemplative Education: An Inquiry into Four Conceptions of Intersubjectivity.” Integral Review 5(1) (June 2009): 1–26. Accessed March 15, 2016, http://www.integralreview.org/documents/Gunnlaugson,%20 Intersubjectivity%20Vol.%205,%20No.%201.pdf. Hahn, Thich Nhat. The Miracle of Mindfulness: An Introduction to the Practice of Mediation. Trans. Mobi Ho. Boston: Beacon Press, 1979. Accessed June 15, 2016, http://terebess.hu/ zen/mesterek/Thich%20Nhat%20Hanh%20%20The%20Miracle%20of%20Mindfulness. pdf.

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Hart, Tobin. “Opening the Contemplative Mind in the Classroom.” Journal of Transformative Education 2(1) (January 2004): 28–46. Accessed June 12, 2016, doi: 10.1177/ 1541344603259311. Haynes, D. “Contemplative Practice and the Education of the Whole Person.” ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies 16(2) (2005). Accessed February 15, 2015, http:// www.contemplativemind.org/admin/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/Haynes.pdf. Hochman, David. “Mindfulness: Getting Its Share of Attention.” New York Times, November 1, 2013. Accessed March 14, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/03/fashion/ mindfulness-and-meditation-are-capturing-attention.html?_r=0. Iyer, Pico. “Writing Undoes Me.” Lion’s Roar (Shambhala Sun). November 1, 2005. Accessed February 12, 2016, http://www.lionsroar.com/writing-undoes-me/. Kabat-Zinn, Jon. “Catalyzing Movement Towards a More Contemplative/Sacred-Appreciating/ Non-Dualistic Society.” The Contemplative Mind in Society Meeting of the Working Group. September 29–October 2, 1994. Accessed May 11, 2016, http://www.contemplativemind .org/admin/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/kabat-zinn.pdf. Ramsburg, Jared T. “Meditation in the Higher-Education Classroom: Meditation Training Improves Student Knowledge Retention during Lectures.” Mindfulness 5(4) (August 2014): 431–441. doi: 10.1016/j.concog.2015.09.001. Riskin, Leonard L. “The Contemplative Lawyer: On the Potential Contributions of Mindfulness Meditation to Law Students, Lawyers, and Their Clients.” Harvard Negotiation Law Review 7 (2002): 1–67. Accessed October 4, 2016, http://scholarship.law.ufl.edu/cgi/ viewcontent.cgi?article=1436&context=facultypub. Rose, Mike. Writer’s Block: The Cognitive Dimension. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1984. Sarath, Ed. “Meditation in Higher Education: The Next Wave?” Innovative Higher Education 27(4) (2003): 215–233. Accessed October 8, 2016, https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/ handle/2027.42/44536/10755_2004_Article_464855.pdf;seq. Schure, Marc B., John Christopher, and Suzanne Christopher. “Mind-Body Medicine and the Art of Self-Care: Teaching Mindfulness to Counseling Students through Yoga, Meditation, and Qigong.” Journal of Counseling and Development: JCD 86(1) (2008): 47. Accessed March 16, 2016, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Christopher5/publication/ 263063893_Mind-Body_Medicine_and_the_Art_of_Self-Care_Teaching_Mindfulness_to_ Counseling_Students_Through_Yoga_Meditation_and_Qigong/links/ 55a2bb8408aec9ca1e64fcb4.pdf. The Simpsons. “Make Room For Lisa.” YouTube video, 1:32. Posted by Elevation Flotation and Yoga, June 22, 2015. Accessed July 15, 2016, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= oFM1SiXgr8A. Spencer-Brown, George. Laws of Form. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1979. Wynne, Craig, Yuh-Jen Guo, and Shu-Ching Wang. “Writing Anxiety Groups: A Creative Approach for Graduate Students.” Journal of Creativity in Mental Health 9(3) (September 25, 2014): 366–379. Accessed March 15, 2015, doi: 10.1080/15401383.2014.902343. Welling, Tina. Writing Wild. Novato, CA: New World Library, 2014. Williams, Mark, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn. The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness. New York: Guilford Publications, 2007.

Chapter Six

Exploring Migration through Popular Media and Fieldwork Cadey Korson and Weronika Kusek

Teaching in American university classrooms often requires working with a diverse student population. In this context we understand diversity in a very broad sense: racial, ethnic, national, but also socioeconomic, religious, and gender-based. In this distinct academic environment, popular culture and the use of social media can become a unifying factor, a method of inquiry that can facilitate discussion among students because it is a shared part of their everyday experience. However, we question the extent to which university students are critically engaging with social media and other popular culture sources of information. This chapter outlines a series of activities that use a critical pedagogical framework to discuss migration and representations of contemporary immigration issues through various instruments of popular culture. In a globalized world it is crucial for American-born undergraduate students to be exposed to non-Eurocentric perspectives early in their college careers. 1 Critical pedagogical frameworks challenge students to analyze and question the narratives that inform their thinking. 2 Pandit and Alderman (2004) believe that active learning is a good opportunity for American-born students to broaden their cultural awareness and look at their own culture critically. Thus, in our approach we combine a critical pedagogical approach—that emphasizes critical thinking, student self-reflection, and activism—with activities that explore migrant narratives in popular culture and lived migrant experiences to promote intercultural exposure. Congruent with the critical media literacy approach, students are challenged to understand how the media influences them, deconstruct its pervasive discourses, and seek alternative modes of information production and activism. 3 The 105

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research-based, interview, and writing activities outlined in this chapter will urge students to think about what are their own perceptions, how those perceptions may or may not be impacted by social and popular media, and how media portrayals compare to firsthand and personal accounts of migration. Media is constantly shaping our views and perceptions of the world. Popular culture is a particularly invasive form of media that can be used to understand different views of current migration issues. A typical unit on migration in a human, world, or an introductory geography course includes the following learning objectives: 1) types of migration and their definitions, 2) demographic characteristics of migrants 3) models of migration, 4) migration corridors and North-South migration, 5) the impact of migration on migrants, and 6) the impact of migrants on host and sending countries. For many students, these definitions, concepts, and associated case studies may be abstract and disconnected from their own lived experiences. The goal of integrating pop culture references into migration curriculum is to garner students’ interest in the topic and make it more relatable to their own lives. This chapter focuses on teaching strategies that use media and popular culture to learn about migration and case studies of contemporary immigration issues. A series of activities and resources challenge students to think about what their own perceptions are, how those perceptions may or may not be impacted by social or popular media, and how media portrayals compare to firsthand accounts of migration. The activities included in this unit attempt to encompass different means of transmitting information and learning styles. The incorporation of popular culture, in the form of social media, TV, films, and comics, introduces alternative epistemologies that students are asked to critically evaluate. Prior to engagement with the activities outlined in this chapter, instructors should familiarize students with several core concepts and definitions to better facilitate analysis of the themes in social media, film, and migrant experiences. In particular, students should be familiar with the differences between, and types of, forced and voluntary migration, the basic models of human migration, migration corridors, and chain and step migration. It will also be useful to discuss examples pertaining to the impact of migrants on host and sending countries and the potential impacts migration itself has on migrants. This background discussion will give students a basis for better identifying the themes addressed in the activities. Following a critical pedagogical approach to learning and relearning these activities walk students through a process of reflection, critical thinking, and reinterpretation designed to challenge their preconceptions. The examples used in this chapter are based on assignments and activities carried out in two universities in the United States. The assignments are part of the curriculum on migration to the United States in Introduction to Geography, World Geography, and Human Geography courses at these institutions. However, the

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exercise can be adapted to other country’s situations. In the immigrant persona activity, fictitious backstories created by students help them identify their preconceived ideas about immigrants. Two popular activities target the media sources that influence student’s perceptions by exploring how immigrants are portrayed in social media, Hollywood films, television shows, and comics. An immigrant interview assignment gives students the opportunity to engage in fieldwork, juxtaposing their own perceptions and popular migrant narratives with real migrant experiences. The final activity addresses how student’s views have changed over the course of these activities. These activities, used in part or in totality, are part of a learning process that uses mediums and information that is readily available and understandable to students to better understand the principles of migration and real-life migrant experiences. IMMIGRANT PERSONA EXERCISE The immigrant persona exercise helps identify students’ preconceived ideas about immigrants. 4 It provides a starting point for the broader practice of acknowledging student’s biases, reflecting on how those biases are constructed, and then engaging in a critical evaluation of their views in the context of this reflection. In the exercise, students are asked to create an immigrant persona, a biographical sketch, and then present it in class. First, students outline the characteristics of their immigrant persona. These might include: the immigrant’s name, age, gender, family status, religion, ethnicity, occupation, reasons for migration, hopes and dreams, and place they want to migrate to. The instructor can provide a few prompts or let students create the persona organically with details of their choosing. Students complete the assignment in class, preventing them from researching migration facts and forcing them to create a persona purely from their current knowledge base. The biographical sketches can be completed individually or in small groups and then shared with the class through short presentations. At the end of all of the presentations have each student create their own analysis chart to record some of the basic information they included in the immigrant persona (see table 6.1). As students complete the other activities this chart will serve as a helpful summary tool for comparing their views with those found on social media, in popular culture, and actual immigrant experiences. It will also help them track how their views might change as they progress through the activities and assignments. The chart includes each of the learning objectives discussed and defined at the beginning of the unit. Students can add examples based on the types of media they research in each of the activities. Once completed, comparisons can be made between media portrayals of migrants and their

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Table 6.1. Sample Analysis Chart Analyzing themes in migration: How are immigrants portrayed? Type of migration Source

Characteristics of migrant(s)

Push and pull factors

Location of emigration and immigration

Impact of immigration on migrant

Impact of immigration on host and sending states

Immigrant Persona Social Media Film or TV Show Other Interview

migrant interviews. Students might also think about whether their sources, taken together, exhibit any broad narratives about immigrants and their impact. MIGRATION IN POP CULTURE ACTIVITIES AND DISCUSSION News media tends to bombard its audiences with sensational topics and presents information in a highly condensed format. The information may be biased, incomplete, or given without providing any context. Too often students take this information as unequivocal fact. “In order for one’s geographic imagination to shift, the place information encountered must be seen to no longer fit in the previously imagined schema, and thus the schema must change.” A curriculum based on critical pedagogy asks students to reflect on this information and their own experiences, views, and assumptions. Media and popular culture as represented in media can help students understand the complexity of what living as a marginalized “other” is like. Marshall and Sensoy characterize pop culture as popular texts and music, consumer culture, or spaces for alternative expression. Dittmer (2010) sums up popular culture as culture that can be mass consumed through a variety of mediums, including the Internet, movies, comic books, music, sports, and literature. These medias are a vehicle of popular culture and its artifacts. The goal of a critical pedagogy approach is to challenge students to analyze the narratives that inform or characterize their thinking. There is a ‘tendency toward desubstantialized meaning or “literalness of the visual” in which students seem unable to penetrate beyond the media-bloated surface of things. 5 The second set of activities and discussion is a study in popular culture and media: identifying what influences student’s views and examining alternative perspectives that force them to think critically about whether their

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own views on migrants and migration policy are based on supposition or reality. A study jointly conducted by the American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs research found that Millennials aged between eighteen to twenty-four consistently use social media platforms like Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram to acquire their news. About 66 percent of them “let the news find them” rather than actively seeking it out. 6 Despite these trends toward social media, over three-quarters of Millennials, in general, use a “reporting source” to get news about foreign or international issues and national politics. 7 Interestingly, among those surveyed, Hispanic and African American Millennials were more likely to choose visual news sources like YouTube and Instagram compared to their Caucasian peers. 8 Social media and other platforms provide a significant basis of information for contemporary youth. But, like more traditional forms of media, these sources are rife with their own contexts and biases. Therefore, the accessibility and student familiarity with these medias can provide a useful basis for comparing representations of migrants. This chapter includes a series of activities that explore the different ways immigrants, and the issues surrounding immigration policy, are framed. The learning objectives outlined at the beginning of the chapter are used to guide students through progressively more complex analyses of the migration themes found in social media sites, Hollywood films, and popular television shows. By comparing themes found in these sources, students will discover patterns in how the media portrays immigrants and what forms of immigrant experience are most popularly shown. As they complete this activity, students can continue comparing popular narratives to their own opinions. SOCIAL MEDIA ACTIVITY: MIGRANT PORTRAYALS IN THE NEWS For this activity, students choose a social media network that they have access to and use frequently (i.e., Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram). Each of the social networking sites have a search engine that students can use to find posts about migration, using search terms like migrant, immigration, or refugee. The analysis component may take several forms. Based on the learning objectives outlined in the analysis chart, students should study a selection of posts from each source and identify the type of migration indicated, any migrant characteristics described, push and pull factors, geographic information, and the impact of migration on the host and sending states. Students can also reflect on what migration topics are popular on social media sites, how images or key words are used to evoke certain feelings or emotions in the audience, and how are people from different countries reacting to migrant issues. On Instagram, students can examine the comments on particular

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photos to identify patterns among reactions to the images. The comments are often controversial and can represent extremely opposite views on an issue. This is a way for students to begin thinking about how images in the news evoke particular responses among their audience. POPULAR REPRESENTATIONS OF MIGRANTS: FILMS, TELEVISION SHOWS, AND BOOKS The review of social media representations transitions well into a broader discussion of how migrants and immigration are portrayed in other forms of pop culture. Films, TV programs, comics, and fiction both overtly and subtly transmit geopolitical narratives that are interpreted and internalized by their audiences. 9 ‘The usefulness of a film or TV show in such cases is that it allows one to hone in on generic concepts before applying these dynamics to more complicated and often more value-laden situations. 10 Contemporary migrant narratives in Western popular culture reflect some common narratives of the American dream, xenophobia, and othering, among others. For this activity, the instructor can either show clips from the films and shows listed, choose one to show and analyze in detail, or assign groups of students to different films and compare their findings in class. The American dream narrative is a common theme among Hollywood films and TV shows about migrants. The premise is usually that if you work hard and overcome the challenges placed before you, you will be a successful and contributing member of society. While this narrative is certainly not new, its most recent iteration in cinematography is, perhaps, a response to popular anti-immigrant sentiment in the United States. A Better Life, Fresh Off the Boat, and Million Dollar Arm are some examples of this trend. Not all films about immigration are heartwarming, hard-luck cases where the protagonist overcomes adversity and achieves the American dream. In some stories, immigrants are the antagonists, the villains—the point of comparison to the hero of the story. In these criminal or terrorist narratives, immigrants are defined as dangerous others. My Name Is Khan, the X-Men comics and movie series, and World War Z explore very different reactions to unwanted others. Finally, Carl’s personal journey in The Walking Dead television and comic book series mirror migrant children’s experiences adapting to new environments and cultures. In addition to the learning objectives, more specific discussion questions related to these films and shows include: • • • •

How is xenophobia or discrimination presented and addressed? What is the American dream and how is it achieved? What are some barriers to immigration that migrants or others experience? How do people react differently to and different reactions to immigrants?

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The narratives found in each of these films, television shows, and books are outlined in table 6.2 and followed by a longer discussion of the specific themes and migrant characteristics present in each source. Table 6.2. Select Films, Books, and TV Shows Demonstrating Themes in Migration Source

Themes

A Better Life (2011)

• • • • • • • •

Million Dollar Arm (2014)

• • • • • •

Fresh Off the • Boat • (2015–present) • • • • • • My Name Is Khan (2010)

• • • • • • •

X-Men: Days of • Future Past • (2014) •

Voluntary migration as an undocumented worker Gravity model and Ravenstain’s laws of migration Chain migration and US-Mexico corridor Corruption in services provided to undocumented workers American Dream: owning your own business, sports Impact of 9/11 on deportation process and creating a fear of imprisonment or disappearance for undocumented migrants Importance of invisibility Return migration of deported undocumented workers Voluntary migration Ravenstein’s laws of migration American Dream: become a successful sports professional Culture shock from an American perspective in India Culture shock from an Indian’s perspective in the United States Role of communication technologies in connecting migrants with their families Voluntary international and internal migration Gravity model, Zelinsky model, Ravenstain’s laws of migration Chain migration from Taiwan to Washington, DC American dream: owning your own business and being successful and wealthy Ethnoburbs in metropolitan areas Expressing preconceived ideas about immigrants Bullying those who are different or “other” Difficulty of integration with a different culture Voluntary migration Gravity model and Ravenstein’s laws of migration Chain migration Culture shock American Dream: hard work equals success and you can achieve any goal if you persevere Xenophobia and responses to people perceived as Arab or Muslim after 9/11 Remove or change identity symbols in response to external threats because of otherness Forced migration Slippery slope from xenophobia to genocide Others as a threat to national security and subsequent exploitation of that perceived threat to build up and fund military advancements

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Themes • • • •

World War Z (2013)

• • • • • •

The Walking • Dead • (2010–present) • •

Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament (2009)

• • •

Segregation Using immigrants or others as scapegoats Importance of invisibility and using extraordinary measures to assimilate with the dominant population Creation of enclaves Forced migration, internally displaced persons and refugees Selective immigration Zombies as undocumented migrants Zombiism as a pandemic whose spread is exacerbated by modern transportation technologies (contagious diffusion) Competition for resources between undocumented migrants (zombies) and citizens Responses to zombies/illegal border crossers: Israel built a wall, United States retreated to naval ships and eventually the Hawaiian islands, a refugee camp is set up on Nova Scotia Forced migration, internally displaced persons The characters, like immigrants, are forced to cope with a world and culture completely different from what they have previously known This new “world” forces them to re-evaluate, and sometimes change, their worldview, ethics, and priorities Children of this new world order, like immigrant children, seem more adaptable to these changing conditions (i.e., Carl’s burgeoning leadership) Institutional barriers to gaining access to civil rights and citizenship as an “unwanted other” Xenophobia Importance of discretion and invisibility

A Better Life (2011) is the story of an undocumented Mexican gardener in California who is struggling to prevent his son from joining a gang. California’s vibrant fruit and produce agriculture sector increases its desirability for migrant labor including undocumented workers. An interactive map on the Migration Policy Institute’s website shows the percentage of immigrants as part of the total population of specific cities in the United States. 11 If Mexico is selected from the drop-down list, a number of cities in California are highlighted as urban centers with strong Mexican populations. Based on this map, ask students why Mexican immigrant populations are larger in urban areas and why those specific urban areas and examine areas that are outliers (i.e., Yakima, Washington State). This is an opportunity to discuss settlement patterns, the gravity model of migration transition and Ravenstein’s laws of migration, chain migration and the Latin America corridor, and border regions and cities. The father in the film, Carlos Galindo, represents a common caricature of undocumented immigrants from Central and South America:

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the Mexican gardener. As a single father struggling to keep his son Luis from a gang life and making little money as a low wage gardener for the wealthy, he reminds his son that education and hard work are critical to success. Success is the American dream, and Carlos’ version is owning his own business. Insecurity is another theme highlighted in the film. In a conversation between Carlos and his boss, they discuss the ramifications of 9/11 for undocumented immigrants. According to Carlos and his boss, border security and immigration enforcement became much more strict. For undocumented migrants, deportation became a more severe process rather than the “leisurely walk” back to Mexico that is used to be. Carlos’ boss mentions the disappearance of deported migrants, and as the film continues, viewers witness the deportation of Carlos himself. Placed in general population in a border prison, he is accosted by convicts before being bused back to Mexico with only the items his son could bring to him in a backpack. Another part of the insecurity narrative is an emphasis on invisibility and vulnerability. As Carlos continually reiterates, undocumented migrants rely on invisibility to remain in the United States. Without a driver’s license or other official documents they must take positions that pay low wages and use often inconvenient and lengthy public transportation networks to move around. Because of their tenuous status, undocumented migrants are more susceptible to con artists offering visas or other documents. For example, Carlos lost most of his savings to a lawyer who claimed he could get him official papers. Million Dollar Arm (2014) is based on the real-life story of two young men from rural India who are brought to the United States to learn to play professional baseball. The two boys are picked from a series of competitions called the Million Dollar Arm. In the beginning of the film, failing sports agent J. B. Burnstein travels to India and to find cricket players that can learn to play baseball. He calls India the “last great untapped market” for both players and audiences. 12 In this film, the American dream is achieving a better life through professional sports. It is an example of economic pull factors and Ravenstein’s laws of migration. In the United States and Canada, approximately 29 percent of sports professionals in soccer, baseball, hockey, and basketball are born outside the United States. 13 When Dinesh is talking to his father about the Million Dollar Arm competition, his father scoffs, essentially saying it is impossible for him to win and that he should just focus on helping him and being a truck driver. Once Dinesh succeeds, his father is so proud of him and happy that he has this opportunity to go to the United States. Rinku’s mother has a very different reaction. She is worried about her son traveling so far—something that J. B. has a difficult time understanding. Both J. B. and the boys experience culture shock. When J. B. arrives in India he is greeted by seeming chaos in Mumbai. Ramshackle buildings,

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incessant honking, food poisoning, and bribery are all part of the culture shock he experiences. His local aide, Vivek, is quick to assure him that bribery or “bypassing the system” is the Indian way of conducting business. 14 Dinesh and Rinku are amazed by modern conveniences like escalators and elevators in their American hotel and are impressed by the size of J. B.’s home. They get into trouble for pulling the fire alarm and are confused by the lack of relatives living in J. B.’s large home. They think his pool house tenant is his servant and quickly fall in love with pizza. The challenges Dinesh and Rinku face learning to play baseball are exacerbated by their lack of understanding of American culture and J. B.’s abruptness. Finally, the film briefly highlights the connection between globalization and communication between migrants and their home communities. When the boys have their first tryout, it is televised live throughout India. A series of scenes show people grouped around small tube televisions in homes, on the street, in small villages, and in restaurants. Communication technologies have greatly impacted migration and migrants. Social media has become a popular and sometimes grassroots forum for migrant issues, protests, and aid networks. More traditional forms of media also influence migrant issues and policy. Fresh Off the Boat (2015) is a humorous television show about a Taiwanese family that relocates from their ethnic neighborhood, or ethnoburb, in Washington, DC, to Orlando, Florida, in 1995. The series is loosely based on the real life of character Eddie Huang. The American dream of Louis Huang, his father, is to own his own business: a Western-style restaurant in Orlando. His wife and kids, however, struggle to fit into their predominantly white middle-class community. The show is an example of international and internal migration for economic reasons and serves as an example of the gravity model, Zelinsky model, and Ravenstein’s laws of migration. The pilot episode contains numerous examples of people’s preconceived notions about “Asian” immigrants. For example, when the women from the family’s new neighborhood introduce themselves to Jessica they expect her to have a more exotic name. Eddie also talks about an instance when white tourists would get lost in Chinatown in Washington, DC, and ask for directions slowly and loudly—as if that would make him and his brothers understand them better if they did not speak English. These stereotypes are not limited to the Huang family. Louis decided to hire a white host at the restaurant to make their white customers feel more welcome. When Eddie and Jessica go to the big box store to buy Eddie some white people lunch, she takes all of the free sample chips and puts them in her purse. Jessica also talks about how she prefers shopping at the Taiwanese market in their old ethnoburb and feels uncomfortable at the supermarket. Eddie himself is not unaffected by assimilation and the pressure to fit in with his classmates. On the first day of school he chooses a white name to use in class. When his

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peers make fun of him for eating worms, Chinese food, he asks his mom to make white people food or get him Lunchables so he can fit in. My Name Is Khan (2010) is the story of Rizwan Khan, an Indian and Muslim man with Asperger’s syndrome. His brother leaves India to attend university in the United States, becomes a successful business owner in California, and marries a Muslim woman. Although his brother organizes their mother’s immigration visa, she refuses to leave Khan behind in India. It is not until after her death that Khan joins his brother in the United States on a work visa: an example of the gravity model, Ravenstein’s laws of migration, and chain migration. It is Khan’s Western-educated sister-in-law who discovers his Asperger’s syndrome when all of the doctors in their village in India were confounded by it. Khan’s Asperger’s syndrome makes him especially susceptible to culture shock when he moves to noisy and busy San Francisco, California. When Khan first joins his brother at work, his brother says that if he works hard he can achieve anything. This is the American dream: hard work equals success. This narrative is repeated over and over in movies where hard-luck immigrants achieve great feats. However, the reality is that there are numerous institutional and social barriers to migration and migrants themselves that can prevent them from achieving their goals. In this film, the catalyst for changing perceptions of migrants is 9/11. After the 9/11 attacks, a series of scenes show Khan’s family, other Muslims, Indians, and anyone who is perceived as Middle Eastern or Arab being discriminated against, insulted, and victimized. This xenophobia was not limited to violence against adults. Sam, Khan’s son, was bullied at school and killed because of his father’s religion. After Sam’s death, Khan’s wife tells him he cannot return home until he meets the president of the United States and tells him that he is not a terrorist. Khan’s subsequent journey across the United States to meet the president showcases American’s reactions to people perceived as different or other after 9/11. Mama Jenny in rural Georgia opens her home and heart to Khan even though her son was killed in Afghanistan. In another scene, a shop owner and a motel owner are insulted and their businesses vandalized. As a result of this violence, many people in the film remove any visible symbols of their culture or religion and stop practicing religious traditions that will bring attention to them. Khan’s sister-in-law stops wearing her hijab, his brother shaves his beard, the Sikh reporter removes his turban, and the couple Khan meets on the bus refuse to pray in public. Khan himself is taken in to federal custody after being arrested for mistakenly attempting an act of terrorism. He is arrested and confined without legal representation or a trial. Despite the violence being committed against Muslims, Khan refuses to give up his religious practices.

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Immigrants can encounter a number of institutional and social barriers. Xenophobia, high visa costs, and discrimination are just some examples. These reactions can be examined in the context of science fiction films involving aliens, zombies, or superheroes. It may seem cliché, but these characters are allegories for both marginalized and undocumented migrants. X-Men is a comic book and movie series based on the Marvel comics about humans with mutant DNA that gives them special abilities. These individuals are allegories for marginalized populations like immigrants. In the movies the X-Men and women struggle with their identity, fear of non-mutants, and having their abilities revealed. A mixed reaction to the revealing of mutants exemplifies contemporary xenophobia toward certain migrant populations. In the film X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014), the opening scenes depict the genocide of mutants and their sympathizers. Genocide or ethnic cleansing can be the result of severe xenophobia. Surviving mutants were forced to flee their homes, like refugees. The genocide was a result of certain government and private corporate factions labeling them as dangerous enemies of national security because their powers and allegiance were not understood: they could not be controlled by the laws of a state. Mutants became scapegoats for political crises like the Cuban missile crisis and the assassination of JFK. As a dangerous other they were exploited to fund and build up military technologies and profit Trask Industries. In the film, Magneto refers to mutants as a distinct race who are also othered by the rest of the population. This perception is demonstrated when Mystique is exposed in France to a horrified and screaming crowd. Even her nurse expresses her pity for someone so different. In the film, mutants are segregated in the military and use extraordinary measures to downplay their abilities to fit in. The Professor and the Beast’s use of the serum are an example of this attempt to remain an invisible part of the non-mutant population. Like undocumented immigrants, mutants try to live in invisibility because of people’s negative responses to something (or someone) they do not understand. But among the mutants there is a sense of brotherhood, of shared kinship, because of their differences. The various XMen films show these allegiances and sense of community, even if it is often fractured between Magneto and the Professor’s groups. For example, Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters is a type of ethnoburb of enclave that provides a safe space for mutants. World War Z (WWZ, 2013) and the zombie allegory are powerful representations of migrants. The film and book show glimpses of the ways in which countries deal with immigrant populations flooding their borders— whether these are voluntary migrants or refugees. Native populations disrupted by zombie hordes experience forced migration due to a “disaster.” Perhaps less realistic than a zombie outbreak are forces that cause mass migration like a hurricane, famine, conflict, or disease. WWZ follows the forced migration of one family and the father’s quest for a solution to the

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zombie outbreak. The survivors of the zombie outbreak are internally displaced persons and refugees who have been forced to relocate. When Gerry Lane and his family first arrive on a US naval ship he learns that his family is guaranteed safe haven only if he investigates the outbreak. Like a country’s legislation on immigrant quotas and visas, preference is given to individuals with useful skills. Parallels can be drawn between zombies and narratives about illegal migrants in the United States. In particular the argument that illegal migrants cross borders without official authorization and use health care, transportation, and other services without paying taxes. Zombies in this film represent undocumented border crossers and unwanted immigrants. They are a drain on resources; indiscriminately feeding on healthy humans and animals, they starve the healthy population of resources and space. Interestingly, developed countries are ill-equipped to handle the influx of zombies compared to more successful developing countries. As a result, zombies represent what Jeff May has termed “extreme otherness,” as zombies are “explicitly disallowed to ‘make space’ by living characters who attempt to retain pre-zombie spatial organizations.” 15 “Unlike economic migrants, religious and ethnic minorities, or other ‘others,’ zombies must be destroyed as they represent—in both body and purpose—the ultimate ‘terror of alterity.’” 16 Both the film and book detail the migration of survivors and the increasing importance of islands as safe-havens or refugee camps because they are more easily protected from the migration of zombies. As officials and other important figures in the United States retreated to naval ships, Israel dealt with the outbreak by building a wall, North Korea further isolated itself, South Africa created safe zones and populated them with survivors selected for their desirable qualities, and islands became heavily guarded refugee camps. The Walking Dead (2010), another post-apocalyptic zombie-themed television show, also exemplifies themes of forced migration and selective inclusion in post-disaster communities. Unlike WWZ, this show and graphic novel series explores the impact of a disaster on children. This situation is an allegory for the ways in which migrant’s children adapt to new and previously unknown environments in their host countries. The characters, like immigrants, are forced to cope with a world and culture completely different from what they have previously known. This new world forces them to re-evaluate, and sometimes change, their worldview, ethics, and priorities. Because they are younger, children are often more adaptable to these changing environments. They are able to learn a new language quicker, assimilate or integrate with the host population, and both literally and figuratively translate this new place for their parents. In this case, Carl’s burgeoning leadership and adaptability to a new world inhabited by zombies is an allegory for migrant’s children adapting to their new environments.

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S. G. Browne’s (2009) book, Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament, is an analogy of the institutional barriers immigrants—seeking access to civil rights or citizenship—face in the modern world. The protagonist, Andy, is a recently undead zombie who is struggling to adjust to his new reality and the restrictions that come with it. In particular, the story highlights zombie’s struggle for the civil rights they enjoyed before they became un-dead, much like undocumented immigrants and others seeking access to human and civil rights in their host countries. When Andy discovers that eating “breathers” (living humans) makes his heart beat again he begins to contemplate how humanity, and thus access to civil rights, is determined: I’m beginning to wonder, if my heart starts beating again, am I still a zombie? Am I technically one of the undead if I have blood pumping through my veins? And what if I start to breathe again? Does that make me human? Will I regain the rights and opportunities that once defined my existence? I suppose it doesn’t really matter, since I don’t have any control over what Breathers think of me, of my kind. 17

With this in mind, Andy goes to his local Social Security Administration office to reactivate his Social Security number. He wants to have the same rights as “breathers,” a common refrain among other marginalized immigrant groups, refugees, and undocumented migrants. Unfortunately, an altercation at the Social Security office results in his incarceration at an animal control facility. Local and national news outlets pick up his story and he becomes an overnight sensation: an icon for all zombies. Using the media’s attention and a sympathetic “breather” Andy is able to petition for his civil rights. The ACLU even files a class action lawsuit on behalf of all of the undead. 18 He says, “my savior is the American media.” 19 The positive media attention is not without backlash however. Zombie riots in Italy, beheadings in the Middle East, and burnings in Germany follow his press coverage and the lawsuit. The media can be a powerful actor on the internal stage: garnering sympathy for the plight of refugees, labeling migrants terrorists, or completely ignoring other migrant groups. INTERVIEW A MIGRANT ASSIGNMENT This assignment is focused on conducting an interview with a person who immigrated to the United States. The immigrant interviewee needs to be firstgeneration, relatively recently arrived to the United States, and someone open to interact with the instructor in case she would like to verify the students’ performance in the project. By working on this assignment, students are given the opportunity to engage in fieldwork, juxtaposing their own perceptions and popular migrant narratives with real migrant experiences.

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The purpose of this assignment is four-fold: first, to meet an immigrant, learn his or her migratory story and compare this knowledge with students’ previous perceptions of immigrants in the United States, often influenced by popular media; second, to learn how to plan and conduct an interview; third, to write a report about the interview and the interviewee using geographic terminology learned during coursework; and fourth, to learn how to prepare a visual presentation to demonstrate the most important information gathered in a short and cohesive way. Students are informed about this assignment at the beginning of the semester in order ot have enough time to find an immigrant interviewee, conduct the interview, and write a report. They are asked to work in small groups of two to four individuals. The first step is to create a list of possible interviewees: an international student from their class or dorm, a professor who comes from a different country, a community member such as an owner of an ethnic restaurant, a neighbor, a doctor, and so on. Students are provided with a lecture and a few readings that allow them to learn how to successfully and respectfully conduct an interview. They are taught the mechanics of planning interview questions and sending an invitation for an interview. In addition, they are asked to maintain cultural sensitivity and are reminded of proper interview etiquette. Examples of interview etiquette include treating the interviewee with respect by sending out a polite invitation, arriving on time for the scheduled appointment, using a language that is respectful and understandable for a non-native speaker, listening to interviewees and allowing them to finish thoughts, and thanking the interviewee for his or her time. Before interviews are conducted, students spend time learning about the selected interviewee’s country of origin (location, culture, religion, economic development) to avoid asking trivial questions that could be perceived as disrespectful. They are allowed to use the Internet to research statistical and socio-cultural information and are furthermore encouraged to watch touristfocused YouTube videos of the countries that they are learning about. To understand the socioeconomic context of their countries students are asked to research images of the places their interviewees come from. Once information gathering is complete, students schedule and conduct the interview, and write a report that they submit to the instructor for grading. Alongside the report, students are also required to prepare a visual presentation of their findings to present in class, either in the form of a poster or video. Students are allowed five to seven minutes to present the knowledge they gathered about the immigrant and take questions from their instructor and classmates. To date, this assignment has been completed by nearly two hundred students. The vast majority of student participants admitted that their own perceptions of immigrants before conducting the interview were significantly different to the knowledge and impressions gained during the interaction with a first-generation migrant. Students often reflected on the fact that they

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did not realize that many immigrants had college degrees from their own countries that were of little value in the United States because the migrants worked in jobs below their educational attainment. In their reports, students frequently commented on the difficulty of speaking a foreign language and the efforts immigrants put toward learning English and/or efforts to teach their children fluent English so they can pursue successful careers without linguistic barriers. The interviews helped many students realize how difficult it is for the immigrants to be away from their families. In their reports, some students wrote that they were surprised by and fascinated by many interesting perspectives that the immigrants shared regarding the American reality and human experience. In several cases students pointed out that the migrant perception of daily struggles, life priorities, and even casual activities were inspiring and new. Many students concluded their reports with the realization that they would like to find friends among immigrants because they believe they can actually learn from their cultures, values, and approaches to life. LIFEBOAT ASSIGNMENT The final Lifeboat Assignment is a version of a popular Lifeboat Ethics exercise. It challenges students to critically evaluate arguments for and against the acceptance of immigrants to the United States by considering a theoretical scenario involving a boat with limited capacity and drowning swimmers. By selecting principles, policies, and evaluation criteria for accepting swimmers into the boat, students participate in a simplified process parallel to one that sets criteria for accepting immigrants into host states. Students debate whether they are willing to accept migrants, and if so, what criteria these migrants (swimmers) must meet to be allowed into the country (boat). Due to the complexity of the scenario, each decision must be explained and justified, as even the choice to not accept any migrants (swimmers) has potential consequences. The lifeboat assignment is an in-class activity. Students are asked to organize in groups of four to five individuals. They are asked to imagine that they are on a big ship in the middle of the ocean. On the ship they have a high standard of living and lot of resources at their disposal. The food supply is abundant, they live in comfortable cabins, and they enjoy their spare time by playing in a big pool. The ship offers a lot of entertainment, space, and luxuries. Then students find out that in the ocean, around their ship, are a lot of people swimming in the water who would like to be taken onboard. The people were previously not passengers of the ship. They are losing their strength swimming in the water and if they are not taken on the students’ ship, they will eventually die from exhaustion and lack of food. Students are asked to discuss the situation as if they were talking about accepting immi-

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grants to their country. There are possible actions the boat passengers can take: help all who swim around by taking them on their ship, refuse to accept any people at all and save their resources for themselves and their families, or selectively invite a few people to board the ship. Students are asked to consider each option and assess how the survivors will affect their lives on the ship and how the process of accepting or rejecting swimmers (migrants) will impact them personally. It must be mentioned that some students may perceive the assignment, due to its extreme scenario, as biased or only remotely applicable to the migration discussion in the United States. The lifeboat scenario places the students in a position to make decisions about the life and death of the swimmers. This extreme scenario is frequently not reflective of the situation of immigrants arriving to the United States as most immigrants migrate to improve their standard of living, not to avoid certain death. Nevertheless, this assignment forces students to think about the general principles, consequences, and factors which impact the process of accepting immigrants to their own communities, and the ethical dilemmas related to setting cold and formal requirements to impact very diverse and personal situations of each migrant. The exercise also challenges students to question their perceptions and stereotypes that are often sourced from popular media outlets—news reports, web forums, film and TV. Questions students consider during the exercise include: • Who has control over who is accepted into the country? • How do decision-makers decide the number of and what type of immigrants are needed in our country (i.e., level of education, skill set, race, religion, or cultural background)? • Should we accept only immigrants who are culturally similar? Or can we benefit from accepting immigrants with diverse backgrounds? • What parts of the world are US immigrants are emigrating from? • What kind of resources do we need to prepare before accepting immigrants into our country? • What if we decided not to accept any immigrants? Would we have enough people to work in agriculture? Enough doctors and engineers? • What kind of jobs for Americans will diminish if immigration is ended? From our experience, based on approximately six hundred students who have participated in the “Lifeboat Assignment,” we found this exercise valuable to encourage students to consider migration from a practical and structured perspective. Our sample produced a variety of extreme reactions to the presented scenario. A few students in each classroom group consistently proposed policies that would accept all swimmers (migrants) due to ethical reasons. One or two students in each class also suggested rejecting all swim-

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mers from the boat. The vast majority of students proposed scenarios that were aimed at identifying a subset of the population outside the boat to take onboard. Criteria for accepting swimmers was often driven by practicality— for example selecting young, healthy individuals with useful skills such as fishing—as well as others driven by ethics—taking in women and children. The end goal in critical pedagogy curriculum is for students to re-evaluate their worldview, think critically about an issue, and reflect on how they can act on their beliefs. Therefore, it was encouraging to find that most students commented on the fact that this exercise has allowed them to look at migration from a more personal perspective. Students noted that through the exercise they learned ways to evaluate migration in a way which was directly applicable to their own lives. While they may not have become outspoken activists, students did become more interested in migration policy in general. CONCLUSION American media and popular culture are a significant source of information and news for today’s youth. Undergraduate students are often inundated with Eurocentric frames, caricatures, and vague information. Issues related to immigration, immigration policy, and undocumented migrants are particularly susceptible when covered in mainstream media news stories. When teaching migration, deconstructing these discursive frames and partial narratives is critical to students understanding the social, political, economic, and institutional factors that influence and shape migration. Using a critical pedagogical approach and active learning the activities outlined in this chapter are tools for helping students expand their cultural awareness and critically examine the news media and the messages inherent in popular culture. Following an introduction to the basic principles and models of migration a series of activities challenges students to think about what are their own perceptions, how those perceptions may or may not be impacted by social and popular media, and how media portrayals compare to firsthand and personal accounts of migration. Learning objectives are used to guide students through a comparison of immigrant portrayals including types of migration, demographic characteristics of migrants, models of migration, migration corridors, the impact of migration on migrants, and the impact of migrants on host and sending countries. The immigrant persona exercise reveals their stereotypes—what students think are the different types of migration, demographic patterns of migrants, and causes of migration. Using census data, this activity should be followed by a comparison of student responses to actual statistics on immigrants entering the United States. The social media activity and discussion of immigrant narratives in popular media is a way for students to think about how different

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types of popular media portray migrants and influence their perceptions of migrants. These perceived migrant narratives could then be compared to real migrant experiences when students conduct their migrant interviews. The interview assignment is designed to help students overcome their own biases. They are given the opportunity to disprove many incorrect assumptions about migrants and to discover the reality of genuine human stories and emotions behind each migration experience. During the lifeboat exercise students are challenged to cumulatively apply these new understandings to a policy-setting scenario; using new information, new ideas, and new experiences with migration, students must decide on a specific migration scenario and react to an urgent and pressing, even somewhat exaggerated, migration crisis. Critical thinking, self-reflection, and relearning are critical components of all these activities. By incorporating popular culture students are introduced to and evaluate alternative epistemologies and ways of presenting information. As the Syrian refugee crisis in Europe and debate over undocumented migrants in the United States have shown, immigration is a pressing issue. The globalization of communication technologies has opened up a new world of possibilities for studying topics like migration, but students need to learn how to critically assess their own worldviews and the information with which they are presented. NOTES 1. Helen R. Aspaas, “Integrating World-Views and the News Media into a Regional Geography Course,” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 22 (1998): 211–227. 2. Peter McLaren, Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture: Oppositional Politics in a Postmodern Era (London and New York: Routledge, 1993); Joan Wink, Critical Pedagogy: Notes from the Real World, 4th ed. (Boston: Pearson, 2010). 3. Katrinka Somdahl-Sands, “Combating the Orientalist Mental Map of Students, One Geographic Imagination at a Time,” 114 (2015): 26–36. 4. This activity was originally created by Dr. Tracey Edwards at Frostburg University, Maryland. 5. Somdahl-Sands 2015, 28; Wink, Critical Pedagogy; Elizabeth J. Tisdell and Patricia M. Thompson, “‘Seeing from a Different Angle’: The Role of Pop Culture in Teaching for Diversity and Critical Media Literacy in Adult Education,” International Journal of Lifelong Education 26 (2007): 663; McLaren, Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture, 58. 6. “How Millennials Get News: Inside the Habits of America’s First Digital Generation,” Media Insight Project, American Press Institute and Associated Press-NORC, accessed August 1, 2016, http://www.mediainsight.org/PDFs/Millennials/Millennials%20Report%20FINAL. pdf, 32. 7. Ibid., 16. 8. Ibid., 34. 9. Jason Dittmer and Klaus Dodds, “Popular Geopolitics Past and Future: Fandom, Identities and Audiences,” Geopolitics 13 (2008): 437–457. 10. Kenneth Madsen, “Blue Indians: Teaching the Political Geography of Imperialism with Fictional Film,” Journal of Geography 113 (2014): 49. 11. “U.S. Immigrant Population by Metropolitan Area,” Migration Policy Institute, accessed July 31, 2016, http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/us-immigrantpopulation-metropolitan-area?width=1000&height=850&iframe=true.

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12. Million Dollar Arm, directed by Craig Gillespie (2014; Burbank, CA: Walt Disney Pictures, 2014), DVD. 13. “MLS Maintains Status as Most Diverse Professional Sports League in North America,” MLS Insider, last modified April 25, 2015, http://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2015/04/25/mlsmaintains-status-most-diverse-professional-sports-league-north-america. 14. Million Dollar Arm 2014. 15. Robert A. Saunders, “Undead Spaces: Fear, Globalization, and the Popular Geopolitics of Zombiism.” Geopolitics 17 (2012): 87. 16. Saunders 2012, 87. 17. S. G. Browne. Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament (New York: Broadway Books, 2009) 197. 18. Ibid., 262. 19. Ibid., 259.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aspaas, Helen Ruth. “Integrating World-Views and the News Media into a Regional Geography course.” Journal of Geography in Higher Education 22 (1998): 211–227. Browne, S. G. Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament. New York: Broadway Books, 2009. Dittmer, Jason, and Klaus Dodds. “Popular Geopolitics Past and Future: Fandom, Identities and Audiences.” Geopolitics 13 (2008): 437–457. Dittmer, Jason. Popular Culture, Geopolitics, and Identity. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, Plymouth: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2010. “How Millennials Get News: Inside the Habits of America’s First Digital Generation,” Media Insight Project, American Press Institute and Associated Press-NORC, accessed August 1, 2016, http://www.mediainsight.org/PDFs/Millennials/Millennials%20Report%20FINAL. pdf. Madsen, Kenneth. “Blue Indians: Teaching the Political Geography of Imperialism with Fictional Film.” Journal of Geography 113 (2014): 47–57. Marshall, Elizabeth, and Özlem Sensoy. Introduction to Rethinking Popular Culture and Media (2nd Ed.) by Elizabeth Marshall and Özlem Sensoy, 1–11. Milwaukee, WI: Rethinking Schools, 2016. May, Jeff. “Zombie Geographies and the Undead City.” Social & Cultural Geography 11 (2010): 285–298. McLaren, Peter. Critical Pedagogy and Predatory Culture: Oppositional Politics in a Postmodern Era. London and New York: Routledge, 1993. “MLS Maintains Status as Most Diverse Professional Sports League in North America,” MLS Insider, last modified April 25, 2015, http://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2015/04/25/mlsmaintains-status-most-diverse-professional-sports-league-north-america. Pandit, Kavita, and Derek Alderman. “Border Crossing in the Classroom: The International Student Interview as a Strategy for Promoting Intercultural Understanding.” Journal of Geography 103 (2004): 127–136. Saunders, Robert A., “Undead Spaces: Fear, Globalization, and the Popular Geopolitics of Zombiism.” Geopolitics 17 (2012): 80–104. Somdahl-Sands, Katrinka. “Combating the Orientalist Mental Map of Students, One Geographic Imagination at a Time.” Journal of Geography 114 (2015): 26–36. Tisdell, Elizabeth J. and Patricia M. Thompson. “‘Seeing from a Different Angle’: The Role of Pop Culture in Teaching for Diversity and Critical Media Literacy in Adult Education.” International Journal of Lifelong Education 26 (2007): 651–673. “U.S. Immigrant Population by Metropolitan Area,” Migration Policy Institute, accessed July 31, 2016, http://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/us-immigrantpopulation-metropolitan-area?width=1000&height=850&iframe=true. Wink, Joan. Critical Pedagogy: Notes from the Real World, 4th ed. Boston: Pearson, 2010.

Part III

Looking Globally Teaching US Popular Culture in Global Context

Chapter Seven

A Question of Relevance Teaching with Sci-Fi and Fantasy Film in a Saudi University Maha Al-Saati

This chapter documents my experience as a Saudi Arabian educator who teaches in the field of media studies, particularly courses on the history and theory of media and communication, as well as a course on interactive fiction design. While teaching I use various forms of American pop culture, including comics, film, music videos, novel sections, short video games, news reports, and screenshots of tweets and posts from social media as a form of pop culture that students engage with on a daily basis. In the chapter, I examine some of the challenges concerning the relevance of media to students of the Millennial generation, the various methods of contextualization for these classroom screenings, and the various approaches I used to encourage classroom discussions about the nature of media. I often found that the use of dated science fiction (sci-fi) and some fantasy films could enhance the students’ critical lenses in viewing the way technologies evolve. The reason was that these films provided a different time and space in which the normal was made abnormal, which can encourage students to rethink the technologies they take for granted. I often chose to teach with clips from sci-fi movies in which the protagonists interacted with then-futuristic technologies. Examples of such movies included Blade Runner, 1 Brazil, 2 Minority Report, 3 and Her. 4 In addition, I also included examples from fantasy films such as Interview with the Vampire. 5 As suggested by these examples, the selected clips encouraged a discussion of how the evolution of technologies impacts our social and cultural structures, and in the case of historic fantasy films, how to think about the 127

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past. I found that the use of these dated sci-fi film clips could trigger a critical response from the students. For example, Her, a more recent sci-fi film noted for the natural and almost invisible portrayal of future technology, contrasted the dated sci-fi film in its prediction of an auditory-bias in media, rather than the current visual dominance that we witness today. Some of the challenges that emerged during my use of American pop culture in teaching revolved around issues of relevance: the relevance of scifi films to students uninterested in the genre; the relevance of Western narrative to a Saudi audience; and the relevance of dated material to a younger audience. I discuss below how I tackled these issues in addition to dealing with the sensitive nature of a semi-conservative Saudi classroom. I also discuss the various ways in which role-playing the what-if question, often raised by these sci-fi and fantasy films, was used to make students rethink the technologies they interact with. STUDENTS AS PARTICIPANTS IN THE FORMATION OF KNOWLEDGE As an instructor teaching with pop culture, there is a recurring concern: as we grow older, what was considered pop culture for my generation is no longer pop culture for the students I teach. I was aware of the growing gap between my students and I, so it became necessary to regard students as active participants in the formation and analysis of knowledge when studying pop culture. Accordingly, many of my assignments asked students to bring in and discuss content from their generation’s pop culture. The discussion of this new material sometimes revealed current shifts in Saudi social perspectives. The teaching model I follow is that of the constructivist classroom, which is “based on the belief that learning occurs as learners are actively involved in a process of meaning and knowledge construction rather than passively receiving information. Learners are the makers of meaning and knowledge. Constructivist teaching fosters critical thinking and creates motivated and independent learners.” 6 This model is “learner-centered” and based on “active instruction. In such a classroom, the teacher provides students with experiences that allow them to hypothesize, predict, manipulate objects, pose questions, research, investigate, imagine, and invent. The teacher’s role is to facilitate this process.” 7 In this teaching model, the teacher and the book are not the main sources of knowledge but rather facilitators of discussion. Through the learners’ involvement in the process of knowledge creation, the constructivist paradigm allows a richer understanding of the world and the media around us. I often reminded my students that there is no one right way to answer a question and that the classroom provided an open space for them to express their opinions

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and convictions. Based on comments on end-of-year teaching evaluations, this has sometimes been a problematic point for some students. Many students were used to an education system that was often more definitive in issues relating to morality and belief systems, even sometimes extended to economic matters and codes of conduct. In this sense, some students expected the instructor to provide a clear stance on issues that may arise in discussion; I often refrained from doing this in order to avoid influencing the students and making them think through the issues on their own. Upon finding particular sci-fi or fantasy film clips, I proceeded to structure my lectures around them. Prior to showing a video clip, I often started by asking questions such as “Why do we tell stories? What purpose do they serve?” as an introduction to a discussion on Roland Barthes’ Mythologies 8 and Jean-Francois Lyotard’s metanarrative concept, 9 and how our culture can be read through these frameworks. After watching a clip on a protagonist from a dated sci-fi film interacting with a new technology, another question I asked was, “What kind of changes and reactions do you think took place when this new technology was introduced?” In order to keep the discussion going, I followed up with a series of questions on the effect the new technology had on other existing technologies of the time, and what social and cultural changes occurred as a result of its introduction. Usually, students enjoyed sharing their own stories about technology, sometimes even recounting their parents’ or grandparent’s accounts and brought up questions of their own, moving discussion forward without need for my prepared questions. My priority was to empower students to think critically and voice their opinion by arguing for a position on a topic that mattered to them, while providing support for their claims. As a first step in teaching them how to argue, I asked them to read an article that stated the use of “LOL” (short for “laugh out loud”) is currently in decline. 10 I asked them to argue for their own preferred mode of expressing laughter on social media: “LOL,” “Haha,” or an “emoji.” As we progressed through the semester, the students started picking more complex issues on the effect of media on culture for debate. For example, one student argued for the changing acceptance of music in society. Her argument was that it was not as a result of religious adherence as is often attributed, but rather as a matter of contextualization. According to the student, playing music on a trusted conservative channel or having it sung for a national occasion made many conservative people in her circles accept it as long as it was not being played in a pure entertainment context. The tests were also designed to make students used to expressing their position on a matter and supporting it with evidence. There was no right or wrong solution to the matter, and students were graded on their ability to apply the theoretical framework correctly in order to analyze a problem. Sometimes, students came up with explanations that I did not consider previously. This gave students relief that they did not have to enter the history

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exam having memorized a set of dates and names, but rather to make sense of history through theory. In fact, at the beginning of the exam, the students were even given a brief summary of the theoretical framework in case they had forgotten it. This placed more emphasis on the logic of linking theory to real-life or imaginative scenarios. THE CONSERVATIVE RELIGIOUS NATURE OF THE SAUDI EDUCATIONAL CONTEXT It is true that the younger generation may be changing and opening up to new ideas and changed identities, 11 thanks in part to social media. Mai Yamani, a Saudi researcher, claims that young generations are open to changed identities and Saudi Arabia is taking steps to modernize itself. 12 However, Saudi Arabia also takes measures to protect its religious identity, and the education system is but an extension of that vision. 13 As an instructor in Saudi Arabia, I am aware of incidents of students complaining to the administration or on the end-of-term evaluations about instructors displaying or discussing content they view as inappropriate. There have also been incidents in the past where some students in other universities took to social media to protest certain university policies; once an incident is reported on social media, it can be removed out of context and blown out of proportion quickly and the public would often sympathize with the offended student. The university sometimes sends precautionary reminders to instructors to refrain from discussing any sensitive issues regarding religion or ethnicity for fear of causing hostile divisions between students from Sunni and Shia backgrounds. With this in mind, certain topics can sometimes be challenging to broach in the classroom while considering all the possibilities of how they may offend anyone. It is often a sensitive issue to discuss absolute rights and wrongs, considering the various, and sometimes conflicting, religious backgrounds of students from diverse Muslim sects, particularly with those coming from moderate backgrounds while others are from more conservative ones. Some challenges may also arise when showing examples from our own pop culture. Some students may consider items from social media too mundane to take seriously. They may be quick to judge a controversial topic, such as women driving cars, based on their own biases, or regard these topics with weariness. Other sensitive issues can be related to vlog (video blog) exchanges arguing over the issue of race and slavery. For example, in a class discussion on racial representation I showed a video clip of a Saudi man who addressed racist comments about his dark skin by boasting how cool and attractive it was; this resulted in two students quietly commenting on his inappropriateness. Students usually tend to be more vigilant and protective

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when the example is from their culture but are more relaxed when it is from a foreign culture, as they consider it more normal for Westerners to have freer interactions with the opposite sex. This is why I found that using American pop culture references offered more ease in criticism of certain issues than showing local content—it is often easier to dissect and be critical of a culture that is not our own. Another incident occurred during a discussion on semiotics, where a picture of a monkey was used to discuss how it may trigger different interpretations in different cultures: calling a child a little monkey may be regarded as “cute” and energetic in a Western context but an insult in Arab culture. When a student suggested a connection to evolution, the class soon was split over evolution’s scientific validity and those who saw her stance as an attack on their religious understanding of the origin story. To avoid any further conflict, I diverted the discussion into the following point without offering a definite closure to that specific topic. I have come across students fresh from orientation year and unprepared for college as a place of intellectual stimulation, who would rather complain to the administration rather than confront their instructor personally about a topic that may have offended them. The fear of public backlash, the lack of support for critical thinking and debate culture, and the university’s warning against tackling any sensitive issues has made me carefully monitor my videos for any content that could trigger offense, so I censor any nudity, sexuality, drug use, or bad language. I draw from my experience when I was my students’ age fifteen years ago, but I sometimes run the content by my teaching assistants or ask them after class if anything I said during the class lecture may have triggered sensitivities in conservative students. THE RELEVANCE OF WESTERN STORIES TO A SAUDI AUDIENCE Saudi Arabia is a conservative country and its structure relies deeply on the moral system it preserves. 14 As a result, I often found addressing the issue of morality and media a bit tricky, so I resorted to a “distancing” technique: The replacement of “us” with “the familiar other.” This is a literary technique that can be found in the allegorical use of animals as stand-ins for humans to teach moral lessons, such as in Aesop’s Fables or Panchatantra. 15 The use of talking animals offered a distancing filter to take away the risk of association with real events, authorities, or regimes one might critique. However, the question of relevance rose when students viewed the setting of the world as too alien. I experienced this when I showed an example from the sci-fi videogame Mass Effect, 16 wherein an alien discusses how the younger generations are abandoning the ways of the old, in reference to their

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lost faith. At first, the students may be turned off by the fact that the speaker is a green alien. This is an example of Marshall McLuhan’s phrase “The medium is the message,” 17 as the alien speaker might have been a barrier for the reception of the message to those who refused to suspend their disbelief in such creatures. To overcome this alienation effect, I pointed out the humane characteristics and tried to link them to our own families, job obligations, and relationships with others. In a culture that is on the defense from the intrusion of outsiders, critique may be considered criticism, and to dissect and analyze our pop culture is to criticize ourselves, something some undergraduate students in their first year find problematic. I have previously pointed out how it was easier to critique and point the blame on the other rather than ourselves. Globalization is slowly bridging the gap between “the Western culture” and “ours,” and TV shows they watch introduce them further to the details of life in the West. However, there are certain instances when I found that gap widen when viewing sci-fi Western videos. In such cases, I tried to drive the discussion by the question of being human in futuristic stories and exploring universal human traits shared by people regardless of culture. For instance, while watching Minority Report we explored the question: Should we base our convictions of people based on what they have done in the past or what they may potentially do in the future? I focused on shared human concerns and qualities regardless of context, asking questions such as, “If you had the ability to predict who will commit a crime (such as in Minority Report), will the person really be a criminal even though no crime has been committed?” By pointing out universal human traits, the gap between “the Western” and “us” can be bridged. I bring examples of clips with families having normal interactions and draw a comparative discussion on how our families in our culture interact, I play the devil’s advocate when some students seem to have an idealized romantic vision of the traditional Saudi family. I point out common universal values that are shared by us, and it is good to see that students are more acceptable and open to viewing the Western as diverse instead of stereotyping them into narrow categories. ABSURD INTERACTIONS WITH TECHNOLOGY: THE RELEVANCE OF DATED SCI-FI FILM When discussing technology, it can be problematic to point out things that students are used to; technology is so ubiquitous, it has become inconsequential. Students are excited to discuss social media as it is part of their daily lives and how they view the world, but it is always a challenge to get them to think critically about social media. In addition, they sometimes seem to hold a nostalgic impression about the old days when people were nicer and actual-

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ly talked to each other before social media broke human ties apart. As new sci-fi films increasingly aim to immerse viewers in their special effects, screening dated sci-fi films can trigger a critical eye and become more revealing of the socio-cultural norms of their times. I found the students less likely to be immersed in the atmosphere or story because many would regard old movies as distant and irrelevant. For these reasons, I selected and presented various clips that I discuss below. Blade Runner uses printouts of suspects rather than portable smart devices. Brazil 18 envisions a future dependent on paper as an essential medium of communication, a feature born of the critique of the bureaucracy of their times, and perhaps they could not envision a future without paper. Her 19 predicts a future biased toward oral-audio-based media, reversing visual dominance in media in a McLuhan-ian 20 sense. 2001: A Space Odyssey 21 taps into the gender norms of their times with its portrayal of men leading a future in which women remain subservient. Many such sci-fi films from the 1980s reflect a fear of technology and portray a dystopian hell on earth caused by technologies. The first portion of the course explores the topics of technology by using the lens of Lev Manovich 22 and Marshall McLuhan 23 who predicted society’s behaviors when a new medium is introduced. This is complemented by sci-fi films that often show predictions of technologies in the past. The students noticed how 1980s sci-fi film environments are often dystopic and dark, and their portrayal of technologies further complicated the future. We question why is that? We can see that in Ridley Scott’s Apple ad in 1984, which used the same dark atmosphere as Blade Runner, with a layer of George Orwell’s 1984’s 24 Big Brother feel of technology that is about to swallow us and watch our every move. It is interesting for students to compare between two futures, 1984’s Big Brother and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World’s 25 issue of abundance and irrelevance. When students are asked to reflect on which one is more relevant to them today, they are often conflicted. What is the relevance of dated sci-fi film to a new generation? To an audience that may not be familiar or interested, viewing sci-fi film in the classroom can be a challenge. Before showing the clip, students are usually given context and provided with a framework for analysis so that the viewing is done through a purposeful lens. Shortening the video clips, ensuring they have minimal dialogue, directly focusing on interactions with technologies, stopping at intervals to comment or to ask questions—these tactics often helped students focus in their discussions. Another method was asking the question what can we learn about being human from these film clips? It is not just sci-fi of the future, but also fantasy of the past that portrays reflections on technology. I select films with shifts in time and space to get the students out of the “now” and make them rethink their current interaction

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with technology. We viewed a scene from Interview with the Vampire where the protagonist describes the evolution of cinema over his immortal life. The scene is set to provoke a sense of wonder at a technology that we now take for granted and includes a good instance of media remediation. The vampire, who cannot view sunlight for fear of burning, is finally able to view it on a cinema screen. He describes it as follows: “And there, a mechanical wonder allowed me to see the sun rise for the first time in two hundred years. And what sunrises, seen as the human eye could never see them: silver at first, then, as the years progressed, in tones of purple, red, and my long lost blue.” 26 THE WHAT-IF QUESTION: YOU ARE AN ADVENTURER, JUSTIFY YOUR ACTIONS In my introduction to computer graphics and the increasing visual bias, I used a text-based example from interactive fiction to place students in the action, in which I read the text on my screen. Interactive fiction is “computer-mediated narrative, resembling a fine-grained ‘choose your own adventure’ story, in which the reader helps to determine the outcome of the story.” 27 I relied heavily on the student involvement and participation in defining the outcome of the story, sometimes questioning a certain choice they made to make them rethink it. Although it is not a sci-fi example, Ex Nihilo 28 is a fantasy interactive fiction that I found useful in trying out the second-person scenario. Ex Nihilo is a powerful example of the power of choice and morality of actions. It leaves the reader to decide the course of the narrative, choosing between light and darkness, and accordingly, the tone of writing, background color, and music changes. When the narrative goes on to read, “I watched the universe define itself around me,” I often reiterate in my commentary that this is a person who is alone in the world, hoping to erase any reference to the author’s reference to a deity, as this is forbidden. My classroom depended on student discussions as an integral part of the formation of knowledge and understanding in all participants. Discussions were usually fun for students, as they got to share opinions and interpretations of content they just viewed with their peers. However, the classes also had introverts who often remained quiet, which made it hard to assess their knowledge. This made me resort to other modes of assessment, such as quizzes and essay writing. But how would I make exams less intimidating and, hopefully, more relevant and engaging to the students? I found my inspiration from Blade Runner. Blade Runner depicts a futuristic world in which replicas, robots almost indistinguishable from humans, become a threat to humans. Since the only

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trait that sets them apart from humans is their lack of emotions, a Blade Runner (police officer) would be required to give a suspected replica the Voight-Kampf (VK) exam to test their empathy. The test is comprised of a series of questions addressing the examined person in the second-person tense, placing them in a hypothetical situation that requires them to give an opinion or take an action. Blade Runner’s VK exam, text adventure games from the 1980s, and choose-your-own-adventure books have all been an inspiration for me in creating my quiz questions. But of course, it was not the student’s empathy I was testing, but their ability to make a rational decision in a given situation, based on a theoretical framework discussed in class. I have often discussed with my students how philosophies and worldviews influence actions and decisions, and this was a good hypothetical exercise of role-play wherein students could choose and justify their actions. The main focus of these quizzes was the way they formulate an argument and support their claim with evidence. I created scenarios from their daily lives, as well as from various instances of history or different cultures. In these scenarios, I placed the reader in a situation where they must pick a position or action and justify it using a given theoretical framework. I tried to leave room open for interpretation, and placed the criteria on the proper linking of coherent arguments and proper understanding of the theoretical framework. An anticipated trigger of sensitivities for a conservative audience was the question of “what-if” triggered by some nonlinear films that rely on flashbacks and flash-forwards, with multiple possibilities and endings for the protagonists’ destinies. According to an old religious teaching that was more prominent when I was growing up in this region, the word “if” triggers devil’s work as it challenges a certain Islamic understanding of predestination. However, the “what-if” moral situation poses a question that can be found in their own culture, such as when people make decisions based on their own gut feeling, via the interpretation of dreams or “Salat estikhara,” the prayer of decision. Interestingly, this never seemed to be an issue when viewing films such as Mr. Nobody 29 or Run Lola Run. 30 This could be the result of a more mediasavvy audience that frequently watches TV series and films that often use such techniques. The purpose of discussing films such as Run Lola Run was to explore the influence of video games on traditional film narratives in popular media. The influence of new media on older media forms is something that both Lev Manovich and Janet Murray 31 discussed under the concepts of an increasingly data-based or encyclopedic narratives. Manovich uses Man with a Movie Camera 32 as an example of a database narrative, as it acts as a time capsule, collecting scattered images from the street at a specific time, without a clear narrative to tie them all down, and leaving it to the audience to decipher.

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Another source of concern with regards to clashing with certain belief systems was the visualization of the afterlife or sacred beings. This came into the picture while showing the film Knowing, 33 which portrayed the end of times, an alternative creation scene of Adam and Eve, and angels which were aliens. There was a local example I found in a Saudi online forum in which a person documented his visit to a secondary school that portrayed the afterlife: heaven and hell. I showed the images to the students and discussed how the pressure of an increasingly visual culture is moving such sacred narratives to the physical world in hopes of reaching out to a new audience. Although many of the students mocked the poor execution of the concept, none of them seemed to be offended by it. The only comment from a student was that “Heaven should be that which no eye has seen nor any ear has heard of and no heart has ever envisioned,” citing a Hadeeth 34 by the Prophet Muhammad, which also paraphrases the Christian text Corinthians 2:9. The visualization of the afterlife may have been offensive in the past as depictions of the sacred or the realm of the unknown was considered forbidden; while some students did point that out, overall students seemed relaxed in their commentary on the topic. THINKING OF THE NATURE OF THE MEDIUM Although my presentations were always rich with visual examples, punctuated by semi-structured discussions, I did resort at times to non-visual media during my presentations. In one of my lectures on changing media preferences through history and geographical locations, I started by reading a passage without giving any contextual background or setting for the story. This was done deliberately in order to place the students in the shoes of the character as a human, with no bias or preconceptions influencing their judgment. I tried to mimic what their tone of voice might have sounded like in a suspenseful, interrogatory manner from the opening of the autobiography, Infidel. 35 It summarized a dialogue between the narrator and her grandmother, where Ali is asked to recount her ancestors back to 100 years ago. I would follow up by asking the students “Would you consider this girl intelligent for succeeding to memorize all this data?” We started a discussion on what constituted being smart in this day and age. It was certainly impressive that a five-year-old would be able to memorize all her ancestry, but it was not intelligence according to many of the students’ standards. The simple act of memorization was not necessary because now, we have many means of data storage that remember for us and allow us to make decisions on supposedly more complex processes. But citing Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, 36 each time and space had its own prominent mode of communication, and in the context of a harsh Somali land in a time

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of drought, a tribal system was necessary and the need to prove your connection by reciting your lineage was a matter of survival. In such societies where no other media existed, the oral tradition of memorization became prevalent. And according to Postman, intelligence was very much related to the mastery of the prominent medium of the time. By this example, I aimed to make students aware of the influence of the medium’s characteristics on a culture and vice-versa. The oral culture of Arabs, in the harsh desert climates, rested on recitation and the strong memory of people, and was indeed considered a sign of intelligence at the time. FRAMING THE PRESENT THROUGH HUXLEY AND ORWELL’S DYSTOPIAN VISIONS We also examined the issue of control over the media using various theoretical frameworks. I started by showing a comic illustrating the introduction of Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death. In this introduction, Postman compares two prominent sci-fi novels in their portrayal of a dystopian future: George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. In summary, Huxley feared a future where abundance of information caused it to become irrelevant, where people were so immersed in entertainment that there was no longer a need to censor books. Meanwhile, Orwell portrayed the concept of Big Brother controlling and censoring information. This led to class discussion of Foucault’s Discipline and Punish 37 in which he describes a surveillance model similar to the “panopticon” prison. In it, a guard hides to watch the inmates from his central tunnel. And the inmates start regulating their behavior in case the guard was watching them, although they had no means of verifying this at all. I then pose the following scenario: You enter a mall in Saudi Arabia, and no matter what gate you enter from, there is always a security lady asking you to place your bags on a table for inspection. You follow the orders but the security lady does not even thoroughly inspect your bag, and she lets you in anyway. You walk around the mall, perhaps not seeing there are cameras all around you. Describe this setting using a theoretical framework we have discussed.

The aim of this question is to provoke the students into thinking about daily visits to public places. Even observing the security camera, one may wonder if it is working or if it just an illusion to instill the fear of Big Brother who is supposed to be ever-watching, just like the security lady whose job is to simply be an extra eye to Big Brother, a Panopticon, the few watching the many.

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I posed another question to illustrate another example of the intrusive nature of technology on our daily lives. I used the third-person because the closeness of this scenario to the student’s reality may make a student feel uneasy associating themselves with the scenario. Writing it in the third person would allow a freer interpretation, and the question is as follows: Sameer opened a Twitter account with his real name and started writing his daily thoughts to a small audience of close friends. His followers increased, so did the strangers whom he did not know. Sameer started becoming more political in his tweets, and when his opponents increased and the discussions got heated up, he started considering deleting his account and starting fresh with a pseudonym. Explain his behavior in relation to his audience using a given framework.

Taking into consideration that social media is a popular means of venting and voicing opinion in Saudi Arabia, the situation allowed students to rethink something they may be subject to everyday, the effect of medium choice in shaping the message. Many of them cited Thomas Mathiesen’s article The Viewer Society 38 in which he suggested another form of surveillance, that of the “synopticon.” In this model, the audience serves to spy on each other and report to higher authorities if necessary. In this case, the individual becomes subject to their watchful eyes. But on social media, the audience in itself does not necessarily report, but they in themselves become the punisher. Another scenario that aims to make students think about their interactions with social media goes as follows: “You received a viral image or video through some social media app. What is this image/video, and what caused you to believe or disbelieve it? Explain your behavior using one of the theoretical frameworks.” In this example, many students cited William Mitchell’s concept of “The Reconfigured Eye” 39 in which our minds have adapted to the nature of the new technologies and their ability to manipulate truth and our perceptions of the world. With the knowledge of photograph manipulation through Photoshopping, this makes people doubt the dominant mode of communication in this era: the visual. Many students mentioned examples of videos they received about a favorite public figure saying something that they later discovered was taken out of context. One mentioned a hoax picture she has received as a child claiming a person have metamorphosed to a beast after committing a particular sin, but said she was aware of the possibility of Photoshop manipulation at that young age. The last scenario in relation to social media interactions goes as follows: “You experience an incident with a certain individual or an organization, and you are distraught and want to criticize what happened to you. Which medium would you choose to deliver your criticism and why?” This hypothetically places the student in a circumstance where they need to consider how the choice of medium affects how their message is perceived. As the students

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are experienced with social media, this might make them consider how things can be documented through screenshots, taken out of context, and blown out of proportion. Responses to this question sometimes demonstrated an ethical consideration of consequence to social media criticism, which was reflected in some students’ thoughtful preference to speak to a person in private, so that the issue could be resolved without the involvement of outside parties. In such cases, social media is often used as a last resort to voice their opinions to authorities in certain cases. ROLE-PLAYING: FLASHING BACK IN TIME, SPACE, AND BODY Some of the questions set the students in a specific time and space, asking them to assume a role in that time period and rethink the technologies used then. It was interesting to see what they answered or asked not to answer. Some refrained from answering specific role-playing questions. One flashback scenario is as follows: “You are a leader, perhaps a general but also possibly any other type, with a strong idea, in a specific historic period in a specific place, and you want to focus on one medium that would inform people of your message. What medium would you use?” Another scenario that I gave goes as follows: “You are an artist in the 1990s, we have reached 1999 and everyone started getting personal computers and Internet access. How did this new technology affect your artwork? Did it devalue it or modify it in any form?” It would be interesting to note here that students often assumed the acceptable art-related roles for women in Saudi Arabia which were often limited in the Saudi context to painting and photography. A few of them assumed a musician role, which could possibly have been influenced by a video of Amanda Palmer 40 I had showed them earlier. In that video, Palmer, who is a performance artist and musician, challenges copyright laws though the art of asking. Another scenario explored the eclectic nature of media remediation, and goes as follows: “You are in a manga cartoon in Japan, observing its distinct buildings that are harmonious with its geographical location, but you see a gothic cathedral in the landscape. How would you explain the existence of a foreign European element making its place in the manga, using a given theoretical framework?” As a response, many students reference Huxley’s vision of the abundance of information flow causing the meltdown of all cultural definitions. FLASHING FORWARD IN TIME In my exams, I also included scenarios set in the future to encourage students to predict the influence of current technologies on our future, think about the

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nature and characteristics of the media that are saturated and almost invisible in our cultures, and consider how this technology is shaping who were are as humans. It is easy to sympathize with a victim of social media bullying today, but how far will the hurt go? To explore this issue and help my students go beyond the immersion in the “digital now” as Abha Deswar calls it, they were asked the following question: You receive a selfie image that a young man took with a poor black girl who was searching in a garbage bin, which was uploaded to Snapchat. She is wearing a shirt of his opponent football team. He leaves a mocking comment against that team and how her looks are “killing him.” The image goes viral, and becomes known as “the garbage selfie.” Comments pour in, accusing him of racism and derogatory behavior. He tries to justify himself by saying he was simply mocking the fans of that team, not the poor girl herself, then attempts to apologize to the girl by buying her gifts and taking a new picture while hugging her. Using a given theoretical framework and thinking about the way the medium that spread this image works, predict the future fate of this picture. 41

A majority responded by using Huxley’s vision of a dystopian future: because people are buried in an abundance of information, images, and media, this image quickly loses its significance with the passage of time. Some cite Harold Innis’ concept of the bias of media, describing a photo on the Internet as following a space-biased existence, just as it spread quickly and was viewed by hundreds, it also died fast, not withstanding time. RETHINKING DIGITAL REPRODUCTION AND THE BODY The last question I will discuss required students to imagine a scenario in relation to the body modified by digital reproduction. The students were first introduced to Walter Benjamin’s paper The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. 42 Benjamin views the introduction of the machine to creative work as the cause for the loss of an artifact’s aura, defined as a specific characteristic that can only be gained by the artifact’s founding and existence in a certain time and space as a result of a unique ritual or cultural function. Benjamin views mechanical reproduction as a process of alienating the maker from his/her artifact, and with that, the aura is lost. In our class on the history of visual communication, we contemplated how the notion of reproduction has influenced our relationship with media and recent technologies. But to give it an easier feel, I started by showing a shortened version of the Widrich Virgil’s Copy Shop 43 which shows the story of a man who goes daily to his copy shop and accidentally photocopies his hand. Afterwards, the machine continues to photocopy parts of his daily routine. Panicked, he unplugs the machine and returns home. But he is too late, as it seems that photocopies of himself continue to be made, and real

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characters who look like him populate the city until it becomes too unbearable and he kills himself. It is unclear what happens to the copies after the original is dead, but this begs the question of the status of the copy when there is no longer an original, a question founded in the age of digital reproduction, according to Davis’ The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction. 44 After viewing this film, some of the students commented on its oddness, and asked what the meaning was. Some of them tried to make philosophical sense of the protagonist’s repeated daily actions, likening it to their daily lives, going on in a loop with no end, which was a good introduction to the concept of looping time. It also opened up a discussion on the metaphor of the loop in computer science, one that Lev Manovich has pointed out as a new media form in narrative. I pointed out that students—when pressured to produce work with no time for other social activities—would sometimes wish to produce a copy of themselves. I asked them to think about what mistake this film made. Being Millennials, many of them have not experienced the golden age of the Xerox, so I did wonder why many did not think about the obvious decay of the mechanically reproduced copy. But once I asked them to imagine if the film had the man digitally reproduced instead and what effect that would have in the movie, they started realizing what the answer to my first question was: the mechanically reproduced copy should have showed degradation, unlike a digital copy that produced an exact copy. Eventually it would render the word “copy” itself useless. Because of this, I have thought that in the future it would be a good idea to explore various notions of bodily reproduction in different sci-fi movies in various science fiction films. For instance, Multiplicity 45 is a sci-fi comedy about a man cloning himself to be able to do all the work he could not catch up on, which proved to be comically problematic as his copies started taking over his place with his girlfriend or messing up his job. The Fly 46 is a sci-fi thriller about a man who tries to teleport his body in space, and as a result of a fly entering the machine, ends up exchanging genetic traits with it and becoming a monster. These are some of the sci-fi films that may provoke students to rethink the notion of what it means to be human, and, alongside the fantasy genre, allowing us to discuss issues of morality and humanity without injuring the sensitivity of the cultural, ethnic, and religious groups that students may come from. CONCLUSION This chapter discussed my teaching experience while teaching courses on the history or theory of media and communication in a Saudi university. I dis-

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cussed my use of sci-fi and fantasy films and other forms of pop culture in the classroom to engage the students in discussion and debate. However, these media forms posed issues of relevance, such as the relevance of western pop culture in a Saudi context, of dated material to Millennials, and of sci-fi film for those uninterested in the genre. I discussed some methods to bring them closer to the students, such as raising student curiosity and discussion by questions prior to and after viewing each clip, facilitating discussions to create a more engaged classroom as well as allowing students to participate in the creation of knowledge through their own understanding and the use of quizzes in the form of scenarios designed in the tone of second person tense borrowed from interactive fiction. Through this experience of creating a constructivist classroom environment, I attempt to place the student as an active participant in creation of knowledge that bridges both the generational gap as well as that between the west and us. I would like to thank Yasmine Abdin and Annique-Elise Goode for their help in editing this chapter. NOTES 1. Ridley Scott, Blade Runner (Warner Bros., 1982). 2. Terry Gilliam, Brazil (20th Century Fox, 1985). 3. Steven Spielberg, Minority Report (20th Century Fox, 2002). 4. Spike Jonze, Her (Warner Bros., 2013). 5. Neil Jordan, Interview with the Vampire (Warner Bros. Pictures, 1994). 6. Gray, Constructivist Teaching and Learning. 7. Ibid. 8. Barthes, Mythologies. 9. Lyotard, The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. 10. Matyszczyk, “No One Says LOL Anymore, Says Facebook Study.” 11. Mai Yamani, Changed Identities: Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi Arabia (UK: Royal Institute for International Affairs/Chatham House, 2000). 12. Yamani, Changed Identities: Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi Arabia. 13. Alkhedr, Saudi Arabia, Biography of State and Society—A Reading in the Experience of a Third of a Century of Intellectual, Political and Developmental Transformations. 14. Al-Rasheed, A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia. 15. Sharma, Panchatantra. 16. Hudson, Watamaniuk, and Falkner, Mass Effect 2. 17. McLuhan, The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects. 18. Gilliam, Brazil. 19. Jonze, Her. 20. McLuhan, Laws of Media; McLuhan, The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century. 21. Kubrick, 2001: A Space Odyssey. 22. Manovich, The Language of New Media. 23. McLuhan, Laws of Media; McLuhan, The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century. 24. Orwell, 1984. 25. Huxley, Brave New World. 26. Jordan, Interview with the Vampire.

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27. Jerz, “What Is Interactive Fiction?” 28. Leinonen, Ex Nihilo (Interactive Fiction). 29. Van Dormael, Mr. Nobody. 30. Tykwer, Run Lola Run. 31. Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck. 32. Vertov, Man with a Movie Camera. 33. Proyas, Knowing. 34. Hadeeth, according to oxforddictionaries.com is “A collection of traditions containing sayings of the prophet Muhammad which, with accounts of his daily practice (the Sunna), constitute the major source of guidance for Muslims apart from the Koran.” 35. Ali, Infidel: My Life. 36. Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death. 37. Foucault, Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. 38. Mathiesen, “The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault’s `Panopticon’ Revisited.” 39. Mitchell, The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era. 40. Palmer, TED Talk: The Art of Asking. 41. TED Talk: The Art of Asking. 42. Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. 43. Widrich, Copy Shop. 44. Davis, “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis: 1991–1995).” 45. Ramis, Multiplicity. 46. Cronenberg, The Fly.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Al-Rasheed, Madawi. A Most Masculine State: Gender, Politics and Religion in Saudi Arabia. NY: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Ali, Ayaan Hirsi. Infidel: My Life. NY: Atria Books, 2008. Alkhedr, Abdulaziz. Saudi Arabia, Biography of State and Society—A Reading in the Experience of a Third of a Century of Intellectual, Political and Developmental Transformations. Cairo, Egypt: Arab network for research and publishing, 2010. Barthes, Roland. Mythologies. France: Les Lettres Nouvelles, 1957. Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Boston: MIT Press, 1936. Cronenberg, David. The Fly. 20th Century Fox, 1986. Davis, Douglas. “The Work of Art in the Age of Digital Reproduction (An Evolving Thesis: 1991–1995).” Leonardo 28, no. 5 (1995): 381–386. Dawesar, Abha. TED Talk: Life in the “Digital Now.” TEDGlobal 2013. Edinburgh, Scotland, 2013. van Dormael, Jaco. Mr. Nobody. Wild Bunch, 2009. Foucault, Michel. Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. Pantheon Books, 1977. Gilliam, Terry. Brazil. 20th Century Fox, 1985. Gray, Audrey. Constructivist Teaching and Learning. SSTA Research Centre Report, 1997. http://www.saskschoolboards.ca/old/ResearchAndDevelopment/ResearchReports/ Instruction/97-07.htm. Hudson, Casey, Preston Watamaniuk, and David Falkner. Mass Effect 2. Microsoft Game Studios & Electronic Arts, 2010. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World. UK: Chatto & Windus, 1932. Jerz, Dennis G. “What Is Interactive Fiction?,” January 2000. http://jerz.setonhill.edu/if/intro. htm. Jonze, Spike. Her. Warner Bros., 2013. Jordan, Neil. Interview with the Vampire. Warner Bros. Pictures, 1994. Kubrick, Stanley. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1968. Leinonen, Juhana. Ex Nihilo (Interactive Fiction), 2013. http://nitku.net/if/exnihilo/.

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Lyotard, Jean-François. The Postmodern Condition: A Report on Knowledge. UK: Manchester University Press, 1979. Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Massachusetts: MIT press, 2001. Mathiesen, Thomas. “The Viewer Society: Michel Foucault’s `Panopticon’ Revisited.” Theoretical Criminology 1, no. 2 (1997): 215–234. Matyszczyk, Chris. “No One Says LOL Anymore, Says Facebook Study.” C|net - Tech Culture, August 2015. https://www.cnet.com/news/no-one-says-lol-anymore-says-facebookstudy/. McLuhan, Marshall. Laws of Media. TO: University of Toronto Press, 1988. ———. The Global Village: Transformations in World Life and Media in the 21st Century. US: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. The Medium Is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects. UK: Penguin Books, 1967. Mitchell, William. The Reconfigured Eye: Visual Truth in the Post-Photographic Era. MA: MIT press, 1994. Murray, Janet. Hamlet on the Holodeck. Massachusetts: MIT press, 1998. Orwell, George. 1984. UK: Secker & Warburg, 1949. Palmer, Amanda. TED Talk: The Art of Asking. TED.com, 2013. http://www.ted.com/talks/ amanda_palmer_the_art_of_asking. Postman, Neil. Amusing Ourselves to Death. UK: Penguin Books, 1985. Proyas, Alex. Knowing. Summit Entertainment, 2009. Ramis, Harold. Multiplicity. Columbia Pictures, 1996. Sharma, Vishnu. Panchatantra, 200AD. Tykwer, Tom. Run Lola Run. Prokino Filmverleih, 1998. Vertov, Dziga. Man with a Movie Camera. Eureka Entertainment, 1929. Widrich, Virgil. Copy Shop, 2001. https://vimeo.com/26234133. Yamani, Mai. Changed Identities: Challenge of the New Generation in Saudi Arabia. UK: Royal Institute for International Affairs/Chatham House, 2000.

Chapter Eight

Teaching Little Professors Autism Spectrum on TV and in the Classroom Kimberley McMahon-Coleman

A rudimentary understanding of some of the atypical behaviors displayed by students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) may be gleaned from watching popular television representations of individuals commonly believed to be on the autism spectrum. A number of popular culture television programs, such as Bones and The Big Bang Theory (from the United States) and Doc Martin (from the United Kingdom) feature characters who are often read by audiences as featuring characteristics that are symptomatic of autism. These cultural references provide an opportunity and a language to discuss such characteristics, and to understand how to accommodate them socially and in classrooms. This is a strategy that I have used to initiate conversations about the traits and learning needs of students on the spectrum with both my university colleagues and pre-service teachers at the University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. There is a certain symmetry to such an approach as a number of professionals who write about autism—including Tony Attwood, Lorraine Wolf, Jane Thierfeld Brown, and Ruth Kukiela Bork—all advocate using recorded television programs as a medium for students on the spectrum to analyze “normal” social interactions, in an attempt to be better able to replicate them. 1 Researchers in the field of autism refer to the kind of high-level skills of reading others’ words, body language and emotion as “theory of mind.” 2 Watching vignettes on television can assist people on the spectrum with seeing and interpreting body language, tone, and reactions in particular social situations. Conversely, similar vignettes featuring characters from US television shows who respond atypically—such as Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan (Emily Deschanel), Dr. Martin Ellingham (Martin Clunes), or Dr. Shel145

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don Cooper (Jim Parsons)—may assist others to understand the thought processes that led to those responses. This is of particular value in the field of education, where an individual’s difficulty in interpreting unwritten codes of conduct may see them instead branded as odd or a trouble-maker in the classroom, whether that be in a school-based environment or at university. 3 Teachers and lecturers are better able to be inclusive of students if they are aware that a student’s seemingly odd question or misunderstanding of class or assessment requirements is genuine and caused by what is, at heart, a social processing disorder. The so-called “little professors” of the autism spectrum are often ill at ease within classroom environments, and may find the unwritten rules of the teaching space and the hidden curriculum baffling. The CBS television series The Big Bang Theory (2007– ) provides a useful case study of how individuals on the spectrum may find the behavior of others nigh impossible to decode and how some autistic behaviors might be equally startling for neurotypical teachers, that is, those who do not have a diagnosis of autism, but process social information in a more-or-less “standard” manner. The Big Bang Theory is particularly useful for this purpose, given that it is substantially set in a learning and teaching environment, with four of the main characters being academics at Caltech University. The number of students with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) enrolling in post-secondary university or college studies appears to be increasing rapidly, meaning, in turn, that an increased number of university and college lecturers will be required to teach students on the spectrum. A number of colleges in the United States offer specialist programs for students on the spectrum, such as the Kinney Center at Saint Joseph’s University in Pennsylvania; the West Virginia Autism Training Center at Marshall; Douglass Developmental Disability Center at Rutgers in New Jersey; and the University of Connecticut Strategic Education for Students with Autism program. There have also been numerous texts offering advice to autistic people about the transition from secondary to tertiary education published over the last few years, including volumes by Ann Palmer; Sarita Freedman; Lorraine Wolf; Jane Thierfeld Brown and G. Ruth Kukiela Bork; John Harpur, Maria Lawlor, and Michael Fitzgerald; and Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Kim Draisma. 4 In Australia, students typically enroll in mainstream classes rather than specialist programs for students with autism, and in addition to being able to request personalized support through the Disabilities Liaison office, may also access the Counselling and Learning Development (professional academic language and learning support) services available to all students. The Disabilities Liaison officers with whom I work report a threefold increase in enrollments of ASD students at our university over the last three years; my current role as a learning development lecturer with a focus on assisting students with disabilities was created, in part, to address that increased need.

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Yet there are many people within universities and the wider community who do not really understand what autism is; indeed, news reportage of events from Australia, such as the Port Arthur massacre (1996), and from the United States, such as the Aurora, Colorado, theater shooting (2012) and Sandy Hook school massacre (2013), that focused on the perpetrators’ autism has led to a misconception that autism inevitably leads to violence and should thus be feared. Psychopathy is not a symptom of ASD; rather, autism is a lifelong developmental disorder characterized by marked difficulties in social interaction and communication, behavioral and sensitivity issues, and restricted and repetitive interests. Autism is a behavioral impairment rather than a psychotic mental illness. Improved understanding of the disorder can assist in changing perceptions about it, facilitating better teaching of this cohort. The examination of popular characters on television who display some of these traits offs an opportunity for such increased understanding. THE BIG AUTISM HYPOTHESIS: AUTISM, ASPERGER’S, OR “JUST SHELDON-Y” Labeling around autism spectrum disorders is also at the forefront of debate around popular situation comedy The Big Bang Theory. It focuses on four nerdy friends—Dr. Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons), Dr. Leonard Hofstadter (Johnny Galecki), Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar), and Howard Wolowitz (Simon Helberg). All four work in a university and have high IQs and low EQs; that is, standardized test scores would indicate high intelligence, but their on-screen behavior suggests that their emotional quotients, or abilities to discriminate and label feelings appropriately, would not be commensurate. Of these four characters arguably the most profoundly socially impaired is Sheldon, a savant who began studying for his first doctorate at the age of fourteen, but who struggles to develop metacognition, particularly as it applies to social rituals. Sheldon is generally read by audiences as being on the spectrum. Indeed the actor who plays Sheldon, Jim Parsons, is aware of the rampant conjecture, responding in interviews when asked whether Sheldon has Asperger’s: “Good grief, he certainly has a lot of the traits!” 5; “he couldn’t display more facets of it” 6; and that the “majority” of what he read in Look Me in the Eye, the autobiography of John Elder Robison (a person with Asperger’s), “touched on aspects of Sheldon.” 7 Yet Parsons is also quick to point out that the writers have repeatedly stated that Sheldon is not on the spectrum. 8 Series co-creator Bill Prady has been quoted as saying that Sheldon’s actions are “just Sheldon-y,” and is emphatic that “[w]e write the character as the character. A lot of people see various things in him and make the connections. Our feeling is that Sheldon’s

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mother never got a diagnosis, so we don’t have one.” 9 This response is somewhat disingenuous, however, given the age of the character; it is perfectly understandable that a person in his thirties would not have been diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome or high-functioning autism as a child, since such diagnoses were virtually unheard of at the time. Series co-creator and lead writer Bill Prady also allegedly told Alan Sepinwell of the New Jersey Star-Ledger that “calling it Asperger’s creates too much of a burden to get the details right.” 10 This seems pertinent, given that Sheldon displays the full gamut of high-functioning autistic behaviors onscreen, effectively creating a kind of uber-Asperger’s identity. In reality, an individual with a diagnosis of high-functioning autism would display a number of the associated traits, but not all of them. Indeed, Sheldon even exhibits the relatively rare symptom of synaesthesia, 11 blithely remarking to colleague Raj, “You know how when you see prime numbers they’re red, but when you see twin primes they’re pink and smell like gasoline?” 12 Responses to Prady’s assertions have been mixed, particularly among the ASD community. A review of the online ASD discussion space Wrong Planet shows that some agree with the arguments put forward by show runners Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady as reasons for not diagnosing Sheldon: firstly, that to laugh at the symptoms of a disorder or exaggerate a disability for comedy would be in poor taste; and secondly, that the official diagnosis would constrain the writers as there would be an increased need for accuracy and responsibility in the portrayal. Some forum members write the show off as offensive parody. Others worry that it will lead to an increase in unofficial amateur diagnoses as well as increased stereotyping, with comments about not needing “another Rain Man.” 13 The 1980s film starring Dustin Hoffman and Tom Cruise, which became the defining representation of autism for many viewers, led to commonly held beliefs that all autistic people would be mathematical savants and that their communication and social difficulties would be so profound as to be dangerous, requiring individuals to be institutionalized for their own safety and those of others. The fear is that Sheldon will similarly become metonymic for a new generation, leading to assumptions that those on the spectrum will be virtually incapable of achieving intimate relationships or able to have productive working relationships with their employers and colleagues. Yet there is a cohort of Wrong Planet members who love the show and feel that there are positive benefits to its popularity, arguing that The Big Bang Theory has given them an effective means of explaining some of the idiosyncrasies of their disorder to neurotypical people in their lives. One contributor argued: I think The Big Bang Theory being a popular show is a good thing. A lot more people actually get a picture of how it is to be socially-maladjusted, even if

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they didn’t put a label to Sheldon’s character. I’ve personally had a lot more people tolerate me and sympathize with my “quirks” after watching the show. . . . I mean my co-workers never realized how I could usually not understand sarcasm until they saw Sheldon. 14

This has been supported in primary research with which I have been involved, in a project that seeks to ask viewers with particular mental health disorders to comment on the accuracy of popular television portrayals, and what impact these depictions have on their own self-advocacy. One university student on the autism spectrum commented in interview that, “[The Big Bang Theory] does serve as a good reference point when people talk to me and they go, ‘There’s something different about you.’ And I say, ‘Think Sheldon Cooper but less nightmarish.’” 15 THE BEHAVIORAL PERMUTATIONS Whether the character has an official diagnosis or not, it is clear the behaviors we see in Sheldon, who is highly intelligent but socially inept, offer opportunities for insight into the workings of the minds of students on the spectrum who share some of these traits. It also offers opportunities to think about how we might better accommodate them in the university classroom. The remainder of this chapter will focus on common areas of difficulty for those on the spectrum: comprehending metaphorical language (including sarcasm and irony), “mind blindness” to others, an over-reliance on routines, and unusual perseverative focus, using scenes from The Big Bang Theory to illustrate how these may present. Individuals on the spectrum sometimes have challenges in interpreting metaphorical language, which requires the listener to decode which points are salient to understanding the representative aspects of the language. 16 Sheldon’s issues with metaphorical language and, in particular, sarcasm, are introduced as early as the second episode of the series. Leonard and Sheldon meet their new neighbor, Penny, and Sheldon struggles to cope with the disorganization in her apartment. 17 The proximity of her mess to his ordered world is such that he cannot sleep and breaks into her apartment to restore order. Social conventions would suggest that reordering or moving the belongings of others in their own homes, let alone entering the apartment of an acquaintance without their permission or knowledge, are actions which are best avoided, yet these did not even factor into Sheldon’s response to the perceived problem. As he reassures Leonard, he believes that the “end result will be an immeasurable enhancement to Penny’s quality of life.” 18 Sheldon and Leonard learn that Penny has awakened and found her newly reordered apartment when they hear her scream, “You sick, geeky, bastards!” prompting Leonard to ask, “How did she know it was us?” Sheldon explains

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that he left Penny a suggested organizational system to facilitate the ongoing upkeep of her closet. This demonstrates that his desire to help is very much tied to the physical, not the social world; he appears unaware throughout the entire process that invading Penny’s personal space is considered to be a significant social violation, let alone one of which most people would deny all knowledge. Penny attempts to point out the extent of the social transgression by articulating this for Sheldon: “[i]n my apartment. While I was sleeping.” Sheldon takes the mention of sleep as an opportunity to steer the conversation in a direction which he sees as important, informing Penny that she was snoring and should see a specialist to rule out sleep apnea. A furious Penny asks Sheldon which kind of specialist will be required to remove her shoe from his backside, and Sheldon responds to the question very literally, telling her that “depending on the depth, that’s either a proctologist or a general surgeon.” At this point, Leonard holds up a piece of card on which he has hastily scribbled, “SARCASM.” 19 Penny’s confrontation with Sheldon centers on his issues with sarcasm, which become something of a motif throughout the series. In season 2 he is unable to correctly interpret a locked-out Penny’s comment that “she’d rather wait on [a] freezing cold floor, sobbing like a three-year-old” than wait for a locksmith in the comfort of his apartment, and he happily leaves her to continue. 20 Later that season, when Penny declares that her work day was so enjoyable that she hopes to be a waitress at the Cheesecake Factory for the rest of her life, Sheldon has to ask if she was being sarcastic, and then check with Leonard as to whether or not her affirmative response was, in itself, sarcastic. 21 In season 4 it is revealed that Sheldon keeps a monthly count of how often he accurately identifies instances of sarcasm—less than a third of the time, but he is encouraged by this limited success. 22 Extremely literal thinking also causes problems in interpreting social context. “Mind-blindness” is a term coined by Simon Baron-Cohen to describe the psychological term “theory of mind.” 23 It represents the inability of people on the spectrum to interpret nuances, gestures, and gazes in order to understand how another person is feeling. Clinical psychologist Tony Attwood describes a series of tests which are used to ascertain an individual’s ability to determine what someone in a story might be thinking or feeling. Some, such as the questionnaire developed by Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright, also measure the time taken to deduce an answer. 24 In this way, the clinician can judge whether a correct response was intuitive or arrived at by correcting applying a learned, logical response. Because television is such a visual medium and Sheldon an exaggerated character, there is little doubt that his responses are achieved through intellectual analysis and rote learning. Forced smiles which could more accurately be described as grimaces and lines of dialogue wherein Sheldon explains the thinking behind his responses are designed to telegraph to the viewer that

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he is largely incapable of empathizing with how another person might feel in any given situation. This is particularly noticeable in his romantic relationship with Amy Farrah Fowler (Mayim Bialik), which remained unconsummated for five years. When Amy would ask Sheldon about the pace or intensity of their relationship, Sheldon would be unable to see things from her point of view, remarking that they had only been dating two years and he was already in her apartment after dark, 25 and later, that they were sitting on his bed after only three. 26 When Amy alludes to the irony of his obsession with the fast-moving Flash in season 8, he tells her that “irony is not really [his] strong suit,” but that he has been “getting better at sarcasm,” then appears ironically oblivious to her sarcastic response. 27 People with ASD often experience high levels of anxiety, in part from trying to understand how to fit in around other people. They typically do not cope well with change, so structure becomes important. The apartment cleaning episode also shows Sheldon’s focus on routine as a coping strategy. After an evening of tidying Penny’s apartment, his world feels well-ordered and he wakes ebullient and thus chooses his morning breakfast cereal “from the lowfiber end of the shelf.” 28 The fact that he has his cereals arranged in this particular—and unusual—order demonstrates that his mind works differently than those of others (who, if they felt the need to order breakfast items in the first place, might go with something more obvious, such as alphabetical order). We can see an example of the kind of visceral response Sheldon experiences when his routine is unexpectedly challenged. One Saturday morning, Sheldon finds Penny sleeping on the couch when he wakes to watch Doctor Who on BBC America. When he moves as though to sit in his usual spot, even though Penny is lying there, Leonard points out that Penny is asleep and implies that Sheldon should adjust accordingly. Sheldon responds by repeating his Saturday morning routine in detail. Leonard suggests an alternative: that Sheldon could watch the program on the television in his room, and eat breakfast in bed instead of on the couch. Sheldon rejects this, noting that he is “neither an invalid nor a woman celebrating Mother’s Day,” these being two contexts—and as far as he is concerned, the only two contexts—wherein breakfast in bed is an acceptable practice. 29 This kind of rigidity is also reflected in the unusually intense focus of which people on the spectrum are capable. As Attwood notes, this is different from a hobby in that the intensity is abnormal and of clinical significance. Indeed, one of the traits which often leads parents to seek a diagnosis is a child researching a special interest in astonishing depth, and then recounting it at length and often in lieu of more socially acceptable conversations. 30 Sheldon’s lifelong love of trains is a case in point, but we also see a more adult equivalent when he becomes unusually focused on work problems.

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For one specific example of this, when Sheldon is conceptually stuck trying to determine why electrons have no mass when they move through a graphene sheet, he takes to using items such as peas and corn to kinaesthetically reconstruct the ways in which carbon atoms move. His levels of frustration and complete focus are such that he cannot sleep and breaks into an indoor children’s playground in order to access a ball pit, reasoning that the balls are of a more appropriate scale for constructing carbon atoms. 31 For some viewers, however, the scenes involving Sheldon in the ball pit appeared to be yet another codified reference to ASD, since ball pits are often used in sensory rooms as a means for overstimulated and introverted autistics to retreat from the pressures of social conformity and take control of their environment by choosing sensory stimulation which is palatable to that individual. Further, the mall security guard who calls Leonard (rather than the police) confides that his sister has a “kid who is special.” 32 Indeed, in season 6, Sheldon articulates that he finds social expectations exhausting and takes a daily time-out from attempting to understand social behavior, spending twenty minutes per day alone in a basement storeroom, playing hacky sack. 33 As the series develops, however, Sheldon develops better understanding of various social situations. His rote-learned reactions to social conventions such as comforting others with hot beverages, and demonstrating empathy via scripted, practiced responses eventually develop into an increased awareness of his own behaviors, and an occasionally eloquent ability to express this. He confides in Howard’s wife, Bernadette (Melissa Rauch), that as a child, he found life “confusing and chaotic,” and that his autistic interest in trains stemmed from a desire for the order they represented: “I could line them up and categorize them, control them. I guess you could say that they gave me a sense of calm in a world that didn’t.” 34 Similarly, after he and Amy separate, she attempts reconciliation and he declines with a very honest and insightful response: “I excel at many things, but getting over you was not one of them.” 35 In each case, he has developed enough metacognition to understand his own actions and motivations—although, clearly, he remains unaware of the impact the latter response will have on the feelings of the rejected Amy. While these are clearly fictional responses crafted by a writing team, the thoughts of a contemporary Australian undergraduate student remind us that neurotypical friends may take an informal educational or translation role for those on the spectrum. In interview, he commented on the function of Penny (Kaley Cuoco) in the narrative, noting that [s]he’s realised that Sheldon’s not normal, and she sees him like a younger brother, despite the fact that he is miles ahead of her academically. She knows that he has limitations and she’s willing to accommodate some, if not most, of those limitations. She also knows that he wants to try to be better, but not

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necessarily if he really has to work at it. . . . I believe that the relationship with Amy Farrah Fowler wouldn’t have happened if it were not for Penny. Well it wouldn’t have lasted as long as it did if it weren’t for Penny saying, “Sheldon, you need to do this. Sheldon, you need to do that.” 36

The student went on to immediately relate this to his own learning experiences: I still will heavily rely on the advice of friends at Uni, that if I do something wrong, and I don’t know it, or it doesn’t bother me per se, they have to go, “Listen, this is not right. You’ve got to do the right thing, here.” It’s like “OK, where did I go wrong, what did I do wrong, how do I fix it?” . . . I want to fix it, nip it in the bud before it becomes a problem. 37

THE CLASSROOM EXTRAPOLATION These behavioral quirks may be amusing on screen, but require careful consideration and management when they present in a tertiary teaching setting. It is interesting to note that the comments online of those who identify as teachers of autistic children are largely full of praise for the writers of The Big Bang Theory, with one arguing the “writers have done a fine job, intentional or not,” 38 and another asserting that Sheldon clearly displays characteristics of the spectrum. 39 Despite the main characters working within a university, however, very little screen time is given to this space as an institution of learning and teaching. This prompts this viewer to wonder what the still-adolescent Sheldon must have been like as an undergraduate student. There is significant support and specialized teaching for secondary students with autism, but those who matriculate are largely expected to navigate the classroom without assistance. According to the mythology of The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon negotiated this transition at the age of eleven, and went on to postgraduate studies by age fourteen. With most of his information about socialization processes appearing to have come from his mother and grandmother and little to suggest that other family members were college educated, this scenario bears little relationship to the reality of the college transition experience of most students on the spectrum. Equity programs targeting the enrollment of firstin-family students, low socioeconomic students and students with disabilities suggest that these are under-represented cohorts, and Sheldon (who appears to be all three, with siblings who are described by their mother as being “dumb as soup,” 40 whose childhood home was an aluminium house which used to slip off its footings during tornado season, and who appears to have autism spectrum disorder) apparently completed his undergraduate degree

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within the normal timeframe and with enough success to proceed to advanced degrees. For many first-in-family or low-socioeconomic-status students, transitioning into and through tertiary studies is rather more complex as it takes time to understand the hidden curriculum and inherent expectations. High IQ notwithstanding, it would be a reasonable assumption that these complexities would only be magnified by Sheldon’s mind-blindness and the young age at which he was attempting the transition. Students on the spectrum may need explicit tuition in appropriate classroom behaviors and how these are contextually different. For example, it may be appropriate to ask questions in tutorials but not in crowded lecture halls, and these classroom environments need to be delineated as different. 41 A “mind-blind” student is unlikely to be able to infer from a lecturer’s body language that a lecture hall faux pas has been committed, or glean how to avoid repeating it. A group of researchers from the Center for Autism and Related Disorders found that children with autism “perform more poorly than other populations, including children with intellectual disabilities, Down syndrome, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and individuals with brain injury on tasks involving metaphorical reasoning.” They also identified an effective method by which these deficits in metaphorical language comprehension can be overcome. Using a small sample of five- and six-year-old children, they offered cues and used flowcharts to teach the children how to interpret metaphorical language. A similar approach was used the following year to attempt to assist students with decoding sarcasm, using in vivo rehearsals in multiple settings. Sheldon, however, has apparently had no such explicit training, as he continues to struggle with sarcasm. Arguably, there is little place in any classroom for sarcasm, but as teachers we do often use metaphors, similes, and even clichés as teaching strategies. Indeed, metaphorical language may be the default response when asked for a secondary or further explanation of a concept. Metaphorical explanations, however, can prove nigh indecipherable for autistic students. Consultations and classes can be sidetracked while trying to explain to someone with very literal thought processes the meaning of a phrase such as “not being able to see the wood for the trees,” or attempting to unravel a misinterpreted analogy about essaywriting processes. 42 There are also significant advantages to applying autistic traits to academic endeavors, however. The autistic desire for routine and order can be coopted by parents and caregivers when teaching young children patterns of behavior (for example, getting ready for school). In the tertiary context, it may mean that college students with ASD are more willing to regularly attend lectures and tutorials than their non-ASD counterparts. Some may even go so far as to heed advice about organizing study timetables and allocating time to prepare for classes (McMahon-Coleman and Draisma

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2016). This also means, however, that changes to routine such as a guest lecturer or a field trip may not be well received. As we have seen in The Big Bang Theory, this is more than stubbornness or an unwillingness to adapt, but rather, a real discomfort because most coping strategies are learned behaviors set within particular social contexts. When the context changes, the student is often ill equipped to understand the new one. Of course, Sheldon has followed a well-trodden path for intelligent people with good academic records who are capable of maintaining an interest in an obscure topic and focusing on it with unusual intensity for an extended period of time: doctoral studies. Doctorates often lead to careers in academia, however, and while the above traits may well be advantageous when undertaking research, it is fair to say that problems with social skills and communication are something of a disadvantage when teaching. The few scenes which show Sheldon lecturing demonstrate that his social awkwardness is a major impairment in this context. He confesses to his girl/friend Amy Farrah Fowler that teaching is the first thing at which he has failed since an “ill-fated attempt to complete a chin-up in March of 1989.” 43 Within the tertiary teaching context, it may well be that some of our colleagues are also located on the spectrum, necessitating some sensitivity and understanding in interactions. Whether or not Sheldon has a conclusive diagnosis, many of his behaviors coalesce with the symptoms of autism spectrum disorder. It therefore follows that in Sheldon, we see a fictional representation of some of the challenges faced by autistic students in our university classrooms. Understanding how mind blindness, metaphorical language, changes to routine and intense focus may cause issues in the classroom allows us insight into accommodating and encouraging adaptive behaviors. NOTES 1. Tony Attwood, The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007); Wolf, Lorraine, J. Thierfeld Brown, and G. Ruth Kukiela Bork. Students with Asperger’s Syndrome: A Guide for College Personnel (Shawnee Mission: Autism Asperger Publishing Company, 2009). 2. Simon Baron-Cohen, Mindblindness: An Essay in Autism and Theory of Mind (Cambridge, Massuchusetts: MIT Press, 1995); Simon Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright, “The Empathy Quotient: An Investigation of Adults with Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism, and Normal Sex Differences.” Journal of Autism and and Developmental Disorders 34, no. 2 (2004): 163–175; Uta Frith, Autism: Explaining the Enigma (Oxford: Blackwell, 1989); Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Kim Draisma, Teaching University Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Guide to Developing Academic Capacity and Proficiency (London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016); Nola Norris, A New Perspective on Thinking, Memory and Learning in Gifted Adults with Asperger Syndrome: Five Phenomenological Case Studies (PhD thesis) (Wollongong: University of Wollongong, 2014); J. Perner, Uta Frith, A. M. Leslie, and S. R. Leekam, “Exploration of the Autistic Child’s Theory of Mind: Knowledge, Belief and Communication.” Child Development 60, no. 3 (1989): 689–700.

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3. Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Kim Draisma, Teaching University Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Guide to Developing Academic Capacity and Proficiency (London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016). 4. Sarita Freedman, Developing College Skills in Students with Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2010; John Harpur, Maria Lawlor, and Michael Fitzgerald, Succeeding in College with Asperger Syndrome: A Student Guide (London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishing, 2004); Kimberley McMahonColeman and Kim Draisma, Teaching University Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Guide to Developing Academic Capacity and Proficiency (London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016); Ann Palmer, Realizing the College Dream with Autism or Asperger Syndrome: A Parent’s Guide to Student Success (London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2006); Lorraine Wolf, J. Thierfeld Brown, and G. Ruth Kukiela Bork, Students with Asperger’s Syndrome: A Guide for College Personnel (Shawnee Mission: Autism Asperger Publishing Company, 2009). 5. David Bianculli, “Jim Parsons on the Science of Sheldon, ‘Big Bang.’” NPR. September 28, 2010. http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=130156625 (accessed September 30, 2016). 6. Paul Collins, “Must-Geek TV: Is the World Ready for an Asperger’s Sitcom?” Slate. February 6, 2009. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2009/02/mustgeek_tv.html (accessed September 29, 2016). 7. Noel Murray, “TV Club Interview: Jim Parsons.” AV Club. May 1, 2009. http:// www.avclub.com/article/jim-parsons-27415 (accessed September 29, 2016). 8. David Bianculli, “Jim Parsons on the Science of Sheldon, ‘Big Bang/’” NPR. September 28, 2010. http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=130156625 (accessed September 30, 2016); Paul Collins, “Must-Geek TV: Is the world ready for an Asperger’s sitcom?” Slate. February 6, 2009. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2009/02/ mustgeek_tv.html (accessed September 29, 2016); Noel Murray, “TV Club Interview: Jim Parsons.” AV Club. May 1, 2009. http://www.avclub.com/article/jim-parsons-27415 (accessed September 29, 2016). 9. Allison Waldman, “Come up with a New Theory: Sheldon Does NOT Have Asperger’s.” TV Squad. August 14, 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20090817125113/http://www. tvsquad.com/2009/08/14/come-up-with-a-new-theory-sheldon-does-not-have-aspergers (accessed September 29, 2016). 10. Alan Seppinwall, “Reader Mail: Does Sheldon from ‘Big Bang Theory’ Have Asperger’s?” The Star-Ledger. August 13, 2009. 11. Mental Health Weekly Digest. “Autism; Synaestheis Is More Common in Autism.” Mental Health Weekly Digest, 2013: 50. 12. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Steven Molaro, Maria Ferrari and Anthony Del Brocollo, “The Sales Call Sublimation.” The Big Bang Theory, season 9, episode 12, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired January 7, 2016 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2016), DVD. 13. Barry Levinson, Rain Man, Film, MGM-UA, 1988. 14. Palatol. “The Big Bang Theory Is Insulting to Aspies.” Wrong Planet. December 1, 2012. http://wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=216876&postdays=0&postorder=asc& start=15 (accessed September 30, 2016). 15. Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Roslyn Weaver, Mental Health Disorders on Television: Representation versus Reality (Forthcoming). 16. Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Kim Draisma, Teaching University Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Guide to Developing Academic Capacity and Proficiency (London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016); Catherine Wearing,”Autism, Metaphor and Relevance Theory.” Mind and Language 25, no. 2 (2010): 196–216. 17. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Robert Cohen and David Groetsch, “The Big Bran Hypothesis.” The Big Bang Theory, season 1, episode 2, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired October 1, 2007 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2008), DVD. 18. Ibid. 19. Ibid.

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20. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Steven Molaro and Eric Kaplan, “The Barbarian Sublimation.” The Big Bang Theory, season 2, episode 3, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired October 6, 2008 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2009), DVD. 21. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Richard Rosenstock, Eric Kaplan, “The Financial Permeability.” The Big Bang Theory, season 2, episode 14, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired March 3, 2009 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2009), DVD 22. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Lee Aronsohn, Steven Molaro, Steve Holland, Jim Reynolds, “The 21 Second Excitation.” The Big Bang Theory, season 4, episode 8, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired November 1, 2010 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2011), DVD. 23. Simon Baron-Cohen, Mindblindness: An Essay in Autism and Theory of Mind (Cambridge, Massuchusetts: MIT Press, 1995). 24. Simon Baron-Cohen and Sally Wheelwright, “The Empathy Quotient: An Investigation of Adults with Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism, and Normal Sex Differences.” Journal of Autism and and Developmental Disorders 34, no. 2 (2004): 163–175 25. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Steve Holland, Maria Ferrari, Steven Molaro, Jim Reynolds, “The Launch Acceleration.” The Big Bang Theory, season 5, episode 23, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired May 3, 2012 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2012), DVD. 26. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Steven Molaro, Eric Kaplan, Steve Holland, Jim Reynolds, Maria Ferrari, Anthony Del Broccolo, “The Love Spell Potential.” The Big Bang Theory, season 6, episode23, directed by Anthony Rich, aired May 9, 2013 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2013), DVD. 27. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Steven Molaro, Steve Holland, Eric Kaplan, Jim Reynolds, Maria Ferrari, Tara Hernandez, Jeremy Howe, “The Commitment Determination.” The Big Bang Theory, season 8, episode 24, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired May 7, 2015 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2015), DVD. 28. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Robert Cohen and David Groetsch, “The Big Bran Hypothesis.”The Big Bang Theory, season 1, episode 2, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired October 1, 2007 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2008), DVD. 29. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Lee Aronsohn and Jennifer Glickman, “The Dumpling Paradox.” The Big Bang Theory, season 1, episode7, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired November 5, 2007 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2008), DVD. 30. Tony Attwood, The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome (London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007). 31. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Steven Molaro, Eric Kaplan, Lee Aronsohn, David Goetsch, Steve Holland, “The Einstein Approximation.” The Big Bang Theory, season 3, episode14, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired February 2, 2010 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2010), DVD. 32. Ibid. 33. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Steven Molaro, Jim Reynolds, Steve Holland, David Goestsch, Anthony Del Broccolo, “The 43 Peculiarity.” The Big Bang Theory, season 6, episode 8, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired November 15, 2012 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2013), DVD. 34. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Steve Holland, Tara Hernandez, Steven Molaro, Jim Reynolds and Anthony Del Broccolo, “The Fermentation Bifurcation.” The Big Bang Theory, season 9, episode 22, directed by Nikki Lorre, aired April 28, 2016 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2016), DVD. 35. Ibid. 36. Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Roslyn Weaver, Mental Health Disorders on Television: Representation versus Reality (Forthcoming). 37. Ibid. 38. darthbergen. “Studio 260 Blog.” Asperger’s Gets Prime-Time Attention. March 24, 2010. https://studio360.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/aspergers-gets-prime-time-attention/ (accessed October 3, 2016).

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39. Sara Erickson, “Does Sheldon Cooper Have a Mild Form of Asperger’s?” Quora. May 21, 2013. https://www.quora.com/Big-Bang-Theory-Does-Sheldon-Cooper-have-a-mild-formof-Aspergers (accessed October 3, 2016). 40. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, David Litt and Lee Aronsohn, “The Luminous Fish Effect.” The Big Bang Theory, season1, episode4, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired October 15, 2007 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2008), DVD. 41. Kimberley McMahon-Coleman and Kim Draisma, Teaching University Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Guide to Developing Academic Capacity and Proficiency (London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016). 42. Ibid. 43. Chuck Lorre, Bill Prady, Steven Molaro, Maria Ferrari, Lee Aronsohn and Jim Reynolds, “The Thespian Catalyst.” The Big Bang Theory, season4, episode 4, directed by Mark Cendrowski, aired November 3, 2011 (Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2010), DVD.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Attwood, Tony. The Complete Guide to Asperger’s Syndrome. London: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2007. Baron-Cohen, Simon. Mindblindness: An Essay in Autism and Theory of Mind. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1995. Baron-Cohen, Simon, and S. Wheelwright. “The Empathy Quotient: An Investigation of Adults with Asperger Syndrome or High Functioning Autism, and Normal Sex Differences.” Journal of Autism and and Developmental Disorders 34, no. 2 (2004): 163–175. Bianculli, David. “Jim Parsons on the Science of Sheldon, ‘Big Bang.’” NPR. September 28, 2010. http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=130156625 (accessed September 30, 2016). Collins, Paul. “Must-Geek TV: Is the World Ready for an Asperger’s Sitcom?” Slate. February 6, 2009. http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/television/2009/02/mustgeek_tv.html (accessed September 29, 2016). darthbergen. “Studio 260 Blog.” Asperger’s Gets Prime-Time Attention. March 24, 2010. https://studio360.wordpress.com/2010/03/24/aspergers-gets-prime-time-attention/ (accessed October 3, 2016). Erickson, Sara. “Does Sheldon Cooper Have a Mild Form of Asperger’s?” Quora. May 21, 2013. https://www.quora.com/Big-Bang-Theory-Does-Sheldon-Cooper-have-a-mild-formof-Aspergers (accessed October 3, 2016) Freedman, Sarita. Developing College Skills in Students with Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome. London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2010. Frith, Uta. Autism: Explaining the Enigma. Oxford: Blackwell, 1989. Harpur, John, Maria Lawlor, and Michael. Fitzgerald. Succeeding in College with Asperger Syndrome: A Student Guide. London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishing, 2004. Levinson, Barry. Rain Man. Film. MGM-United Artists. Lorre, Chuck, and Bill Prady. The Big Bang Theory. Burbank, CA: Warner Bros Home Entertainment, 2007– . McMahon-Coleman, Kimberley, and Kim Draisma. Teaching University Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Guide to Developing Academic Capacity and Proficiency. London and Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2016. McMahon-Coleman, Kimberley, and Roslyn Weaver. Mental Health Disorders on Television: Representation versus Reality. Forthcoming. Mental Health Weekly Digest. “Autism; Synaestheis Is More Common in Autism.” Mental Health Weekly Digest, 2013: 50. Murray, Noel. “TV Club Interview: Jim Parsons.” AV Club. May 1, 2009. http://www .avclub.com/article/jim-parsons-27415 (accessed September 29, 2016).

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Norris, Nola. A New Perspective on Thinking, Memory and Learning in Gifted Adults with Asperger Syndrome: Five Phenomenological Case Studies (PhD thesis). Wollongong: University of Wollongong, 2014. Palatol. “The Big Bang Theory Is Insulting to Aspies.” Wrong Planet. December 1, 2012. http:/ /wrongplanet.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=216876&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15 (accessed September 30, 2016). Palmer, Ann. Realizing the College Dream with Autism or Asperger Syndrome: A Parent’s Guide to Student Success. London & Philadelphia: Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2006. Perner, J., U. Frith, A. M. Leslie, and S. R. Leekam. “Exploration of the Autistic Child’s Theory of Mind: Knowledge, Belief and Communication.” Child Development 60, no. 3 (1989): 689–700. Seppinwall, Alan. “Reader Mail: Does Sheldon from ‘Big Bang Theory’ have Asperger’s?” The Star-Ledger. August 13, 2009. http://www.nj.com/entertainment/tv/index.ssf/2009/08/ reader_mail_does_sheldon_from.html (accessed September 29, 2016). Waldman, Allison. “Come Up with a New Theory: Sheldon Does NOT Have Asperger’s.” TV Squad. August 14, 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20090817125113/http://www. tvsquad.com/2009/08/14/come-up-with-a-new-theory-sheldon-does-not-have-aspergers (accessed September 29, 2016). Wearing, Catherine. “Autism, Metaphor and Relevance Theory.” Mind and Language 25, no. 2 (2010): 196–216. Wolf, Lorraine, J. Thierfeld Brown, and G. Ruth Kukiela Bork. Students with Asperger’s Syndrome: A Guide for College Personnel. Shawnee Mission: Autism Asperger Publishing Company, 2009.

Part IV

Looking Ahead Preparing Teachers with Popular Culture

Chapter Nine

Poking It with a Shtick Humor as Hermeneutic in the Pre-Service Teacher Education Classroom Sarah Hunt-Barron and Richard Hartsell

For someone who spent a lifetime developing in deed and thought a pedagogy focused on the poor, the displaced, and the oppressed, Paulo Freire on several occasions made a curious connection. He suggested an emancipatory pedagogy of the oppressed was inextricably intertwined with humor. Moreover, Freire stated on at least one occasion humor was so intertwined with an emancipatory pedagogy that it should be considered a necessary condition for the creation of a pedagogy for the oppressed. For Freire, we must laugh with the oppressed because “if we don’t do that we cannot learn from the people and in not learning from the people, we cannot teach them.” 1 On the one hand, the connection Freire draws between humor and his lifelong pedagogical project is simply an extension of one of the guiding principles of his pedagogical thinking—the belief that any meaningful pedagogy must arise out of the lived experience of individuals as opposed to being abstractly imposed on individuals from outside their immediate existence. Nevertheless, when Freire goes beyond merely incorporating an element of humor within one of critical pedagogy’s most sublime and most cited statements—his pedagogy of the oppressed—and suggests there is a symbiotic connection between humor and emancipatory pedagogy, the juxtaposition can be somewhat disarming. The project of critical pedagogy with its roots in Marxist analysis and the highlighting of social injustices would seem, after all, far more likely to produce gnashing of teeth than a grin. In fact, the small amount of literature focusing on relationships—positive or otherwise—be-

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tween critical pedagogy and humor suggests at best an ambiguous understanding of how critical pedagogy views humor. CRITICAL PEDAGOGY AND HUMOR The majority of the limited literature linking humor to critical pedagogy tends to view humor as a tactical or strategic tool that can be deployed to further one of the foundational aims of critical pedagogy—the raising of consciousness surrounding social inequality and injustice. 2 One of the more well-developed examples demonstrating such a relationship to humor is Cris Mayo’s “Being in on the Joke: Pedagogy, Race, Humor.” 3 In this essay, Mayo argues humor can be an effective means of engaging students in difficult discussions concerning race, social status, and social injustice. “I see promise in using humor—simultaneously amusing and unsettling—to intervene in the usual resistances and earnestness in teacher and student contributions to social justice classrooms.” 4 Specifically, Mayo suggests African American humor with its roots in the subversion of power structures and the disruption of passive spectatorship can “provide a counterpoint to the traditional earnest classroom discussion, and show how humor’s meta- and indirect pedagogies can communicate a critique of white dominance, chip away at white certainty, and build oppositional community.” 5 One of the metapedagogical benefits of humor for Mayo is that when we “begin to understand jokes,” we “begin to understand the people who make them and experience some of their pleasure.” 6 In making this point, Mayo echoes Freire’s insistence that in order to join with others in an emancipatory pedagogy, we must learn to laugh with them. A second, albeit distinctly smaller, subset of literature that explores the relationship between the aims of critical pedagogy and the use of humor is far more descriptive than prescriptive in its orientation. Peter McLaren’s Schooling as a Ritual Performance provides a well-developed example of such an orientation. Among the numerous classroom performances McLaren documents and analyzes is the use of humor. He observes that students often use humor in the classroom as a means of challenging the inherent authority of the teacher in the classroom. Humor used in this manner exists as a means of resistance to the dominant hierarchal power structure of schooling and as such has the potential to further one of the ends of critical pedagogy—the democratization of the classroom through the challenging and ultimate rearrangement of traditional power structures within schooling. McLaren, however, remains ambivalent about humor’s ability to aid in such a project. On the one hand, he suggests humor can be a guttural transgressive act against the apparent intransigence of the existing social order reflected by schooling, thereby providing a direct means of transforming the

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existing order or, at the very least, learning how to make socially transformative change. Nevertheless, he also suggests humor used as a means of resistance, by both students and teachers, to the traditional power structures of institutionalized education more often than not results in a lesser rather than a greater possibility of disruptive democratic challenges to the existing power order. McLaren argues this is because humor as resistance tends to provide a safety valve for conflicts created by the social inequities and injustices reflected in and replicated by institutionalized education. Although the humor spawned by the realization of schools as means of replicating injustice might be stinging, it does not for McLaren ultimately provide either students or teachers with levels of insight or passion sufficient to engage in the practice of an emancipatory critical pedagogy. 7 In addition to the tactical/strategic use of humor as a teaching tool and the resistance/protest against the authoritarian structure of schooling humor can demonstrate, another link between humor and critical pedagogy is assumed when humor is viewed as a way of developing the specific critical consciousness necessary to further the critical pedagogy project. More than viewing humor as a symptomatic expression of protest against the undemocratic structure of schooling or even as a means of furthering discussions based on critical pedagogy’s foundational principles, such a view regards the development of humor within a critical pedagogical framework as synonymous with the development of critical consciousness. The significance for critical pedagogy of Freire’s notion of learning to teach the people being dependent on learning to laugh with the people thus goes beyond intercultural understanding, or being “in” on the joke as Mayo suggests. Rather, humor in Freire’s view appears simultaneously to develop and to indicate the critical consciousness necessary for comprehension of and action upon social injustices. Humor for Freire, in other words, holds the potential to become not merely an educational tool for critical pedagogy but an epistemological path—a truthful way of knowing and existing within the world. By far the most extensive development of this aspect of Freire’s thought is Tyson Edward Lewis’ Paulo Freire’s Last Laugh. 8 Lewis frames his discussion of humor and critical pedagogy around Freire’s archeology of consciousness in which three modalities of consciousness are delineated—naïve, magical, and critical. Naïve consciousness for Freire is defined by an oversimplification of problems that leads to a shallow, fragile style of discourse based on emotional appeals, polemics rather than dialogue, irrationality, and a nostalgia for a past assumed to be less problematic. Rather than “a critical analysis of the world, there is an overall acceptance of the given as absolute . . . it takes reality at face value without problematizing claims of equality, freedom, and liberty despite the ongoing existence of inequality, exploitation, and subjugation.” 9 Humor arising out of such a consciousness lacks a critical capacity and as such affirms, at least in a de facto sense, the irration-

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ality of injustice and inequality in the present system. Moreover, laughter actually can perpetuate the injustices of the present by serving as a type of comic relief pressure valve for the naive consciousness where injustices and inequalities can be “laughed off” and any impetus for change diluted with a smiling “what are you going to do” shrug of the shoulders. Freire labels the second modality of consciousness superstitious consciousness. Unlike naive consciousness, this level of consciousness may acknowledge the historical and political contingencies that determine socioeconomic relationships within society; a superstitious consciousness does not simply view present society as an absolute, unalterable given. However, to a great extent, the contingencies which determine the present are viewed as being beyond the influence of the individual or even a group of like-minded individuals giving rise to a defining sense of fatalism and helplessness within the superstitious consciousness. “There is a vague sense that ‘they’ or ‘the man’ might control the system, yet there is no sense of agency that emerges from this insight.” Thus, “no solutions to systemic problems [of inequality and injustice] can emerge, and the oppressed become ‘resigned’ to the world.” 10 Humor emanating from such a consciousness is founded on the cynical, postmodern laughter of the ironic detail. Individuals may accurately comprehend the social contingencies that entrap them, but the widespread and powerful nature of these contingencies leave individuals with a sense of helplessness and futility-bred isolation. The superstitious consciousness may garner some solace from being in on the joke, from the dark humor of realization, but to the extent such solace is not accompanied by political action it can only serve to isolate the individual in a cocoon of cynicism and irony. “The cynical and or ironic post-modern laugh becomes a poor substitute for political action, a cathartic moment of release that simultaneously ‘affirms’ one’s superiority over the system while indexing one’s complacency.” 11 In essence, any problem-posing critical aspect of humor in superstitious consciousness is co-opted by the very social contingencies upon whose realization the humor depends on in the first place. The third modality of consciousness Freire describes is critical consciousness. According to Lewis, critical consciousness builds upon the unreflected openness to the world of naïve consciousness and the reflective critically of superstitious consciousness by suggesting a consciousness that is reflective enough [superstitious] to define problematic social contingencies accurately while open and thus positive [naïve] enough to accept the possibility of overcoming the intransigence of the existing social structures. 12 “Basically, critical consciousness is not so much an end state as it is an internal tendency marked by ‘depth in the interpretation of problems . . . and by openness to revision. . . .’ Fatalism and cynicism are [therefore] replaced by a new hope in the possibilities for collective action and social transformation.” 13

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Humor in this mode of consciousness functions both as a means of critically reflecting upon social existence and as a way of applying new possibilities to social problems through the opportunity laughter presents for simultaneously rupturing societal norms and opening new avenues of logic for viewing the world. Laughter becomes a way of knowing the social world and discovering possibilities for changing it. Critical consciousness humor is thus both “transformative and revolutionary. . . . To laugh with the people (rather than at them) is to engage in a transformation of the relationship between self and other.” 14 Ultimately for Freire, we must learn to laugh with the people in order to teach them because humor allows for the understanding, empathy, and creativity necessary for the creation of an emancipatory pedagogy through which collective action ultimately becomes possible. For the instructor of pre-service teachers who hopes to assist students in the development of the critical reflection and social consciousness inherent in critical pedagogy, humor thus becomes not merely another pedagogical tool to be deployed in the comprehension of this or that bit of information or concept, but rather an integral part of the development of an emancipatory teacher. If Freire is to be believed, much less followed, learning to laugh in a particular manner—developing the sense of humor inherent in critical consciousness—must be a focal point for both the students and teachers in the pre-service classroom. The question then becomes how is such a sense of humor cultivated; how do students and teachers simultaneously develop the criticality that sees social injustice and the hopefulness that believes collective action can overcome injustice? Unfortunately, Freire is short on details in regard to these questions. He does, however, imply several principles regarding modes of consciousness that can serve as parameters for cultivating the relationship between critical consciousness and humor in the pre-service teacher classroom. First, as Lewis suggests, Freire appears to view his modalities of consciousness, and the manner of humor manifested in them, as being more contextual than linear. 15 Rather than viewing the levels of consciousness as sequential with the culmination being critical consciousness, Freire implies different levels of consciousness can occur in different situations at various times. Pedagogical expressions of critical consciousness thus are at least as specifically classroom dependent as they are dependent on the individual students who enter the classroom. 16 Secondly, nowhere does Freire suggest levels of consciousness and their related manifestations of humor have a causal relationship. Critical consciousness, for example, does not create a particular use of humor nor does the humor associated with critical consciousness cause the development of such a consciousness. Instead, Freire appears to view these two phenomena existing in a more organic, symbiotic relationship where the manifestation of one implies at least the latent existence of the other. When Freire suggests humor is necessary for an emancipatory pedagogy, he is thus

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not suggesting a particular use of humor necessarily leads to critical consciousness, or vice versa, so much as he is implying humor and critical consciousness are natural manifestations of each other. Critical consciousness and its use of humor walk side-by-side in an emancipatory pedagogy; to develop one is to necessarily develop the other. For the teacher of the pre-service classroom trying to develop in students both the insightfulness and inspiration characteristic of emancipatory pedagogy, critical consciousness can be approached intellectually through a direct act of comprehension and cognition. However, the link Freire draws between critical consciousness and laughter suggests students can also approach an emancipatory pedagogy affectively, through the backdoor of cognition, with humor. For a student to learn to laugh at the world in a particular manner is, for Freire, to achieve at least tacitly the mode of consciousness necessary to engage in problem-posing, emancipatory education. HUMOR AS POSSIBILITY Rather than beginning with specific pedagogical prescriptions for humor in the pre-service classroom, perhaps the best way to envision the possibilities associated with such a use of humor is to follow its indirect nature of cognition and approach the issue through the back-door by first focusing on examples of humor capable of rising to the level of critical consciousness. Because Freire roots his pedagogy theoretically and politically in popular culture—the lived experiences of the people—the humor found in popular culture already shares at least a tangential connection to Freire. The key is to find examples of humor in popular culture that match the level of insight found in Freire’s notion of critical consciousness. In such examples, “what we are necessarily talking about [is] more than straight mockery and poking fun. . . . [It] is about making you feel something alongside the laughter. It’s about stripping away pretense in less-than-obvious ways and making you swallow hard facts. More importantly, it is never about being made more comfortable.” 17 This quote, which reads like an academic definition of humor within a state of critical consciousness, is actually a recent description from an audiophile’s blog of two Randy Newman songs—“Rednecks” and “God’s Song.” Newman’s lyrics, therefore, seem as logical place as any to tease out a specific, concrete example of the connection between humor and critical consciousness. In “Rednecks,” Newman writes, as he does in the majority of his songs, in character. He assumes the personality of Georgia “good ole boy” who doesn’t like the way his governor, the infamous segregationist Lester Maddox, was treated during a The Dick Cavett Show interview in 1970. The first stanza sets the scene and stealthily foreshadows Newman’s culminating use

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of humor: He describes some “smart-ass New York Jew” laughing at Lester Maddox and notes that while Lester may be a fool, he is our fool and that if all those who put Lester down think they are smarter than him they are missing the point. 18 Newman as narrator then readily admits the truth of the southern redneck stereotype by accepting that Southerners talk funny, drink too much, laugh too loud, and are simply too dumb to live anywhere but the South. Newman then has the narrator suggest, with a bit of pregnant ambiguity, that either in spite of or because they are always dumb and drunk rednecks can do one thing well—keep people who do not look like them in the proper place in society: “we don’t know our ass from a hole in the ground [but] we’re keeping the niggers down.” 19 If the song ended here, the use of humor could be aligned with a morally superior perspective that pokes fun at the ignorance and intolerance that gives rise to prejudice. There would even be a whiff of postmodern irony in that this was the same perspective of the interviewer that inspired the creation of the song in first place. However, Newman’s satire, and the standard for humor in critical consciousness, set a much higher bar. He explains that the North indeed has set African Americans free, “free to be put in a cage”; Newman then lists many of the locations of this freedom: Harlem in New York City, the South-Side of Chicago, the Hough in Cleveland, East St. Louis, and Roxbury in Boston. 20 In this stanza Newman pulls out his big satirical knife suggesting that despite greater intelligence, politically correct language, better education, and a concern for “dignity,” those people who laugh at Lester Maddox might not be quite as morally superior as they think. Newman’s use of the image of a cage is particularly cutting in that the ancestors of the people who are now “free to be put in a cage” in urban centers outside the South were generations ago previously transported to the South in chains or cages. Such a level of satirical insightfulness echoes Freire’s notion that critical consciousness has the ability to peel back the layers of appearances and uncover the often darker, more troubling reality that lies beyond the obvious. That this reality often lies closer to the lives of the poor, the displaced, and the oppressed because they do not possess the socioeconomic status that can soften hard truths is perhaps one reason Freire suggests learning to laugh with the people is necessary for an emancipatory pedagogy. Despite the insightfulness of this stanza, however, Newman still has one higher satirical gear to shift into. When he repeats the refrain that first followed the stanza about the South, the words take on new meaning in light of the uncovered reality that “we’re rednecks.” 21 The implication is obvious; we are all rednecks—south, north, east, west. All of us who even tacitly participate, by doing nothing, in walling off people of color and the poor have a lot more in common with Lester Maddox than we may think. In pointing toward this conclusion, Newman’s humor manifests another core characteristic of

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critical consciousness—the rejection of passivity. Implicit in critical consciousness is not only a way of deconstructing the world by uncovering its political and socioeconomic determinants but also a call to reconstruct the world in light of the knowledge gained through critical insight. Critical consciousness simultaneously creates insights into social reality, reads the world, and demands these insights be applied, calls for social action. The double-edged nature of satire in the last refrain of “Rednecks” is that even if we have the critical insight to see ourselves, regardless of our location or politics, as rednecks, we are not freed by that knowledge. In Newman’s humor, as in Freire’s critical consciousness, insight does not create ironic distance. To the contrary, it tethers us to the world even more strongly because it creates the obligation for action. Newman’s last twist of the knife is the sharpest; the passivity of knowledge is not enough; the only way to not be a redneck is to work actively against the thing that in the song defines rednecks—keeping people down. The linking of insight with action within both Freire’s definition of critical consciousness and Newman’s satirical lyrics implies Newman’s humor has the potential to be a popular culture pathway to a deeper understanding of emancipatory pedagogy. Newman’s laughter, in short, may be the type of iconoclastic and inspiring laughter Freire suggests is necessary for the project of critical pedagogy. As such, a couple Randy Newman YouTube videos and some copies of his lyrics may be at least as helpful in helping pre-service teachers comprehend the intricacies of Freire’s thought and the framework of critical pedagogy as half-a-dozen academic essays on the concept of conscientization. Regardless of whether Newman’s satire is specifically used in the pre-service teacher classroom, it remains useful as a guide to the potential popular culture humor has for the critical pedagogy project. To whatever end popular culture humor is employed in the classroom, and there are a myriad of uses and benefits humor can have for any classroom, the twining of humor such as Newman’s and critical consciousness in the pre-service teacher classroom remains the pinnacle of humor’s pedagogical potential against which other uses of humor can be gauged. In the remainder of this chapter, we will examine how humor can improve cognition and offer specific examples of using pop culture in our own classrooms as a tool for developing students’ critical consciousness. HUMOR AS A COGNITIVE TOOL If humor can raise critical consciousness and spur us to social action, it also plays a role in cognition. Humor has the potential to improve recall, attendance, and engagement. Its importance in the college classroom has been documented, including studies that show something as simple as puns im-

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proved learning as measured on exams. 22 Humor has been effectively used in a variety of contexts and fields to generally improve classroom climate, from athletic therapy 23 to nursing 24 to sex education 25 to K-12 environments. 26 In one empirical study in communications classrooms, the humor of the instructor led to more positive outcomes in learning, participation, and student effort when all other variables were statistically controlled. 27 Similar results were documented in a medical education classrooms in which humor was used intentionally. 28 Knowing that humor can lead to improved learning outcomes adds to its possibility as a tool for an emancipatory pedagogy. Talking about the power of humor as a cognitive tool is one thing; actually using humor effectively is another. When we see writers like Randy Newman wield his satirical knife effortlessly, it seems as though our own use of humor in the classroom should flow just as easily and yet we all have seen humor fall flat. What is it that great comedians (and writers) do that makes what they say funny and, often, biting? How many of us can still recite from memory Abbott and Costello’s “Who’s on First?” bit? 29 And why was it that in spring of 2016, when Sarah observed a seventh-grade classroom of highneeds students for whom English was largely a second-language, did these students also find this skit funny and engaging? Why did they find the wordplay funny the first time—and increasingly amusing as they themselves performed for each other in small groups? Information-processing theories of humor suggest that after processing a joke’s narrative, it is the incongruence of the punch line and ultimately semantically integrating that punch line into the narrative that makes a joke funny. 30 Topolinski further suggests that the processing speed with which this happens, that is, the ease in which we are able to resolve the cognitive dissonance of the punch line with the narrative, enhances our experience. 31 In other words, jokes are funnier if we can “get” them more quickly. This explains why we find more traditional narrative jokes amusing, but what about other types of humor such as satire? And why are some jokes that use elements of incongruity (surprise, juxtaposition, atypicality) just not funny? The benign violation theory posits that we laugh when something is violated in a non-threatening way—identity, well being, or normative belief structure. 32 Essentially, when we poke fun at something and our listener simultaneously detects a violation of norms, but also detects that violation as benign, the juxtaposition of the two results in something being funny. If the violation is NOT perceived as benign, the humor is lost. This is why shows like The Simpsons are often funny; they use norm violations as a way to point out absurdities (and sometimes just to make us laugh). In the context of Freire’s linking of critical consciousness and humor, Lewis discusses this phenomena as a “rupture with society’s norms, principles, and ways of life” that opens “up a new logic for action for which we do not yet have words.” 33 The understanding signaled by Freire’s critical laughter is beyond words; it is

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metacognitive; it is simultaneously intellectually probing and affectively transformative. This is why as O’Hara suggests, we feel Newman’s lyrics before we understand them—or to be more exact, we understand precisely because we feel them. 34 This is likely also why Randy Newman’s song is both humorous and cutting; Newman writes in character, violating (rupturing) our norms about how we talk about the “other”—those who are different from ourselves in race, religion, or political persuasion. At the same time, we know this character is not Randy Newman himself, or at least suspect that cannot be the case based on our knowledge of his work, so we judge this violation to be benign and, hence, funny. Regardless of the theory we ascribe to, we all know when something is funny. Look up the 100 greatest comedians of all time and regardless of the list you choose, you’ll find people who were able to point out the absurdities of situations in ways that make you double over with laughter and, when done well, question your own assumptions about the world in which we live. As we noted earlier, the power to poke fun at power structures is not confined to the world of comedy; critical pedagogy demands that we question the status quo, connect knowledge to power, question the influence of dominant power structures, and reframe existing narratives as we work toward social change. Although schools may pursue democratic goals for education, they often due so in structures that are authoritarian and competitive 35 and what is considered critical knowledge in schools comes from dominant culture, social class, and gender groups. 36 An ethical obligation of teacher educators is to help pre-service teachers develop their own agency; pre-service teachers need to become educators able to recognize and resist the dominant powers that can cause harm to students and construct a pedagogy that is built on “radical love,” 37 aimed at easing human suffering. CULTIVATING CRITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN THE PRIVILEGED Critical pedagogy is serious business. It is important work revolving around social justice and equity; as teacher educators, we are working to help our pre-service teachers develop not only as professionals, but also begin to see the world through new lenses, recognizing dominant narratives as tools of control and seeking to invert the power structure and put that power back into the hands of the people the structure has been designed to oppress. This is confounded by the fact that many pre-service teachers have decided to become teachers because they are “good” at school in its traditional form; these students are the very people that have benefitted from the current structures, pedagogy, and content found in K-12 schools. How do we know pre-service teachers benefitted from the existing structure? By virtue of the fact they are enrolled in college courses. The most

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recent data indicates that approximately 65 percent of high school graduates enroll in some type of college immediately following graduation. 38 A closer look at these numbers reveals that, based on income, students are not attending colleges in equal measure. For students from low-income households who graduated from high school in 2015, only 45.5 percent attended college in the fall immediately after graduation. For middle-income households, that percentage rose to 63.8 percent and for high-income households, the percentage was 78.5 percent, down from previous years where as many as 84.2 percent of students once matriculated. College is a self-selecting process; it is not compulsory, and those who attend, regardless of age, do so at their own will. The statistics demonstrate that college is a more attractive option as household income rises; the opportunity to attend college is clearly influenced by a family’s financial stability. Further, of the general population, approximately 30 percent of all Americans have a bachelor’s degree. 39 Matriculation does not necessarily mean graduation. In many pre-service teacher programs, students have made it through at least the first two years of college and done reasonably well in order to be admitted to the teacher education program. Some pre-service teachers are certifying in post-baccalaureate or masters degree programs as well, further demonstrating an ability to succeed in the current structures of schooling. These are largely students with some degree of privilege. Oftentimes, because school worked well for them, students are unwilling to cast a critical eye on the practices employed in schools and may be resistant to acknowledging that the regarding of certain behaviors and skills are value-laden decisions that may benefit one societal group (for example, middle-class native-born Americans) over another. For example, our state employs a statewide grading scale; that scale currently labels any grade below a 60 as failing. We also use means for all report cards. When asked to consider the implications of a zero on a student’s average in a course for failing to hand in an assignment, an argument is always made for consequences; students who do not complete the work earn a zero. Even after calculating the impact of a single zero on a student with a B average, many of our pre-service teachers are resistant to considering entering a 50 in the grade book, which is still a failing grade but fits the ten-point scale with a 50–60 resulting in an F. Not attempting an assignment, for whatever reason, seems to carry with it a stiff penalty; this notion is clearly affected by our value structure, which seems to suggest a correlation with responsibility, success, and completion of tasks. If the institutions of schooling, as they currently exist, benefit the very students working to become part of those institutions, how can we best encourage these students to begin to consider a critical stance and question the existing institutions and systems in place? How can we move pre-service teachers toward questioning the power dynamics and identifying the clear benefactors in a system that likely served them fairly well? Arguably, pre-

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service teacher educators are also very goal oriented. As part of a professional program, they see their future clearly and in many cases are assured of a job upon successful completion of certification. For some of these goaloriented students, courses are simply part of a required checklist to ultimately get to their own classroom. At our regional university, we often work with students who question why they need to take all of these content and theory classes, usually followed by something like, “I just want to have my own classroom and start teaching.” Although there may be nothing more powerful than a goal, the journey to reach that goal requires more than viewing your own education as a series of hurdles to complete; rather, as educators we hope that students will begin to reconsider and reframe the way they see the world and ask hard questions of themselves and others. There is no one path toward this goal and perhaps no silver bullet that suddenly changes a classroom to one of intellectual inquiry (or at least not one we have found). All of this work with students, asking them to take a critical stance and reexamine their own understandings of the world, is incredibly challenging for all involved. Although not a silver bullet, the use of humor—and often humorous texts—have proven to be a powerful pedagogical tool in our both our undergraduate and graduate courses. What follows is a proposed methodology we have found effective for selecting and implementing humor as a hermeneutic tool in pre-service education classes. Humorous texts (and we use the term texts broadly to include all forms of composition) give us the opportunity to open conversation and analyze existing structures, but also often seem benign; just as in benign violation theory, humor relies on norm violation but does so in a non-threatening manner. Using humor not only enables students to begin to question some of their own beliefs and understandings, but also seems to serve as a stepping stone; humor is non-threatening and eases the feeling of discomfort and defensiveness that seems to naturally arise when our understanding of how the world works is challenged, but at the same time, as O’Hara noted about Newman’s humor, “it is never about being made more comfortable.” 40 As we begin to use humorous situations, commentary, and anecdotes to unpack the ideas behind them, we develop the capacity and habit of questioning. Often in humor, things are not as they appear to the actors in that moment which is what makes situational irony so amusing for readers and viewers. From the outside, we can see and know more than the actors in that moment and we can interpret social actions in a larger context. This thinking, essentially a function of hermeneutics, is a habit required for critical pedagogy and emancipatory education. Students have to interpret social situations and actions as part of their daily lives, but may not always apply a critical lens, examining the conditions that create the situation rather than simply accepting particular situations as conditions of existence.

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HUMOR IN ACTION Working with pre-service teachers in a variety of contexts has helped us hone our shtick. Although it may represent an ideal example of Freire’s critical laughter, playing Randy Newman’s “Rednecks” to an audience of twentyyear-olds, even in the South, will likely not be seen as humorous because the students lack the cultural references needed to see the satire in the lyrics. Through trial and error we have learned what seems to work to help students better engage with texts and move from passive recipients of knowledge, a behavior that has been rewarded throughout their schooling, to active creators of meaning and critics of the dominant power structures that shape our daily lives. Particularly in introductory-level education courses, we often use general textbooks that offer an overview of their topic (the history of schooling and educational institutions, for example, or human growth and development). These texts are often pabulum, neither offering insights nor critiques, but rather stating as fact ideas or structures that may be up for debate. Rather than having students simply internalize the information contained within these texts, we find humor gives us a gateway for more closely examining this text, contrasting with other narratives and texts to begin to question the dominant narrative often presented in these texts. Our experiences incorporating humor have not always gone smoothly. Rick tells the story of beginning his Foundations of Education course by showing a clip from Apocalypse Now, specifically the famous scene in which Robert Duvall ultimately utters the words, “The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like . . . victory.” 41 Students were puzzled. Wasn’t this an education class? Where was this guy going with this? Why were they watching this particular clip? After some discussion, one thing became clear. Pop culture, in and of itself, may not always be a useful text for students. First, students may need some knowledge of the text and its context, as noted above with our Newman reference. In this case, few students had seen or heard of Apocalypse Now. Although a brilliant film, it was outside of their realm of experience and without any context, they were unable to make a connection between their lived experiences and the film as text. This leads us to our first tip: TIP 1: CHOOSE TEXTS STUDENTS MAY BE FAMILIAR WITH AND/OR RELATE TO FAIRLY EASILY. This is not to say your texts need to be the most current available. When Sarah saw seventh graders not only relating to but understanding the Abbott and Costello “Who’s on First?” sketch, she was very surprised. Many of these students were English language learners and yet they still were com-

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pletely taken in by the duo, laughing while they watched the comedians. The more they worked with the text, the more they began to see how it was structured and why it was funny that the names of the players were question stems. One group even started making new players for the bench. Why was the text so successful? Perhaps because every student in that class understood the fundamental concept of baseball on which the routine was based. Many of them had also experienced their own language mix-ups, so perhaps the humor was even more relevant for them. The age of the text may not be an issue, but familiarity of situations and contexts seems to be important. “Substitute Teacher,” from the sketch comedy show Key & Peele, is another example of a text students typically find relevant and relate to with ease. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele center two sketches around the character Mr. Garvey, a substitute teacher who has, in his own words “taught school in the inner-city for twenty years.” He is now in what is clearly intended to be a suburban school setting. The sketch shows Mr. Garvey taking roll, mispronouncing every student’s name (Blake becomes Bell-AHkay, Aaron is Ay-AY-Ron, etc.). 42 In an interview, Key describes choosing these names because they are “ . . . super white names.” 43 On its surface, the sketch is funny because we’ve all seen teachers mispronounce names (particularly “non-traditional” names). Watching the typical situation reversed once again violates our norm structure, but in a non-threatening way. With over 99 million views on YouTube, this sketch has arguably become a cultural reference in the United States. Yet in addition to being funny, it is a biting commentary on the re-segregation of schools. The opportunity to explore the inequities this situation may present become increasingly evident in “Substitute Teacher, Part 2” where students explain the need to leave class a few minutes early for club photos for the yearbook. Mr. Garvey’s response presents the differences between well-funded, suburban schools and urban schools: “Y’all want to leave my class early so y’all can meet up at the club?” 44 This sketch is perhaps an ideal starting point for Freire’s critical laughter and demands we ask questions about the current condition of our schools: who has access to various opportunities and what are the implications and possible repercussions of persistent inequity in schools? Further, sometimes the best opportunities are when students provide the texts. In her Adolescent Development course, Sarah uses the trailer for The Breakfast Club as a starting point for considering the various stereotypical subgroups that are found in high schools—and the perpetuation of these cliques or subgroups. The trailer is, to most viewers, cliché and funny to our twenty-first-century sensibilities. After being shown the trailer, students discuss 1) whether these sub-groups still exist and 2) why a movie that’s over thirty years old would still be relevant when it comes to the social order of high school. The discussion usually leads to a conversation about the influence of media and at this point, students often think this is the answer; the

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media is the reason we envision high school and high school students in this way. Students are quick to point out how they too were influenced by television shows portrayal of high school life before entering high school, often citing shows such as iCarly, One Tree Hill, Dawson’s Creek, Gossip Girl, and perhaps the most cited movie, Mean Girls. They attribute their exposure to these texts as leading to the stereotypical subgroups that may exist in high schools. Then students are asked to get into small groups and find their own examples of the perpetuation of these stereotypical subgroups in more current movies or TV shows aimed at teens and share with the class. This leads to our next tip: TIP 2: STUDENT CHOICE IN TEXTS CAN LEAD TO RICHER DISCUSSIONS. Over the years, the films chosen by students have changed somewhat, but the stereotypes persist. We always have a good laugh at how parties in high school (and college) never seem to live up to the parties in the movies and then slowly the conversation turns to why these stereotypes of high school students persist. Superbad always seems to make this list, as a group of loveable and unpopular teen boys try to win over popular teenage girls by providing alcohol for the final high school party and a chance at starting a “summer to remember” before college. The party in this movie is long, loud, and highlights all the high school stereotypes. Mean Girls also is a recurring favorite, offering updated versions of the same stereotypical subgroups we saw in The Breakfast Club; the cliques mentioned include: burnouts, band geeks, jocks, ROTC, preps, nerds, desperate wannabes, and those dreaded popular girls, the plastics. Another oft-cited film is Not Another Teen Movie, a movie that effectively spoofs teen movies and includes all our favorite subgroups (divided into three groups early in the film, as there are no cliques at John Hughes High School)—jocks (all young men), slutty girls, and losers. The film continues and we meet the naked female foreign exchange student, bitchy cheerleaders, desperate virgins, and the weirdos. Again, new names but the same tropes appear in each film. This is when we start to dig below the surface a bit as we examine these portrayals of high school. Who do these stereotypes serve? Who developed this dominant narrative? What is it like to be stereotyped? Who is assigned a subgroup and who is left out? Are their benefits and drawbacks to ascribing to these subgroups? What institutionalized structures promote or encourage the continuation of these stereotypes? How might these serve the dominant narrative in schooling? The power dynamic in the classroom shifts in these instances; students begin to see themselves as experts capable of providing knowledge and critiquing information. Students are using cultural tools to question the institu-

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tions of which we have been part and will be part of as professionals in our field. To extend this particular conversation further, Sarah has students also look for different types of popularity (sociometric and perceived) in films and TV shows and highlight those examples, as well as highlight the different ways these characters work to gain this popularity (conformity, achievement, etc.). Students again often start with familiar films. For example, the Plastics in Mean Girls provide an excellent example of perceived popularity achieved by conformity, while the character of Cady Heron, at the end of the film, is an example of sociometric popularity. In years past, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, a film made from the popular book series, has also been cited. The film includes a popularity list in which main character Gregg Heffley ranks himself 19th and his best friend, Rowley, 154th in popularity among sixth graders. Rowley provides a clear example of sociometric popularity, as he is liked by all, including teachers and parents, without concern for what others think of him; he is nice to others and true to himself and people appreciate his generous and kind nature. Meanwhile, Gregg is obsessed with perceived popularity and attempts to use achievement in a wide variety of areas from wrestling to performing to cartooning to becoming a crossing guard in order to elevate social status among his peers. With each attempt, he sees himself losing ground, falling from 19th to 204th on his own list. The wealth of examples provided by students not only extends the conversation, but it also provides students with mirrors in which they see their own lived experiences and begin to recognize the structures in place that reinforce and promote the idea of popularity as important within our culture. Students often talk about belonging to more than one subgroup—perhaps you play a sport and are in the band—and this crossover seems less possible in films and TV shows than in real life. At the same time, the importance and dominance of certain groups in high school does seem to exist. For example, the example of athletes who play certain sports—often football in the South—is frequently offered; high school athletes are often seen as minor celebrities in their schools, leading to the reinforcement of a social hierarchy in high schools. Students discuss their own experiences in school and the difference in perception among not only peers, but teachers and administrators, based on the activities a student participates in or the grades they earn. In a more poignant example, a student who had been a baseball player in high school described what he believed was a lower bar for him academically; he specifically recalled being told he didn’t need to complete certain assignments and received higher grades on tests than other students for similar responses based on his status as a star baseball player. Looking at the examples from popular films and TV shows enabled this student to reflect on his experience and see how the power structures at play were treating him differently. Rather than feeling advantaged by this treatment, in hindsight he was angered by it. He felt unprepared for college and struggled his first year or so

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to manage his time and learn to study because he had not learned these skills in high school. Discussions such as these also lead to an examination of how adults are often complicit in perpetuating these stereotypes, as well as a discussion of what happens to students who do not fit into any of these convenient groupings. The Perks of Being a Wallflower is sometimes mentioned by students as an example of what its like to be a to high school student who feels adrift socially. Popularity, even today, is clearly an important value in our culture; people want to be liked by others and social status is seen as a marker of success. Perhaps most important in the experience of using humorous texts is the sense of playfulness it introduces into the classroom environment. Many critiques of the modern institutions that are schooling today include the absence of play and the need for students to be makers, knowers, and players. 45 Calls for a move away from the transmission model of education toward a model of play persist, 46 yet a distinct lack of playfulness pervades our educational institutions. Discussing difficult topics (e.g., institutional racism and sexism) is challenging in a tense environment where all the participants feel guarded; rather, a strong sense of community among participants contributes to open and honest conversation where people feel their contributions will be honored and valued. One way to help develop this sense of community is humor. Research suggests that humor has the ability to improve social relationships among faculty and students and strengthen classroom community. 47 When everyone is comfortable, they are far more likely to not only open up to a discussion, but also open their mind to new ways of seeing the topic at hand and live alongside the uncomfortable feelings that come with discussing taboo subjects and questioning the dominant social order. This leads us to our next tip: TIP 3: CARTOONS SAY WHAT PEOPLE WON’T. Much like graphic novels, manga, and comic books, cartoons are not solely for kids. TV shows likes The Simpsons and movies like Pixar’s Toy Story reopened the doors for cartoons as entertainment for adults. These cartoons offer a rich reservoir of humorous clips, often critiquing society, providing fodder for classroom analysis and discussion. When it comes to critiquing education, The Simpsons continues to tackle relevant issues, from traditional instruction to teacher pay to the standardized testing movement. Springfield Elementary is a microcosm of trends (and stereotypes) in education, played out on the chalkboards of Springfield’s classrooms. “How the Test Was Won” is an eloquent statement about the tyranny of standardized tests in US schools since the implementation of No Child Left Behind legislation. With thousands of episodes, even one-liners like Lisa’s assertion, “Janie, school is

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never a waste of time!” followed by her teacher’s directions, “Since we have fifteen minutes until recess, please put down your pencils and stare at the front of the room,” 48 open up possibilities for analysis of our current educational system and its historical roots. One of Sarah’s all-time favorite episodes of The Simpsons involves Homer getting a new job and the entire family moving to an idyllic town. The kids leave the sub-standard educational world that is Springfield Elementary and head to Cypress Creek, a planned community “where dreams come true.” 49 Bart is identified as behind when he is unable to read cursive handwriting and placed in a remedial class, where he is utterly confused: “Let me get this straight. We are behind the rest of our class and we are going to catch up to them by going slower than they are?” 50 This line, delivered as an aside, calls into question the current practices we use to remediate students. The class is composed of troublemakers, a student from Canada (“I moved here from Canada and they think I’m slow, eh?”), and a girl who fell off the jungle gym, further challenging the identification of students who require remediation. 51 Often remediation is simply not discussed in pre-service teacher programs or glossed over as being somehow interchangeable with the special education classroom. In a one-minute clip, we can begin the difficult work of questioning our current practices and examining who benefits and how. Characters like Bart Simpson also give us opportunities to examine the differences between compliance and learning and begin to explore what is promoted through our practices in school systems. For students (and teachers), critiquing the very institutions that have educated us and that we are part of may be a difficult task; after all, what does it say about our own success and education if we find these institutions biased and lacking? Does our own success in these systems point to us as the oppressors? Using the fictional worlds created by artists and writers as a safe space to begin to question our own dominant narratives offers a bridge from the imaginary to the real. In the realm of reality, we also discover comedians who are very willing to discuss the problems they see in our education system and the disconnects between the stated outcomes of education, often outcomes that include words like “an educated citizenry” and “uphold the principles and practices of democracy,” and the sometimes well-intentioned, often poorly conceived legislation that continues to guide public education, particularly at the K-12 level, in our nation. This leads to our next source of humor for students: TIP 4: TURN TO LATE NIGHT COMEDIANS. Johnny Carson and Jay Leno were always willing to have a little fun at the expense of the American education system (remember Leno’s man-on-the-

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street quizzes, “Jaywalking”). In the last decade, Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, and more recently Trevor Noah, John Oliver, and Samantha Bee have built on this tradition, but moved toward direct criticisms of the policies that impact our K-12 education system. Rather than simply poking fun at the outcomes of our educational systems, these comedians are taking on the structures in place. While viewers are left laughing at their analysis and delivery, you are also left questioning the very policies, legislation, and practices they are exposing through their work. One of the most memorable recent examples of this was a piece on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver in May 2015. In just eighteen minutes, Oliver explained the complicated system that is standardized testing, legislation, funding, teacher evaluation and school accountability, and who the winners in this system are (hint: a publishing/ testing empire). 52 His explanation of value-added analysis was better than the one our state department personnel provided. Including this particular video in a foundational course about the American education system could clarify many misconceptions about the current test-taking mania that has swallowed our profession under the guide of data-driven decision-making and helping children. What’s even more wonderful about late night comics is their work is often packaged in bite-sized YouTube videos that quickly go viral on social media, moving their commentary beyond the time and space in which it was delivered to a broader global audience. John Oliver’s show is only available via HBO, yet as of this writing, there have more than eight million views of his standardized testing episode on his official YouTube channel. His episode on student debt has eight and a half million views, 53 and, no surprise, his sex education episode has over eleven million views. 54 These short clips are easy to access, well researched, and open the floor for great conversation and questions. Developing a critical, pedagogical stance requires looking for patterns, something in which the late night comics of recent years have excelled. Opportunities to examine equity, power, and control abound and thanks to the comedic delivery, our humor and critical consciousness truly walk side-by-side in these pieces. With so much material available at our fingertips, it’s easy to imagine using humor daily, even as a way to break the ice in our classrooms. After all, research shows students are more likely to attend class if humor is injected into the curriculum. 55 Which brings us to our last tip, which is really a word of warning. TIP 5: HUMOR SHOULD BE PURPOSEFUL. Incongruity may be funny, but not if students can’t decipher the point you are trying to make. Yes, it can be nice to start class with an anecdote about

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running into the local Baptist preacher at a bar, but if that doesn’t in some way relate to the topic or themes you are discussing, it won’t help further students thinking. Setting students at ease can be helpful, but being purposeful in what you use in your course and mindfully selecting the humor preservice teachers experience can serve as a powerful hermeneutic tool, rather than simply a welcome distraction. It also reduces the likelihood of a roomful of people with blank stares and bored expressions, the opposite of the engaged community we seek to create. Constructing an emancipatory pedagogy requires humor that is “transformative and revolutionary,” 56 a laughing with one another with an aim toward change and collective action. Shtick alone won’t achieve our pedagogical goals. Even if shtick alone is not enough, Freire’s curious concept of humor reminds us of two things. First, although we may agree that laughter is not a sufficient condition for the achievement of any, or at least normal, pedagogical goals, humor remains a necessary condition for what Freire considers the highest goal of educators—the creation of an emancipatory pedagogy. Learning to laugh with the people adds the empathy, emotional understanding, and introspection necessary to turn the intellectual process of critical inquiry into the activist state of critical consciousness. Sharing humor radically transforms our relationship with the other from one of understanding to one of solidarity, and it is only out of such solidarity that meaningful political action can arise. Secondly, and more surreptitiously, Freire’s insistence on laughter as a necessary condition for critical consciousness hints at both the ultimate goal and the seriousness with which we should view the use of laughter in the classroom. Humor is not for Freire, merely another tool in a teacher’s toolbox. To view it in such a way devalues both it and the transformative action it can spur. Viewing humor merely as a means of enhancing content mastery or even increasing cognition is akin to viewing Dewey as championing the role of socialization in his pedagogy because it allows students to remember more facts or to operate at a higher cognitive level. Such an instrumental notion of socialization is not so much inaccurate—students do tend to master content better and increase cognition levels with group work—as it is incomplete. Socialization is not simply a tool for Dewey; it is a necessary condition of any learning experience. Without it, there is no possibility any pedagogy can achieve education’s full potential. Similarly for Freire, humor used only as a means to the ends of increasing content mastery or even critical thinking skills—naive consciousness or superstitious conscious respectively—devalues it to the point of undermining not only humor’s potential for learning but also the ultimate goal toward which Freire’s suggests our educative efforts should be ultimately directed: the achievement of critical consciousness which alone can give rise to an emancipatory pedagogy. And if learning to laugh with the people is an integral part of critical consciousness, then any

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pre-service teacher classroom in hopes of apprehending Freire’s particular version of critical pedagogy must necessarily be filled with both the pathos and ethos of laughter. NOTES 1. Myles Horton and Paulo Friere, We Make The Road by Walking: Conversation on Education and Social Change (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1990), 247. 2. Ellie Fitts Fulmer and Nia Nunn Makepeace, “It’s Okay to Laugh, Right?: Toward a Pedagogy of Racial Comedy in Multicultural Education,” Perspectives On Urban Education 12, no. 2 (2015): 38–53, Education Research Complete (19467109). 3. Cris Mayo, “Being in on the Joke: Pedagogy, Race, Humor,” Philosophy Of Education Yearbook (2008): 244, Education Full Text (H. W. Wilson) (508033261). 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid. 6. Ibid., 245. 7. Peter McLaren, Schooling as a Ritual Performance: Toward a Political Economy of Educational Symbols and Gestures, 3rd ed. (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999). 8. Tyson Edward Lewis, “Paulo Freire’s Last Laugh: Rethinking Critical Pedagogy’s Funny Bone through Jacques Rancière,” Educational Philosophy & Theory 42, no. 5/6 (2010): 635–648, doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00690.x. 9. Ibid., 638–639. 10. Ibid., 639. 11. Ibid., 639–640. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid., 640. 14. Ibid. 15. Ibid. 16. Ibid. 17. David O’Hara, “God’s Song: The Satire of Randy Newman.” Aquarian Drunkard (blog). January 28, 2015, http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2015/01/28/gods-song-the-satireof-randy-newman/. 18. Randy Newman, “Rednecks,” Good Old Boys, Reprise Record, MS 2913, 1974, LP/ Album. 19. Ibid. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Alan Seidman and Stephen C. Brown, “College Classroom Humor: Even the Pundits Can Benefit,” Education 133, no. 3 (2013): 393– 395, Academic Search Alumni Edition (88143703). 23. Kim Shibinski and Malissa Martin, “The Role of Humor in Enhancing the Classroom Climate,” Athletic Therapy Today 15, no. 5 (2010): 27–29, Academic Search Complete (54956096). 24. L.M. Englert, “Learning with Laughter: Using Humor in the Nursing Classroom,” Nursing Education Perspectives 31, no. 1 (2010): 48–49, Academic Search Complete (20397483). 25. Louisa Allen, “Don’t Forget, Thursday is Test[icle] Time! The Use of Humour in Sexuality Education,” Sex Education 14, no. 4 (2014): 387–399, doi: 10.1080/14681811. 26. Lee Hurren, “Humor in School is Serious Business,” International Journal of Learning 12, no. 6 (2006); 79–83, Education Research Complete (25089786). 27. Alan K. Goodboy, Melanie Booth-Butterfield, San Bolkan, and Darrin J. Griffin, “The Role of Instructor Humor and Students’ Educational Orientations in Student Learning, Extra Effort, Participation, and Out-of-Class Communication,” Communication Quarterly 63, no. 1 (2015): 44–61, doi: 10.1080/01463373.2014.965840.

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28. Ramesh Narula, Varsha Chaudhary, Ashok Agarwal, and Kusum Narula, “Humor as a Learning Aid in Medical Education,” National Journal of Integrated Research In Medicine 2, no. 1 (2011): 22–25, Academic Search Complete (59856957). 29. Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, “Who’s on First?” YouTube, August 15, 2012, https:// www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg. 30. J.M. Suls, “A Two-Stage Model for the Appreciation of Jokes and Cartoons: An Information Processing Analysis,” In The Psychology of Humor: Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Issues, edited by J. H. Goldstein and P. E. McGhee (New York: Academic Press, 1972), 81–100. 31. Sascha Topolinski, “A Processing Fluency-Account of Funniness: Running Gags and Spoiling Punchlines,” Cognition & Emotion 28, no. 5 (2014): 811–820, doi: 10.1080/ 02699931.2013.863180. 32. Caleb Warren and A. Peter McGraw, “Differentiating What Is Humorous From What Is Not,” Journal Of Personality & Social Psychology 110, no. 3 (2016): 407–430, doi: 10.1037/ pspi0000041. 33. Tyson Edward Lewis, “Paulo Freire’s Last Laugh: Rethinking Critical Pedagogy’s Funny Bone through Jacques Rancière,” Educational Philosophy & Theory 42, no. 5/6 (2010): 640, doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00690.x. 34. David O’Hara, “God’s Song: The Satire of Randy Newman.” Aquarian Drunkard (blog). January 28, 2015, http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2015/01/28/gods-song-the-satireof-randy-newman/. 35. Joe L. Kincheloe, Critical Pedagogy Primer (New York: Peter Lang, 2008), 1. 36. Michael Apple, Power, Meaning, and Identity: Essays in Critical Educational Studies. (New York: Peter Lang, 1999). 37. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed. (New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010). 38. National Center for Education Statistics, Fast Facts: Back to School Statistics, last modified May 1, 2016, http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372. 39. US Census Bureau, Educational Attainment in the United States: 2015—Detailed Tables, last modified January 5, 2016, http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/ 2015/tables.html. 40. David O’Hara, “God’s Song: The Satire of Randy Newman.” Aquarian Drunkard (blog). January 28, 2015, http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2015/01/28/gods-song-the-satireof-randy-newman/. 41. Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola (1979; Culver City, CA: Lionsgate, 2003), DVD. 42. Key & Peele, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, Substitute Teacher, Television, Monkeypaw Productions, Season 2, Episode 4, 2012. 43. Scott Meslow, “Interview: Key & Peele Explain How They Created ‘Substitute Teacher,’” The Week, September 25, 2013, http://theweek.com/articles/459650/interview-key--peeleexplain-how-created-substitute-teacher. 44. Key & Peele, Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, Substitute Teacher Part 2, Television, Monkeypaw Productions, Season 3, Episode 1, 2013. 45. Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown, A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change (CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011). 46. Henry Jenkins, Ravi Purushotma, Margaret Weigel, Katie Clinton, and Alice J. Robison, Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century (Boston, MA: MIT Press, 2009). 47. Kim Shibinski and Malissa Martin, “The Role of Humor in Enhancing the Classroom Climate,” Athletic Therapy Today 15, no. 5 (2010): 27–29, Academic Search Complete (54956096). 48. The Simpsons, Directed by Lance Kramer, How the Test Was Won, Television, 20th Century Fox Television, Season 20, Episode 11, 2009. 49. The Simpsons, Directed by Mike Anderson, You Only Move Twice, Television, 20th Century Fox Television, Season 8, Episode 2, 1996.

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50. Ibid. 51. Ibid. 52. Last Week with John Oliver, John Oliver, Standardized Testing, Television, Sixteen String Jack Productions, Season 2, Episode 12, 2015. 53. Last Week with John Oliver, John Oliver, Student Debt, Television, Sixteen String Jack Productions, Season 1, Episode 16, 2014. 54. Last Week with John Oliver, John Oliver, Sex Ed, Television, Sixteen String Jack Productions, Season 2, Episode 4, 2015. 55. Ramesh Narula, Varsha Chaudhary, Ashok Agarwal, and Kusum Narula, “Humor as a Learning Aid in Medical Education,” National Journal of Integrated Research In Medicine 2, no. 1 (2011): 22–25, Academic Search Complete (59856957). 56. Tyson Edward Lewis, “Paulo Freire’s Last Laugh: Rethinking Critical Pedagogy’s Funny Bone through Jacques Rancière,” Educational Philosophy & Theory 42, no. 5/6 (2010): 640, doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00690.x.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abbott, Bud and Costello, Lou. “Who’s on First?” YouTube. August 15, 2012. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg. Allen, Louisa. “Don’t Forget, Thursday Is Test[icle] Time! The Use of Humour in Sexuality Education.” Sex Education 14, no. 4 (2014): 387–399. doi: 10.1080/14681811. Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola. 1979. Culver City, CA: Lionsgate, 2003. DVD. Apple, Michael. Power, Meaning, and Identity: Essays in Critical Educational Studies. New York: Peter Lang, 1999. Attardo, Salvatore. “The Semantic Foundations of Cognitive Theories of Humor. Humor: International Journal of Humor Research 10, no. 4 (1997): 395–420. doi: 10.1515/ humr.1997.10.4.395. Englert, L.M. “Learning with Laughter: Using Humor in the Nursing Classroom.” Nursing Education Perspectives 31, no. 1 (2010): 48–49. Academic Search Complete (20397483). Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010. Fulmer, Ellie Fitts, and Nia Nunn Makepeace. “It’s Okay to Laugh, Right?”: Toward a Pedagogy of Racial Comedy in Multicultural Education.” Perspectives On Urban Education 12, no. 2 (2015): 38–53. Education Research Complete (19467109). Goodboy, Alan K., Melanie Booth-Butterfield, San Bolkan, and Darrin J. Griffin. “The Role of Instructor Humor and Students’ Educational Orientations in Student Learning, Extra Effort, Participation, and Out-of-Class Communication.” Communication Quarterly 63, no. 1 (2015): 44–61. doi: 10.1080/01463373.2014.965840. Gordon, Philip Sherman. “Not a Mormon.” Cultural Studies 19, no. 4 (2005): 423–429. doi: 10.1080/09502380500219373. Horton, Myles and Paulo Freire. We Make the Road by Walking: Conversation on Education and Social Change. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1990. Hurren, Lee. “Humor in School is Serious Business.” International Journal of Learning 12, no. 6 (2006); 79–83. Education Research Complete (25089786). Jenkins, Henry, Ravi Purushotma, Margaret Weigel, Katie Clinton, and Alice J. Robison. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. Boston, MA: MIT Press, 2009. Key & Peele. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Substitute Teacher. Television. Monkeypaw Productions, Season 2, Episode 4, 2012. Key & Peele. Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele. Substitute Teacher Part 2. Television. Monkeypaw Productions. Season 3, Episode 1, 2013. Kincheloe, Joe L. Critical Pedagogy Primer. New York: Peter Lang, 2008.

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Knight, Tony, and Art Pearl. “Democratic Education and Critical Pedagogy: Possibilities for Cross-Pollination.” Urban Review 32, no. 3 (2000): 197–226. doi: 10.1007/s11256-0090129-y. Last Week with John Oliver. John Oliver. Sex Ed. Television. Sixteen String Jack Productions. Season 2, Episode 4, 2015. Last Week with John Oliver. John Oliver. Standardized Testing. Television. Sixteen String Jack Productions. Season 2, Episode 12, 2015. Last Week with John Oliver. John Oliver. Student Debt. Television. Sixteen String Jack Productions. Season 1, Episode 16, 2014. Lei, Simon A., Jillian L. Cohen, and Kristen M. Russler. “Humor on Learning in the College Classroom: Evaluating Benefits and Drawbacks From Instructors’ Perspectives.” Journal Of Instructional Psychology 37, no. 4 (2010): 326–331. Academic Search Complete (59422236). Lewis, Tyson Edward. “Paulo Freire’s Last Laugh: Rethinking Critical Pedagogy’s Funny Bone through Jacques Rancière.” Educational Philosophy & Theory 42, no. 5/6 (2010): 635–648. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-5812.2010.00690.x. Mayo, Cris. “Being in on the Joke: Pedagogy, Race, Humor.” Philosophy Of Education Yearbook (2008): 244–252. Education Full Text (H. W. Wilson) (508033261). McLaren, Peter. Schooling as a Ritual Performance: Toward a Political Economy of Educational Symbols and Gestures. 3rd ed. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999. Meslow, Scott. “Interview: Key & Peele Explain How They Created ‘Substitute Teacher.’” The Week. September 25, 2013. http://theweek.com/articles/459650/interview-key--peeleexplain-how-created-substitute-teacher. Narula, Ramesh, Varsha Chaudhary, Ashok Agarwal, and Kusum Narula. “Humor as a Learning Aid in Medical Education.” National Journal of Integrated Research in Medicine 2, no. 1 (2011): 22–25. Academic Search Complete (59856957). National Center for Education Statistics. Fast Facts: Back to School Statistics. Last modified May 1, 2016. http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372. Newman, Randy. Good Old Boys. Reprise Record. MS 2913, 1974, LP/ Album. O’Hara, David. “God’s Song: The Satire of Randy Newman.” Aquarian Drunkard (blog). January 28, 2015. http://www.aquariumdrunkard.com/2015/01/28/gods-song-the-satire-ofrandy-newman/. Seidman, Alan, and Stephen C. Brown. “College Classroom Humor: Even the Pundits Can Benefit.” Education 133, no. 3 (2013): 393– 395. Academic Search Alumni Edition (88143703). Shibinski, Kim, and Malissa Martin. “The Role of Humor in Enhancing the Classroom Climate.” Athletic Therapy Today 15, no. 5 (2010): 27–29. Academic Search Complete (54956096). Suls, J. M. “A Two-Stage Model for the Appreciation of Jokes and Cartoons: An Information Processing Analysis.” In The Psychology of Humor: Theoretical Perspectives and Empirical Issues, edited by J. H. Goldstein and P. E. McGhee, 81–100. New York: Academic Press, 1972. The Simpsons. Directed by Lance Kramer. How the Test Was Won. Television. 20th> Century Fox Television. Season 20, Episode 11, 2009. The Simpsons. Directed by Mike Anderson. You Only Move Twice. Television. 20th Century Fox Television. Season 8, Episode 2, 1996. Thomas, Douglas and John Seely Brown. A New Culture of Learning: Cultivating the Imagination for a World of Constant Change. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2011. Topolinski, Sascha. “A Processing Fluency-Account of Funniness: Running Gags and Spoiling Punchlines.” Cognition & Emotion 28, no. 5 (2014): 811–820. doi: 10.1080/ 02699931.2013.863180. US Census Bureau. Educational Attainment in the United States: 2015—Detailed Tables. Last modified January 5, 2016. http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/education/data/cps/2015/ tables.html.

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Warren, Caleb, and A. Peter McGraw. “Differentiating What Is Humorous From What Is Not.” Journal Of Personality & Social Psychology 110, no. 3 (2016): 407–430. doi: 10.1037/pspi0000041.

Chapter Ten

Orange Is the New Blackboard Lessons for Teacher and Student Advocacy Haley M. G. Ford and Meredith J. Tolson

The popular Netflix series, Orange Is the New Black (OITNB), debuted in 2013 to critical acclaim. The show follows Piper Chapman, a white, upperclass woman from Connecticut, who is charged with drug trafficking and money laundering. Piper accepts a plea deal, leaving her fiancé to serve a thirteen-month prison sentence. Just finishing its fourth season, the show tackles a variety of issues that pertain to women and the justice system by looking into the lives and pasts of the women of Litchfield Penitentiary. The show provides a glimpse at the intersectionality of race, class, power, and the life-altering consequences of often, minor, non-violent offenses. After watching the show with a critical teacher’s eye, it became evident that the issues illustrated by the TV show mirrored what we were seeing in our own classrooms. These women are not strangers. They are our sisters, friends, mothers, children, and students who have made mistakes, largely impacted by the environments they are born into. They are relatable, passionate, and each has a story to tell which has been forgotten or ignored by both popular culture and society. The show offers teachers the opportunity to see the world mirrored in popular culture and view what can happen if students do not know how to advocate for themselves and others. Many students have similar obstacles to the characters in the show, but do not necessarily have the skills to articulate their needs and circumstances. As it is well portrayed on screen, most of the prisoners are products of a home that functioned below the poverty line. About a quarter of American students live in similar conditions, 1 and even more than that struggle financially as “twice the official poverty line is a 189

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more realistic measure of those who face critical and serious hardship.” 2 Berliner and Biddle add to this concept saying: It is very difficult to provide good schooling for impoverished students who may come to school hungry or in cast-off and torn clothing, who suffer from untreated medical problems, who live in neighborhoods that are rife with crime and violence, or who come from homes that lack even basic amenities— let alone books and other supports for education. 3

Therefore, training and employing teachers who are capable of giving these students the skills and opportunities to know who they are, why they are valuable, and what they are capable of, cannot be stressed enough. One of the first lessons a novice teacher will encounter is that mistakes are inevitable and perfection in the classroom is not realistic. The same rings true for being a teacher advocate. Both of these roles require persistence, resilience, and practice. So, what is a teacher advocate? We believe a teacher advocate models healthy boundaries, articulates their needs, speaks for the needs of all students, and functions from a place of compassion. While this description may seem concrete, each of the domains within the definition can be interpreted to fit the needs of the teacher advocate and his or her students. For some teachers, this may look like having close connections with students, for others it may manifest in the form of comprehensive and authentic feedback on academic work. While the narrative of OITNB is not actually placed in a classroom setting, there are profound lessons to be drawn from the dialogue and action of the players that can be considered as case studies for teachers. Within the context of the television show, each character is complex enough to illustrate such issues as the school-to-prison pipeline, mental health treatment, LGBT rights, and the ramifications of non-violent crimes. While these social problems are paramount to the success or failure of students in the classroom, a broader view of popular culture allows for teacher educators and teacher candidates to gain a better perspective in order to advocate for themselves and their future students. 4 The lessons we have chosen to highlight are the beginning of a dialogue for teachers concerning poignant issues young people face. This chapter will be framed around a personal to local to global context. The structure is intentional, as one cannot properly advocate for others until they are able to advocate for themselves. Local change occurs with schools and communities, as a result of self-actualization and acting on the needs of others. The beginning lessons will analyze characters from OITNB that struggle in the domains of social, emotional and self-awareness and the consequences that then arise. Moving on, local-to-global advocacy will extend beyond the self and personal relationships, and look at ways teachers and

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students can advocate for their communities and the world in a tangible way. The ultimate purpose of this chapter is to offer teachers the opportunity to see the world around them in a different way and then change the way they interact with students. There is meaning in the products of our culture, but taking the time to deconstruct why and what we choose to consume is a mark of a conscious and critical teacher advocacy. PIPER’S LESSON: SELF-AWARENESS AND REFLECTION As a self-described WASP (white Anglo-Saxon protestant), Piper is well educated and privileged. Attending Smith College, she was moorless after graduating, connecting with Alex Vause, a drug runner for an international drug cartel. Through their relationship, Piper travels with Alex all over the world, but only once assists with the actual drug ring. Ten years later, she is charged with money laundering and drug trafficking. At Litchfield she is at first naïve, admitting that she studied for prison. She toughens up quickly, after insulting Red’s cooking, and being intentionally starved for most of a week. Season 1 brings her face to face with Alex again, this time in prison. Their on again, off again relationship ruins her engagement to her fiancé. In season 3 she starts a business smuggling used panties out of the prison, and in season 4, she unknowingly allies herself to white supremacists, exacerbating the racial tensions that already exist at Litchfield. Piper has become known to viewers the blonde, white girl who became famous writing about her prison experience. Once her book, Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison was published, her story gained an incredible amount of notoriety, which led to the creation of the popular television series created, developed, and streamed by Netflix. The book was published in 2010 and was on the New York Times best seller list in 2013. The author, Piper Kerman, after being convicted of money laundering and drug trafficking served thirteen months of a fifteen-month sentence at a minimum-security prison in Connecticut. Soon after her release, Kerman wrote a memoir describing her experiences, paying special attention to how what she witnessed collided with the inequities within the justice system. Piper’s character within the pages of her book bears some resemblance to her on-screen persona, but the fictional television character is where teachers can learn one of the most valuable lessons as a cautionary tale. Within the fifty-two episodes, Piper is painted as privileged and blind to the needs of others, even the people she claims to love. Piper, and the values she claims to stand for, are ignored as she violates other inmates with revenge and violence. In season 4 she takes a rare moment to analyze her own behavior, when she realizes that her actions have negatively impacted the lives of so many people saying, “My parents didn’t teach me to be like this. What I did to Maria . . . I didn’t

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feel bad. I didn’t think twice. I just . . . went too far. I always go too far. I always go too f*cking far, and I can’t f*cking stop it.” 5 She starts to ponder the question of why she chooses these paths and hits a wall. There is a reason for this: she has no tools to practice self-reflection or self-awareness. One of the foundational lessons that a novice teacher should be given is that self-reflection is necessary to growing and becoming a better teacher. 6 Without this tool, self-awareness is practically an impossible feat. So why would this skill matter for teachers? Just like Piper, when she loses sight of the impact her words and actions have on the people around her, pain and damage are inflicted. Many teachers can look back on the memories of past classrooms and cringe at the remembrance of what they said or did, knowing that it was a mistake they can never take back. As a beginning practice, teacher educators at the college level may require their candidates to reflect on what they see and experience in their field placements by keeping journals and addressing the deeper questions of chosen classroom practices. Instructors even have the option of having teacher candidates begin a course by writing about what they believe their teaching philosophy to be, and when the end of the program nears, having them rewrite it to see how they have evolved. By asking novice teachers to look back at previously written reflections with the intention of identifying recurring themes, the possibility of challenging and improving pedagogy can be realized. The difference between a good teacher and a growing teacher is the one who chooses to look back on her mistakes in the classroom and challenge her manner by asking, “What could I have done better?” However, just asking the question is not enough. Looking at and challenging a teacher’s actions within the walls of a classroom has to then be followed with change. To just reflect is never enough, we must grow in order to become better people, better teachers, and better advocates for children. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Book • Tread Lightly, Lead Boldly: The Importance of Self-Awareness, Listening and Learning in School Leadership Success by Diane Ketelle, Xlibris Publishing Websites • “Developing Your Self-Awareness as a Teacher,” https://ltc.highline.edu/ CR/Developing%20Your%20SelfAwareness%20as%20a%20Teacher.pdf

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• “Reflective Exercise for Self-Awareness,” https://teaching.unsw.edu.au/ self-awareness MR. HEALY’S LESSON: TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF FIRST Sam Healy grew up in a home with his mentally ill mother. After abandoning the family as a result of her disease, he pursues a career in social work. He has a strained relationship with his wife, a Ukrainian mail-order bride. Within Litchfield, Healy attempts to do good, but is misguided by misogyny and bigotry. His failure as a social worker is clear to everyone but himself, as he is shocked in season when an inmate tells him exactly how bad at his job he truly is. In the show, as in life, it is easy to try to divide the characters into two columns: good and bad. Sam is an easy target of both fans of the show and inmates alike; he is someone we love to hate. Throughout the course of the show, however, it is clear that he is blind to how his own trauma affects his interactions, both personally and professionally. His relationships with women, the inmates, his superiors, and his wife alike all seem to be rooted in bias, misogyny, and misplaced good intentions. In season one, he focuses his energy on making sure that Piper does not interact with the lesbians in the prison, saying “Lesbians can be very dangerous. It’s the testosterone.” 7 In season two, his bias becomes even more evident when he expresses his rage saying, “Behind every strong man is a strong c*nt-faced bitch monster.” 8 Though he tries, he has learned that if you do put in effort, it is not appreciated nor does change typically happen. It is not until season three that the audience begins to understand how Sam’s experiences have led him to his current emotionally stunted and largely unfulfilling life. In his flashbacks, we see his childhood interactions with his mentally ill mother, who’s instability gets in the way of a healthy parentchild relationship. In season four, this is expanded, as we learn that his friends have equated her mental illness with lesbianism (a clue as to his “witch hunt” of lesbians at Litchfield). In conjunction with her experiences with electroshock therapy, a lack of understanding of her condition, and poor support from her family, she makes the decision to leave. While this view is simplistic and does not give the viewer all the answers, it does allow us to see Healy as a human, with trauma, pain, and an explanation for his behavior. His actions start to make sense when given more of the whole picture, even if they are not commendable, or even decent. This clarity continues in his interactions with inmate Lolly Whitehill, a character that the audience learns is in prison largely as a result of her symptoms of mental illness. Healy connects to her, but in many ways does not see her as who she is, but a symbol of the mother he could not help. This

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tragic relationship starts out rocky and continues to deteriorate as he makes choices that are irresponsible to the safety of other inmates, and ignores statements Lolly has made attributing them to the symptoms of her illness. Mr. Healy finally learns a lesson that many teachers have to learn the hard way: you cannot fix everything and everyone. Healy’s experiences are an object lesson for what not to do under extreme stress. Ignoring stressors and trauma do not help alleviate problems, but exacerbate them to the point that job performance is affected. Stress can be expected within any profession, but the stressors that teachers face both in and outside of the classroom can lead to “negative consequences that can undermine their ability to sustain personal health and positive interactions.” 9 There are a variety of factors that can put pressure on teachers including evaluative appraisals, behavioral issues in the classroom, the heavy work load, and the social and performance aspects of leading a group of students. 10 Less experienced teachers are more prone to experience these conditions at work than their more experienced colleagues, 11 so knowing how to appropriately deal with stress is beneficial when going into the classroom, whether for student teaching or as the teacher of record. Knowing how to take preventative measures to combat stress as well as knowing what to do in the midst of stressful situations can help to ease the tension that can build. First, taking time off when ill sounds simple, but far too often teachers work through illness, both increasing fatigue and burnout. 12 Personality type may also contribute to the amount of stress felt by teachers. Introverts are more likely to experience high levels of stress due to the social nature of teaching, 13 so taking time to recharge with quiet can increase resilience. While these preventative measures are helpful, there are times in the classroom that, as advocates, we have to care for ourselves first, and recognize that while we model, advocate, serve, counsel, and lead by example, everyone and every situation comes with their own set of limitations. Sometimes it is in the best interest of everyone to know when to ask for help. This can exhibit itself in various ways, from calling Child Protective Services to referring a student to counseling, to reaching out to other teachers or administration for assistance with a difficult situation. This can also look like asking for personal help. Unfortunately for Sam, his realization occurs after Lolly is taken to the psychiatric unit of the prison, screaming, and not understanding why he has “given up” on her. It is this triggering event that leads him into a downward spiral that results in a suicide attempt. This wake up call, thankfully, leads to action, as he finally realizes he cannot deal with his trauma and issues on his own, and checks himself into a psychiatric facility. He realizes the need to care for himself first, so he can be a better advocate for others. Teaching is a challenging profession, full of stimulus, and the needs of students are often demanding and emotionally draining. Self-care is a tool

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that is under-taught and under-utilized in many service jobs, but boils down to the idea that if you do not take care of yourself first, you will not be able to care for others. Starting small with a cup of coffee, a workout, or even a night with your favorite television program are tangible and personalized strategies that can help teachers cope with the stress of the school day. Far too often, it is evident when a teacher has had too much or needs help coping. Maintaining self-awareness and asking for help when you need it allows teachers to preserve emotional stability and continue to serve as an advocate for students. 14 It is not weak to seek professional help if the pressure is too great. Many school districts even offer free counseling services through employee assistance programs. These services are confidential and can be an asset when the burdens of the job or personal stresses interfere with life. In Mr. Healy’s story, it is clear that as advocates, it is necessary to take the time to have your own needs met so you can meet the needs of others. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Books • The Resilient Practitioner: Burnout Prevention and Self-Care Strategies for Counselors, Therapists, Teachers, and Health Professionals, Second Edition . . . Historical, and Cultural Perspectives) 3rd Edition by Thomas M. Skovholt and Michelle Trotter-Mathison • A Moment for Teachers: Self-Care for Busy Teachers—101 Free Ways for Teachers to Become More Inspired, Peaceful, and Confident in 30 Seconds by Alice Langholt, Create Space Independent Publishing Platform Websites • http://www.mindfulteachers.org/ • http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/self_compassion_for_ teachers BIG BOO’S LESSON: BEING AUTHENTIC WITH STUDENTS Carrie “Big Boo” Black grew up in a family where she was discouraged from being herself, often being asked to change out of the traditional boys attire she preferred into something more feminine. She is incredibly defensive about her butch appearance, assaulting a man as a young adult for calling her a homophobic slur. Her exact crime is unclear, but she spends her time at Litchfield working on the janitorial staff. She befriends Pennsatucky, a relationship that helps both of them with personal growth.

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“BUTCH.” This label is not only a badge of honor for Big Boo that she wears internally, but it is in fact a physical label she had tattooed on her forearm in large, bold letters. In the two flashback episodes that reveal some of Big Boo’s past, it is clear that she has been fighting all of her life to be accepted just as she is. In fact, during season three’s episode, “Finger in the Dyke,” the viewers are taken back to her days as a young adult. She rounds the corner of a hospital hallway wearing her usual garb that has been obviously chosen from the men’s side of the clothing store. She confronts a man that the viewers have already been introduced to as her father and in a most concerned voice asks about the welfare of her mother. When she attempts to enter her mother’s hospital room, her father stops her and begs her change out of her masculine clothes so that her mother does not have to see her that way. In an instant, Big Boo’s emotions travel from concern to intense anger. She looks directly into her father’s eyes and with gritted teeth and pursed lips states, “I refuse to be invisible.” 15 Although many of Big Boo’s actions are a result of rage or poor judgment, she never wants to be anything other than her authentic self, and she refuses to let anyone define her or “fix” her. She lives her truth and this is the lesson that teacher advocates need to take into consideration. Many teachers, through their own experiences in school or through misinformation given to them, perpetuate the idea that teachers must keep their personal lives and who they are hidden from their students. When teachers fail to share their true selves, students internalize the message that this impersonal relationship is a result on the students’ character or life. In my (Haley Ford’s) third year of teaching, a student in my twelfth-grade government class came to me distraught that her parents were getting divorced. Traditional practices would have encouraged me to pat her on the back, tell her “I’m sorry,” and move on with my day. Rather than miss the opportunity to develop deeper authenticity, I told her how sorry I was that she was feeling so much pain. I then went on to tell her that I also came from a home where my mother and father had divorced around the time I was her age. It was a raw moment, even a trauma, in my life and I had chosen to share it with a student. I had been vulnerable and honest with a young person in my class. Cranton believes that “the authentic teacher cares about teaching, believes in its value, wants to work well with students, and has professional respect for students in general.” 16 In taking the time to share my story with this student, I was able to show her that I respected her and her circumstances, not merely her grades. Although this is only one part of the recipe that is required for building relationships with students, for the intended purpose of success in the classroom, it is an extremely potent ingredient. It may be a daunting task, and it may need practice before perfection. The relationships that teachers create may not always be what he or she imagined or even “close and personal,” but that is not the point of this lesson.

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Every student is an individual; therefore, the relationships we create with them should be just as individualized. Being authentic in our classroom actions and choices may not always be picaresque, but our job is to meet students where they are and provide them with what they need to be successful in and out of the classroom. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Books • School’s Out: Gay and Lesbian Teachers in the Classroom by Catherine Connell, University of California Press • One Teacher in Ten in the New Millennium: LGBT Educators Speak Out about What’s Gotten Better . . . and What Hasn’t by Kevin Jennings, Beacon Press • The Right to Be Out: Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity in America’s Public Schools by Stuart Biegel, University of Minnesota Press Articles • “Begin Within” by Teaching Tolerance, Number 51, Spring 2016 http:// www.tolerance.org/magazine/tt54–fall-2016/feature/dont-say-nothing Websites • http://www.outteacher.org/ • http://www.glsen.org/ • http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/12/the-plight-ofbeing-a-lgbt-teacher/383619/ • https://thinkprogress.org/how-lgbt-teachers-deal-with-intolerance-acrossthe-country-6cc1cf52b40a#.4t3fumav5 TAYSTEE’S LESSON: SEEING POTENTIAL WHERE IT IS LEAST EXPECTED Tasha “Taystee” Jefferson grew up a product of the foster care system. As a child, she would try her best to look the part of a perfect child at adoption fairs. After an incident at a group home, she pleaded to Vee, a local drug dealer, to take her in. Her business acumen and intelligence are evident both in her flashback scenes and at present day. Taystee was a ward of the state until she was sixteen, when she went to juvee. She was released from Litchfield in season one, and upon finding no support or resources to help her,

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intentionally broke parole in order to go back to the only home she knew. At Litchfield, she works in the library and provides a listening ear to others. Many of the flashback story lines within OITNB portray the lives of characters in a way that helps viewers contextualize the idea that there is no one type of prisoner. Taystee is a character who exemplifies the complexity of the systems that can institutionalize people, especially those from marginalized communities. In her flashback episodes, it is clear that she has always been gifted, but like many others in the show, her vulnerability lies in her lack of community and family stability, making her an easy target for predators. She says this herself, in a moment of clarity saying, “I’ve been in institutions my whole life. I was a ward of the state ’til I was sixteen, then juvee. I got no skills.” 17 Michelle Alexander describes this phenomenon and the system that keeps many black citizens living in a state of poverty saying, “Like Jim Crow (and slavery) mass incarceration operates as a tightly networked system of laws, policies, customs, and institutions that operate collectively to ensure the subordinate status of a group defined largely by race.” 18 Unfortunately for many pupils, school is increasingly becoming a place where they grow accustomed to institutional systems, especially within the realm of discipline. 19, 20 Suspensions (both out of and in school) and expulsions cause students to miss instructional time, putting them further behind academically and increasing the likelihood of additional punitive disciplinary action in the future. While restorative justice practices which push for discipline that keeps students in school and teaches valuable social emotional skills such as reconciliation are on the rise, 21 the consequences of current discipline practices can be seen throughout communities and prisons. Taystee is in many ways the foil of Piper, having an abundance of empathy and awareness of the world, but a lack of financial resources and confidence in her own abilities. At the end of season one, her request for parole is granted, but she quickly realizes that the world outside of prison is not the same one she knew before. Struggling to find adequate housing and work, she chooses to violate parole and come back to the “safety” of prison, because “Everyone I know is poor, in jail, or gone,” 22 and “Man, at least in jail you get dinner.” 23 At the end of the day, her work ethic and intelligence are not enough to overcome her circumstances. So, what does this mean for teachers? First, acknowledging that our actions and the words we say can have significant impact. Most people can remember a moment, a blip in their memory, when a comment was said in passing. It may not have seemed impactful at the time, but the message was internalized nonetheless, particularly when the speaker is in a position of power. Many students have come into our classes stating things like, “I’m just bad at reading” or “I’ll never pass.” These examples, though they may seem small, have weight, because once a message is learned it is incredibly more difficult to unlearn. While we all misspeak on occasion, being cogni-

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zant of our words is incredibly important. Many who enter our doors already carry the message that they are not good enough, and our job is to ameliorate the negative through positive relationships and support, rather than deepen the wound. Words have power, but as often as teachers talk throughout the day, even when using reflective practice, it is sometimes difficult to accurately assess how you are speaking. Recording a lesson (with administrative permission) and analyzing the discourse can give teachers a better idea of their speech patterns. For example, when participating in this exercise, one author noticed that she was preferring to call on the female students in her classes more frequently than the male students. By being aware of this bias, she was able to intentionally balance the students she called on in class, as well as implementing strategies such as checklists and response cards that increased the amount that each student was able to speak within the classroom. Advocating for students in this capacity involves modeling positive selftalk. 24 While this may sound simple, it is a challenge even for many adults. Stating your thought process and metacognition is not a new instructional strategy when it comes to math, language arts, or other content areas; however, statements such as, “I am not sure right now, but I can find out and get back to you,” “I love how you struggled through that answer. That shows perseverance,” and “I’m feeling sad” create a safe space for mistakes and emotions to happen. Stanulis and Manning, in their article, “Teacher’s Role in Creating a Positive Verbal and Nonverbal Environment in the Early Childhood Classroom” indicate, “[children] takes cues from their teacher and peers in developing and reflecting appraisals of others. Teachers provide modeling that is very influential, even though we may not always realize it.” 25 Rather than belittling oneself or others, these models foster both emotional and academic growth, which can be extrapolated to the higher grades, as well. Practicing positive self-talk by role-playing with colleagues or even rehearsing “what if” scenarios can prepare teachers for what to do in situations as they arise in class. Consider how you might respond to the following student statements: • • • •

I will never be good at this. School isn’t important. I may as well quit. I think I’m going to kill myself tonight. My mom laughs at me whenever I do something wrong or stupid. It makes me cry. • I’m so ugly. Everyone says it and it’s true. • I think that one of our teachers is racist.

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These are all situations that the authors have encountered within their classrooms, many more than once. Some of them have been in one-on-one conversations with students, while some of them have been in front of thirty other students. While none of them are comfortable, ignoring them sends just as strong of a message as addressing them. We were not prepared the first time a student announced their intent to commit suicide, and we were grateful for the support of staff that did know what to do, but preparing for it in advance will help equip teachers for what to do if that situation does occur. The next step after practicing positive self-talk is to get to know students on a deeper, more authentic level. While interest surveys and icebreakers are useful tools, it takes more effort to know what makes a student tick and what baggage they carry with them into the classroom. Some students will wear their struggles on their sleeve, others will reluctantly reveal their true selves over the course of months, and still others you may never be able to reach; however, once you are aware of those internalized messages, you can decide the best course of action. This may look like referring a student to a counselor, having additional tutorials, or scheduling parent-teacher meetings. This is not the act of a “savior” but the act of compassion in a system that institutionalizes children in vulnerable circumstances. One strategy for encouraging students to open up is a community circle. These circles are a restorative practice that help “cultivate a culture in which everyone feels like they belong. They build a particular sense of community in which every member—students, teacher, parent volunteers, aides—feel they are seen, heard and respected.” 26 Circles allow teachers to suspend their status and be on an equal playing field to their students. Questions are posed, and everyone has a chance to say their truth, or not, but four rules always apply: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Speak from the heart Listen from the heart No need to rehearse Say just enough 27

While it takes time to build trust, circles provide a space for students and teachers alike to process both the trivial and the complex. In my experience, even questions that seem inconsequential like, “Tell the story about how you received your favorite stuffed animal,” can allow an opportunity for students to share their creativity, passion, and possibly even traumatic experiences in a safe and open environment. Some would argue that the classroom is not the place for feelings or that circles take away time from instruction, but when students know they are cared about not simply on an academic level but on an emotional one as well, they are more willing to engage with challenging curriculum. 28

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Books • Case Studies on Diversity and Social Justice Education by Paul C. Gorski, 2013, Routledge • Teaching for Diversity and Social Justice 3rd Edition by Maurianne Adams and Lee Anne Bell (Editors), 2016, Routledge Articles • “No Time Off” by Maya Linberg, Teaching Tolerance, Number 54, Fall 2016, http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/tt54-fall-2016/feature/no-time • “Girls, Interrupted” Teaching Tolerance, Number 50, Summer 2015, http:/ /www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-50-summer-2015/feature/girlsinterrupted RED’S LESSON: TEACHING AND MODELING FROM COMPASSION Galina “Red” Reznikov, the matriarch of the “The Suburbs” (the white segment of the prison), runs the kitchen with tough love. In her life before Litchfield, she and her husband, Dimitri, ran a Russian grocery. After getting involved with the mob, Red’s crime is not clear to viewers, but it is implied that she is in prison for organized crime and possibly murder. She takes it upon herself to care for the others in her circle, most notably Nicky. As the acting matriarch of the “The Suburbs” within the prison walls, Red is one character that even the guards of Litchfield are afraid to mess with. Red is not only well connected, she is smart, strong, and holds an uncompromising love for the girls she has promised to protect. In the first season of the show, Red uses her love and knowledge of the system to help two of the girls in her circle earn sobriety from the drugs that are being smuggled into the prison. When one of those girls is found dead of an overdose, Red’s pain and suffering is palpable. In this way, she represents one incredible lesson in teacher advocacy: teachers must operate in the classroom with a compassionate mindset. Although teachers must demand the dignity of being treated as professionals, we must remember what brought us to the field in the first place, a love for children. As simple as this notion is to read, it may be much harder to execute honestly. Teachers, after all, know they work in a field that tends to be thankless and full of challenges. One that can shake a compassionate mindset; therefore, keeping hold of this notion may be difficult, but it is not impossible.

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Back in Litchfield, the other prisoners know that Red is a model for how to operate within the system that is thrust upon them. Many of the inmates even make decisions with the mantra of “What would Red do?” ringing in their thoughts and actions. For example, Nicky Nichols, the character who regards Red as her adoptive mother, is found to be completely distraught after losing Red’s trust. Nicky quickly learns that in order to gain favor with her “Mother” again, it will require more than a negative drug test. The contrast between prison life and the classroom may seem drastic, but the need for a compassionate role model is needed in both scenarios. Just like Red, teachers must know that an empathetic relationship is one of the greatest tools he or she can have when trying to alter or improve classroom behavior. This is why teacher advocates who operate through this philosophy are able to gain more ground with students. Too often, teachers offer content without knowing whom their students are and the needs they carry into the classroom. Much of this lesson pertains to how teachers interact with their students and a conscious pedagogy of care for the experiences of being in a classroom, as well as recognizing the importance of emotions in learning. In order to build and model compassion for the classroom, “[implementing] the ethic of care in educational contexts relies on the development of attentive relationships between a carer and a cared-for. . . . The goal is to integrate it as a guiding morality in the classroom and as a bridge to the beyond-school world, where it can lead students to right action on behalf of the beings, places, and ideas they value in relationship.” 29 In other words, being able to model compassion in our teaching and interaction with students is what they carry with them outside of the classroom and into the all the relationships they create. As a way to foster modeling and teaching from compassion, Nel Noddings 30 offers strategies that strengthen a teacher’s ability to create a caring and empathetic classroom. Her suggestions for application include service-learning, cooperative learning, non-competitive assessment, modeling, dialogue, practice, and confirmation. Even more simply, this lesson can be manifested by simply committing to greet each student every morning with a handshake, eye contact, and a smile. Teachers do their best to make students feel secure in a world that is full of chaos and heartache. She states this lesson herself best saying, “I think I can make them feel safe. Whether they actually are is another story.” 31

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Book • Educating Moral People: A Caring Alternative to Character Education by Nel Noddings, Teachers College Press, 2002 Article • “Empathy for the ‘A’” by Ruth A. Wilson, Teaching Tolerance, Number 52, Spring 2016, http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-52-spring2016/feature/empathy NICKY’S LESSON: THINGS AREN’T ALWAYS WHAT THEY SEEM Nichole “Nicky” Nichols was born in New York City to wealthy parents, but was raised by her nanny. Her mother threw money at problems rather than making an effort to get to know or help her daughter. She was arrested for breaking and entering, possession of heroin, and a DUI. At Litchfield, she struggles to remain sober and depends on Red, her surrogate mother for support. In season 3, she finds herself with a large amount of heroin on her hands, and colludes with a guard to sell it, which sends her to the maximum security facility for part of season 4. Nicky is a young woman with potential. We get to know her in prison struggling with addiction, tough choices, and the pressures of balancing your own needs and wants with those of your family. Nicky’s prison family, most prominently Red, is her constant support. While her life is difficult, there is no question as to whether she is cared for. Her life before entering prison was quite different, as the ramifications of her poor choices and inadequate support network led to her incarceration. Growing up in New York City, Nicky’s family was extremely wealthy, but also emotionally neglectful. While we do not see a glimpse of her school life (as of season 4) it is easy to extrapolate that she attended the “best” (translation: most expensive) schools and never wanted for material possessions. From the outsider’s perspective she had the perfect life, but assumption is deceptive. As an adult, she reflects on this in a conversation with her mother. Nicky laments, “I always miss you until you’re here. Then I realize the mom I miss must have been someone I invented when I was a kid.” 32 This heartbreaking statement gives the viewer an insight into her life, and that despite having money, she still has to work to overcome trauma. As a teacher, it is frequent that students, like Nicky, will come into the classroom who seem to have everything going for them: intelligent, privi-

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leged, and charismatic. They may not disrupt class, they have friends, and they seem just like any normal kid. When we grow and foster personal relationships with our students, we see that though things may look great from a distance, life at home is not always easy. Nicky’s mother is distant at the best of times and neglectful at the worst, and her primary caregiver is actually her nanny. In several flashback scenes, the viewer sees Nicky asking for her mother’s attention, only to be brushed aside and silenced with cash. This combination of indifferent parenting with the guilt her mother feels of not having or making time for her daughter evolves into enabling Nicky’s eventual drug habit. While this is a somewhat simplistic story, the lesson is important. Things are not always what they seem. It is only when we have built and invested in strong, positive relationships that students feel they can share some of the more personal aspects of their lives. It is easy to see the need to advocate for the student who does not have enough to eat or who needs counseling services, but it is more difficult be an advocate for the student who does not appear to need one. Reaching out, providing a safe space, eating lunch with students in the cafeteria, and establishing positive parent communication are small strategies that can allow a teacher to see students more clearly, and step in when necessary. These students are the “middle child” in the classroom family, meaning they are not the gifted student who makes straight As and has perfect behavior, nor are they the ones who fail multiple classes or constantly get in trouble. They are the students who go throughout the school day and manage not to engage with teachers or even in some cases, other students. David Strahan refers to these as “reluctant students” who appear to be unmotivated, turned off, or disconnected from the social and/or academic realms of school. 33 Taking the time to build and maintain positive relationships is not only applicable to Nicky’s lesson but many within this article. These relationships can be a way to help students “gain academic momentum” and “bounce back” across the curriculum. 34 These students often attribute their academic progress to the supportive relationships that teachers took the time to build. 35 PENNSATUCKY’S LESSON: HAVING HARD DISCUSSIONS One of the most dynamic characters in OITNB is Tiffany “Pennsatucky” Doggett. Pennsatucky grew up poor in a rural community, where she was taught that sex was expected of her, both by her family and her peers. She was convicted of second-degree murder after killing a woman at an abortion clinic for “disrespecting” her. After her arrest, she becomes a devout Christian, as pro-life supporters pay for her defense. In season 1, her anger and

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religious fervor are evident and cause friction among the inmates. After staying in the psych over the course of the show, she begins to soften and forms friendships with Big Boo and others, widening her world view. Season one introduces us to her as a religious fanatic, a role that was largely put upon her as part of her defense for the manslaughter of a nurse at an abortion clinic. Seasons two through four arguably offer more character growth than any of the other inmates at Litchfield, as she begins to feel remorse for the many abortions she opted to have, begins to understand some of the flaws in her education, especially with regards to sexual reproduction and health, and begins to see the world as more gray than black and white. Through all of this growth, Pennsatucky becomes more aware of her own emotions and starts to have more confidence in her ability to discuss both the experiences that burden her and the problems that are afflicting others. It is through these difficult conversations with a range of characters, from Mr. Healy to Nicky that the viewers see the depth of her growth. While an entire chapter could be easily devoted to Pennsatucky and the lessons we can all learn from her, for this section we will be focusing on the difficult conversations she has in regards to rape and rape culture, defined by WAVAW Rape Crisis Center as, “the ways in which society [blames] victims of sexual assault and [normalizes] male sexual violence.” 36 In season three, she is promoted to van driver, an opportunity that brings her into close contact with CO Charlie Coates. After developing a friendship with him, Coates takes advantage of his power and rapes her. This is not the first time Doggett has been a victim of sexual violence, but through her conversations with Big Boo, we realize the extent of her trauma and how the culture in which she was raised led her to believe that it was her fault for being raped. The following exchange between the two has an impact on the way she sees both herself and the world. BIG BOO: Did he force you? PENNSATUCKY: Well, I’m not gonna lie. I mean, I could’ve used a bit of a warm-up. Doesn’t really feel any good when you’re not ready. BIG BOO: You know there’s a word for that, right? PENNSATUCKY: No. No, it’s not his fault. I was the one. I was flirting too much. I was smiling, and I was really confusing. 37

This exchange exemplifies the thought process that many people face when it comes to misunderstanding power, sex, and the boundaries of consent. Big Boo allows Tiffany to explore her feelings of anger, grief, and remorse, and then learns from them. The audience begins to understand just how much her thought processes pertaining to rape culture have grown through her interactions with Coates in season four. COATES: You think I raped you?

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In this exchange, it is clear that it is not just Pennsatucky who has a misunderstanding of what happened between the two of them. Coates believes that his actions were excusable because of his feelings. Never did he stop to consider the pain or confusion he was inflicting on her, until she was able to bring it to his attention. It should not be the responsibility of a survivor of sexual violence to explain the wrongdoing of the perpetrator. These conversations are incredibly powerful with regards to Pennsatucky’s personal growth, but also what it means in the classroom. Entitlement with regards to sex does not start with rape. In one author’s classroom, one middle school student said to another, “Do you have a phone? You should give me your number. Now.” When the young lady refused, the situation escalated and an adult had to step in. This was an opportunity to have a difficult conversation about consent and how to respond to unwanted advances. It may feel uncomfortable for teachers to have conversations about sensitive subjects, especially about power, rape, and sex within the classroom. When these conversations do happen it is important to tread carefully, as to not anger parents or administrators. However, the consequences of not having those discussions can have an even greater impact, as one in four girls and one in six boys will experience sexual abuse or violence before they turn eighteen and more than one-third of girls who are raped before the age of eighteen also experience rape as an adult. 39 These conversations do not have to be lengthy, but simply stopping when you see a situation and asking critical questions or making comments such as “Why do you expect this person to give you their number?” or “If you feel pressured or uncomfortable, it is OK to leave the situation.” Starting these discussions at a young age can help both parties challenge their beliefs and make better decisions in the future. The impact of rape culture is deeply ingrained, as exemplified by Tiffany. Her mother helped perpetuate the idea that she was an object to be taken by men, and that the best she could do was “hope to get it over with quickly.” 40 It is challenging to break a pattern that is so prevalent, and while we are under no false pretenses that having difficult conversations will change patterns overnight, if we do not start somewhere, we are sending the message that it is acceptable for sexual violence and rape culture to continue.

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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Books • Asking for It: The Alarming Rise of Rape Culture—and What We Can Do about It by Kate Harding, Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2015 • Reaching & Teaching Children Exposed to Trauma by Barbara Sorrels, Gryphon House, 2015 Article • “Don’t Say Nothing” by Jamilah Pitts Teaching Tolerance, Number 54, Fall 2016, http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/tt54-fall-2016/feature/dontsay-nothing Website • http://www.11thprincipleconsent.org/ SOPHIA’S LESSON: THE IMPORTANCE OF EQUITY AND EMPATHY Loosely based on the story of CeCe McDonald, a transgender woman who spent nineteen months in a men’s prison for defending herself against an attack, 41 Sophia Burset is a case study of doing what it takes to live as your authentic self. Sophia is a transgender woman who was previously a firefighter. She used stolen credit cards to pay for gender reassignment surgery and was arrested when her son called the police about her fraudulent credit activity. At Litchfield, she works as a hairdresser, but struggles with both intolerance within the prison and with family troubles outside. In season four, she is placed solitary confinement “for her own safety” after she is the victim of a hate crime. From the first episode, we see Sophia showing off her Duck Tape “couture” sandals to Piper, through her ups and downs of fighting with the prison for her right to hormones, and educating the women of Litchfield about the female anatomy and why it matters. Sophia, portrayed by transgender actress Laverne Cox, gives viewers a chance to see a well-rounded trans character. Seasons three and four take a darker turn; Burset deals with transphobia like the audience has not seen. Aggression toward her starts out with disrespect and intentionally misgendering her pronouns, but eventually escalates to being brutally beaten. At the end of season three, we see her being taken to the Special Housing Unit (SHU) “for her own protection.” It is now more than

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ever that she needs an advocate, someone fighting on her behalf, because she is put in a state (both physically and emotionally) that she cannot fight her own battles. In season four, the cruelty of solitary confinement comes to light, as Sophia resorts to increasingly desperate measures to try to have her voice be heard, from flooding her cell, to lighting her mattress on fire, to attempting suicide. In the end, it is only when a photo of her is snuck out of the prison and given to the media that she is released from the torturous conditions. This journey is, especially for one used to being so strong, is a formidable one. Sophia teaches us some magnificent lessons, not just about what advocacy can look like, but how treatment of others can affect the entire community. Sophia’s story highlights how wanting to help is not enough. Nicky, put on cleaning duty at the maximum-security prison, finds Sophia in a rare state. She offers Sophia a magazine, with the advice to “go slowly and read every word.” This act of compassion has the potential to send Nicky into even deeper trouble than she already is, and though Sophia begs her to do more, Nicky is constrained by her circumstances. It is Sister Ingalls (see next section) that makes the ultimate sacrifice, getting herself sent to SHU purposefully, in order to document Sophia’s condition. Though Nicky and Sister Ingalls both want to help, it is only someone in power, Caputo, that is finally able to leak her story to the press. In the classroom, it is quite often that as teachers, we find ourselves wanting to help, like Nicky and Sister Ingalls, but that we are constrained by the system, people in power, or our own circumstances. Knowing how to work within the system, which people to talk to, and who is able to take action, can help us overcome the limits of our situation. So how do we prepare current and future teachers to equitably teach and advocate for students when many teachers are not comfortable talking about LGBT issues within the classroom? First, regardless of any teacher’s comfort level, acknowledging that students who are struggling to figure out who they are and how they fit in the world will show up in your classroom, so knowing how to handle what is presented to you can only strengthen your ability to differentiate the needs students. The well-being of all children trumps any opinion a teacher may carry into the classroom, therefore proper and thorough LGBT ally training for all teachers is a necessary step for schools to take. As has already been taken on by many schools, Safe Zone Ally training allows teachers to learn about the struggles faced by LGBT students. This training also has a proven record of improving school climate and culture. 42 Other programs from organizations like the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) and PFLAG provide additonal professional development for educators. Sophia’s story requires that she be treated differently than the other inmates, not to target her or single her out, but because equity is not the same

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as equality. When the prison cuts back on costs, her estrogen hormone supplements are part of the austerity. She has to be a squeaky wheel in order to have her case taken seriously. Constantly having to take a stand to have your voice heard and to receive a decent amount of respect is extremely exhausting, and can sometimes be misconstrued. Caputo tells Sophia, “Jesus, Burset. Why do you have to make everything so hard?” 43 These words demonstrate that for the prison system, Sophia is more of a liability than a human. Her situation is one they would rather not deal with. Unfortunately, sometimes situations like this arise in the classroom, as well. A student with special needs that is difficult, out of your control, or that you, despite best efforts, do not know how to help is not uncommon. It is situations like these that rather than taking frustration out on students and parents (or in Caputo’s case, inmates) that we need to step back and remember, the marginalized peoples of society often use megaphones out of necessity. Empathy in these situations goes a long way. People often do not want to be fixed, just understood and heard. This is what the prison administration did not understand about Sophia’s situation, and what many times escapes teachers in the classroom. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Books • Safe Spaces: Making Schools and Communities Welcoming to LGBT Youth by Annemarie Vaccaro, Gerri August, Megan S. Kennedy, Praeger, 2011 • The Gender Creative Child: Pathways for Nurturing and Supporting Children Who Live Outside Gender Boxes by Diane Ehrensaft PhD and Norman Spack MD, The Experiment, 2016 • The Gender Book by Mel Reiff Hill and Jay Mays, Self-Published, 2014 http://www.thegenderbook.com Articles • “Being there for Non-Binary Youth” by Valeria Petrone, Teaching Tolerance, Number 52, Summer 2016, http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/ number-53-summer-2016/feature/being-there-nonbinary-youth • “Anatomy of an Ally” by Carrie Gaffney, Teaching Tolerance, Number 52, Summer 2016

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SISTER JANE INGALLS’ LESSON: TAKING ACTION Sister Jane Ingalls joined a convent in the 1960s, and as a young nun, became involved in the protest movement against the Vietnam War and other social issues. She published a book titled Nun Shall Pass, which caused her to lose support from the church. She was arrested for trespassing on a nuclear facility. Since coming to Litchfield, Sister Ingalls has used her time to stay under the radar and makes a point to treat others with kindness. As one of the spiritual leaders in the prison, Sister Jane Ingalls seems to be the most out-of-place prisoner as she is a Roman Catholic nun. She is kind, gentle, and continually offers spiritual advice to her fellow prison mates. In addition to her kindness, the Sister is a well-known political and social activist, as the reason she was incarcerated in the first place was for handcuffing herself to a pole inside a nuclear plant as a form of protest. In season one, she befriends Sophia Burset, the only transgender inmate in the prison, and begins to counsel her on her marriage and family outside of the prison. Not only is her openheartedness to someone who is typically ostracized by religious communities surprising, her character challenges the stereotype that all religious people are judgmental and bigoted. The Sister and Burset end up developing a close and personal friendship, and when in seasons three and four Sophia is taken to SHU, Sister Jane Ingalls decides she must take action. Being a Catholic nun, she is regarded by the guards as being extremely well behaved and a model prisoner, so she decides to put herself in harm’s way to get Sophia out of the SHU. One of her most famous lines in the show demonstrates her insight and compassion, “Love is light, acceptance, fire.” 44 When she sees Sophia in the midst of an unjust situation, she must act with love in order to right the wrongs she sees within the prison. She and another inmate, Gloria Mendoza, plan to have Sister Ingalls sneak a phone into the SHU. She is successful in this plan and smuggles the phone by hiding it in the one place she knows the guards would not think to look. The Sister’s plan works and Sophia is eventually sent back to the general population. So many educators are afraid of taking action because of the looming threat that is losing employment. This threat is real, but a large part of identifying as a teacher-advocate means actively defending and advocating for our students. However, it is important to note that the lesson of “taking action” can (and probably should) exhibit itself very differently for novice teachers and veterans. Peter McLaren argues that critical educators can practice “praxis-oriented pedagogy” 45 in order to bring real and applicable dialogues into the classroom. “Praxis-oriented pedagogy” is a term that, “bridges the gap between critical knowledge and social practice.” 46 For any and all teachers, this may show up in the form of giving financial literacy to students who are faced with economic difficulties, “[linking] local issues

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with the wider arena of social life.” 47 He writes that by giving students the ability to question their own surroundings, by asking questions such as, “Why is there a shortage of community centers in some neighborhoods and not in others? Why is there a large police presence in some communities for the purpose of repression and other, more benign forms of police presence in the gated communities for the purpose of protection?,” 48 you are preparing them for critical citizenship. This undoubtedly qualifies as “taking action” for your students. Teachers who respond to the needs and narratives of their students, truly represent what it means to be an educational activist. Other forms of student advocacy by “taking action” could be: reporting abuse or suspected mental health issues to the appropriate entities, participating in community engagement organizations that fight for the improvement of local schools, speaking up in school administrative meetings, attending school board meetings, developing and creating classroom management techniques that keep students in the classroom and out of the principal’s office, and even writing curriculum that fully represents the students in your classroom. Teacher-advocates must challenge their fears and redefine what it means to “take action,” for the consequences of sitting back quietly are far too big a price for our children to pay. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Books • Pedagogy of the Oppressed by Paulo Freire, 1970 • Practice What You Teach: Social Justice Education in the Classroom and the Streets by Bree Picower, Routledge, 2012 • Black Ants and Buddhists: Thinking Critically and Teaching Differently in the Primary Grades by Mary Cowhey, Stenhouse Publishers, 2006 Articles • “Teaching Human Rights from Below: Towards Solidarity, Resistance and Social Justice” by Melissa Canlas, Amy Argenal, and Monisha Bajaj, Radical Teacher, Volume 103, https://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/ index.php/radicalteacher/article/view/226/160 Websites • Rethinking Schools—http://www.rethinkingschools.org/index.shtml

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• Teacher Activist activist-groups/

Groups—https://t4sj.org/about/gallery/t-a-g-teacher-

DIANE’S LESSON: THE UNTOLD STORIES OF UNDOCUMENTED FAMILIES Maritza Ramos plays the comic relief in much of the series; however, in season 4 the audience sees the some of the choices that led her to Litchfield, most memorably stealing a sports car. The actress who plays Maritza, Maria Guerrero, has a book out about her experience as someone of a mixed-status family, and the ramifications of having her family deported while she was away at school. Undocumented families have a unique set of barriers. As children, students are eligible for a free public education in the United States, regardless of their legal status. 49 They, and their families, cannot be denied enrollment. While difficulties in school are not isolated to immigrants, students from undocumented families often have the additional barriers of language and communication differences, cultural differences, and in some cases family illiteracy and the escape from violence. 50 Within OITNB Maritza, though not as central of a character as Taystee or Piper, has a story to share. This lesson is unique because it is the actress who plays Maritza, Diane Guerrero, that offers us a glimpse into the plight of many immigrant families in the United States. Guerrero’s family lived in the United States as a mixed-status family, some members being citizens or having their paperwork, and others not. She lived a normal life until coming home from high school one day to find her family had been detained by authorities and were awaiting deportation. Litchfield is a prison that serves a wide variety of inmates, but it stands apart from the detention facilities that undocumented immigrants are held while awaiting a hearing or deportation. That is to say, the stories we encounter on OITNB come from citizens or immigrants who arrived through the proper channels. This leaves out a large group of families served by the public school system out of the show; however, Diane Guerrero’s life story provides a lesson for teachers on how to advocate for undocumented students and their families. Diane describes the day she came home from school, expecting to find her family there to greet her, saying, the “lights were on and dinner had been started, but my family wasn’t there.” 51 With the help of neighbors, she pieced together the story of what happened to her parents and siblings. Child Protective Services did not know of her circumstance, so she depended on the generosity of family friends for her most basic needs. Guerrero now speaks out about immigration reform, and the flaws of the current system. Diane has acknowledged that her situation could have easily led her to be an inmate like her character, Maritza, rather than a successful actress. In an

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interview with CNN, she stated, “Children who grow up separated from their families often end up in foster care, or worse, in the juvenile justice system despite having parents who love them and would like to be able to care for them.” 52 As a teacher, knowing the laws, including federal, state, and local, is the first step in acting as a liaison to connect families with resources. Immigration law is extremely complex, and it is unlawful to offer legal advice if you are not a lawyer or legal representative; however, being able to say, “I think that you may want to talk to an immigration attorney about your situation” is a concrete step. Additionally, there are specific ways for undocumented students to gain in-state tuition (depending on the state) and various organizations that can assist families on a local level. Diane’s story of family separation is tragic albeit not uncommon. While the status of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals 53 and immigration reform remains uncertain, taking these steps to be able to point students and parents in the right direction can offer some relief. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Websites: • United States Citizen and Immigration Services—https://www.uscis.gov/ • Supporting Undocumented Youth, US Department of Education—http:// www2.ed.gov/about/overview/focus/supporting-undocumented-youth.pdf • National Immigration Law Center-Community Education Resources— https://www.nilc.org/get-involved/community-education-resources/ • American Civil Liberties Union-Know Your Rights—https://www.aclu. org/know-your-rights?topics=270 POUSSEY’S LESSON: ACKNOWLEDGING A BROKEN SYSTEM Born the daughter of a college-educated mother and a father who is a major in the US Army, Poussey Washington is an intelligent young woman. She was arrested for a trespassing and a minor drug offense, but through the show her potential is evident. In season 4 we learn that she was accepted into West Point, but decided not to attend. She likes to joke around and can usually be found with her best friend, Taystee. She is often misunderstood, as people make assumptions as about her that are often inaccurate. She expresses her frustration stating, “What the f*ck about me other than the color of my skin would indicate that I’m some indigent hood rat?” 54 Looking at headlines today it is seldom a week goes by without the injustice of the justice system represented in some way. It is not surprising,

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then, that OITNB mirrors the anger, frustration, and senselessness of these headlines within the plot and the backstories of its characters. The juxtaposition of a system designed to serve communities that in reality often shows favoritism, prejudice, and violence against the very people it was designed to protect, is one that comes to a pivotal climax in season four when Poussey, a gifted young woman, is killed at the hands of a guard. Despite her promise of release, a job outside the prison, and hope for her future, her dreams are cut short due to the flaws built into the justice system. Her senseless death, though not intentional, occurred in an act of restraint by one of the most well-intentioned of the under-trained correctional officers. The final two episodes of the season are an allegory for the current social unrest in communities of color. They tell a story that encapsulate many of the injustices that occur including police violence, the objectification of persons without power, and the ramifications of neoliberal reforms. As if the onscreen death were not tragic enough, the reactions of the other women and the lack of reaction by the staff creates a perfect storm of resentment, anger, and violence. While we typically see various groups within the prison divided among race and class, it is at this moment of tragedy that they come together to mourn. The inmates’ immediate response to Poussey’s death is tangible and fierce. Suzanne spends her energy trying to experience what it feels like not to breathe, Taystee yells at Caputo lamenting, “So, she lyin’ there alone on the ground like an old napkin. That ain’t right,” 55 and their intense emotions result in a prison riot. Their reactions mirror what happens to a community when a tragic circumstance meets a slow response by persons in power and seeming injustice. Even Caputo’s response to his guards encompasses what social movements and protests want others to understand: “Someone died on your watch, Captain. A human being. You better believe we’re going to look into it. And we’re gonna be hearing many stories. Not just the story you’re telling but many stories.” 56 This statement embraces what the media can sometimes forget: there are many sides to a story, and unless they all have equal weight, the truth will never emerge. As for what this means for classrooms, it is necessary for teachers not to ignore the pain that our young people face. When tragedy does happen, whether that be by the hands of peers, police, or unfortunate circumstances, allowing students to discuss and mourn in a safe space is the only way for learning to eventually continue. If it is ignored, students internalize the message that their lives do not matter, and that the school system like the justice system was not built to see them, serve them, or protect them. When oppressed peoples are not seen or heard anger is one of the only responses that seems appropriate. Allowing a space for anger in the classroom, and using it to teach skills of civic responsibility such as peaceful protest, offers a gateway to critical hope. Ira Shor writes, “Curriculum is one place where the

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dominant culture can either be supported or challenged, depending on the way knowledge is presented and studied.” 57 Bringing painful but relevant texts into the curriculum gives students a platform to be able to explore the less glorious aspects of the world in a structured and safe environment. Allowing the voice of the people, culture, and the non-dominant narrative to exist in the classroom is a tangible way to offer hope in system that tells them there is none. ADDITIONAL INFORMATION: Books • The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness by Michelle Alexander, The New Press • Better Than Carrots or Sticks: Restorative Practices for Positive Classroom Management by Dominique Smith, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey • Nobody: Causalities of America’s War on the Vulnerable Articles • “False Sense of Security” by Maya Lindberg, Teaching Tolerance, Number 50, Summer 2015, http://www.tolerance.org/magazine/number-50summer-2015/feature/false-sense-security Websites • http://www.tolerance.org/racism-and-police-violence • http://www.teachingforchange.org/ CONCLUSION These lessons are by no means comprehensive; rather, they represent a continuing conversation of themes that arise in the classroom and the ability for teachers and students to critically analyze the world around them. Advocacy is not a skill that one can learn a day, or even a year, but one that must be constantly sought after and honed. It is only when teachers serve to model and explicitly teach the how and why of advocacy that society can begin to internalize these lessons. There will come a point in time where our students will leave the safety of our classrooms. By giving them the ability to understand and improve themselves, fight for their own communities, and impact the world around them, they can start to affect positive change. This personal to local-to-global model is one that can be accessed easily if one is willing to

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seize the opportunities that arise on a daily basis, perhaps even in the form of a popular television show. This concept is best illustrated in an interview with the cast of OITNB in which Danielle Brooks, the actor that portrays Taystee, encapsulates the entire theme of the series as well as the spirit of these lessons: “And now we get to have a voice and say listen, ‘This is the world that we live in, we’re telling this story for the lost, the last, the least, the left behind, the looked over.’ That’s who we’re telling this story for.” 58 NOTES 1. Columbia University, National Center for Children in Poverty, Accessed August 15, 2016, http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html, 2016. 2. Jean Anyon, Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and a New Social Movement, Routledge Publishing, 2005. 3. David C. Berliner and Bruce J. Biddle, The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s Public Schools, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Books, 219, 1995. 4. Robert L. Root, The Rhetorics of Popular Culture: Advertising, Advocacy, and Entertainment, Vol. 16, 1987. 5. Orange Is the New Black, “Friends in Low Places,” Written by Jenji Kohan, Alex Regnery, and Hartley Voss, Netflix, June 17, 2016. 6. Marla S. Sanders, Kathryn Haselden, and Randi M. Moss, “Teaching Diversity to Preservice Teachers: Encouraging Self-Reflection and Awareness to Develop Successful Teaching Practices,” Multicultural Learning and Teaching 9, no. 2: 171–85, 2014. 7. Orange Is the New Black, “Lesbian Request Denied,” Written by Sian Heder, Netflix, July 11, 2013. 8. Orange Is the New Black, “Low Self-Esteem City,” Written by Nick Jones, Netflix, June 6, 2014. 9. Imre Emeric Csaszar and Theresa Buchanan, “Meditation and Teacher Stress,” Dimensions of Early Childhood, 43 (1): 4–7, 2015. 10. Keith Hillman, “Why Is Teacher Stress So Common?” Journal of Teacher Stress, http:// www.stresstips.com/why-is-teacher-stress-so-common/, 2015. 11. Geetika Jain, Harish Kumar Tyagi, and Anil Kumar, “Psycho-Social Factors Causing Stress: A Study of Teacher Educators,” Journal of Education and Practice, 6 (4): 125–131, 2015. 12. Keith Hillman, “Why Is Teacher Stress So Common?” Journal of Teacher Stress, http:// www.stresstips.com/why-is-teacher-stress-so-common/, 2015. 13. Geetika Jain, Harish Kumar Tyagi, and Anil Kumar, “Psycho-Social Factors Causing Stress: A Study of Teacher Educators,” Journal of Education and Practice, 6 (4): 125–131, 2015. 14. Imre Emeric Csaszar and Theresa Buchanan, “Meditation and Teacher Stress,” Dimensions of Early Childhood, 43 (1): 4–7, 2015. 15. Ibid. 16. Patricia Cranton, Becoming an Authentic Teacher in Higher Education, Malabar, FL, Krieger Publishing Company, 81, 2001. 17. Orange Is the New Black, “F*cksgiving,” Netflix, July 11, 2013. Written by Jenji Kohan, Sian Heder, Piper Kerman (Kohan, Regnery and Voss, Friends in Low Places 2016). 18. Michelle Alexander, 2011, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, New York: The New Press, 13. 19. Ibid. 20. Judith Kafka, The History of “Zero Tolerance” in American Public Schooling, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

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21. Dorothy Vaandeering, “Implenenting Restorative Justice Practice in Schools: What Pedagogy Reveals,” Journal of Peace Education, 64–80, 2014. 22. Orange Is the New Black, “Fool Me Once,” Written by Sara Hess, Netflix, July 11, 2013. 23. Ibid. 24. “A Teacher’s Voice I: The Effects of Replacing Negative Self-Talk With Positive SelfDialogue on Fifth Graders’ Self-Esteem,” Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 72, no. 1: A-55, 2001. 25. Randi Nevins Stanulis and Brenda H. Manning, “The Teacher’s Role in Creating a Positive Verbal and Nonverbal Environment in the Early Childhood Classroom,” Early Childhood Education Journal 30, no. 1 (2002): 3–8, 2002. 26. Amos Clifford, Teaching Restorative Practices with Classroom Circles, San Francisco: Center for Restorative Process, Accessed October 16, 2016, at http://www.healthiersf.org/ RestorativePractices/Resources/documents/RP%20Curriculum%20and%20Scripts%20and% 20PowePoints/Classroom%20Curriculum/Teaching%20Restorative%20Practices%20in%20 the%20Classroom%207%20lesson%20Curriculum.pdf. 27. Ibid. 28. Lissy Goralnik, Kelly F. Millenbah, Michael P. Nelson, and Laurie Thorp, “An Environmental Pedagogy of Care: Emotion, Relationships, and Experience in Higher Education Ethics Learning,” Journal of Experiential Education, 35: 412–428, 2012. 29. Ibid. 30. Nel Noddings, Educating Moral People: A Caring Alternative to Character Education, New York, NY: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2002. 31. Orange Is the New Black, “Toast Can’t Never Be Bread Again,” Written by Jenji Kohan and Tara Herrmann, Netflix, June 17, 2016. 32. Orange Is the New Black, “W-A-C Pack,” Written by Lauren Morelli, Netflix, July 11, 2013. 33. David Strahan, “Successful Teachers Develop Academic Momentum with Reluctant Students,” Middle School Journal, 39, no. 5: 4–12, 2008. 34. Ibid. 35. Ibid. 36. What Is Rape Culture?, http://www.wavaw.ca/what-is-rape-culture/ (accessed October 16, 2016). 37. Orange Is the New Black, “Don’t Make Me Come Back There,” Written by Sara Hess, Netflix, June 11, 2015. 38. Orange Is the New Black, “Toast Can’t Never Be Bread Again,” Written by Jenji Kohan and Tara Herrmann, Netflix, June 17, 2016. 39. National Sexual Violence Resource Center, “Statistics about Sexual Violence,” http:// www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statistics-aboutsexual-violence_0.pdf, 2015. 40. Orange Is the New Black, “A Tittin’ and a Hairin’,” Written by Lauren Morelli, Netflix, June 11, 2015. 41. Democracy Now, “‘Black Trans Bodies Are Under Attack’: Freed Activist CeCe McDonald, Actress Laverne Cox Speak Out,” http://www.democracynow.org/2014/2/19/black_ trans_bodies_are_under_attack, February 19, 2014. 42. Stephanie L. Ballard, Eli Bartle, and Gina Masequesmay, Finding Queer Allies: The Impact of Ally Training and Safe Zone Stickers on Campus Climate, Located at files .eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED517219.pdf, 2008. 43. Orange Is the New Black, “Don’t Make Me Come Back There,” Written by Sara Hess, Netflix, June 11, 2015. 44. Orange Is the New Black, “You Also Have Pizza,” Written by Stephen Falk, Netflix, June 6, 2014. 45. Peter McLaren, Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education, Sixth ed., 2015. 46. Ibid. 47. Ibid.

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48. Ibid. 49. Anne Louise Blanchard, “Foreword,” In US Immigration and Education: Cultural and Policy Issues across the Lifespan, by Elena L Grigorenko, ix–xi, New York: Springer Publishinc Company, 2013. 50. Ibid. 51. Diane Guerrero, “‘Orange Is the New Black’ Actress: My Parents Were Deported,” http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-oe-guerrero-immigration-family-separation-20141116-story .html, November 15, 2014. 52. Eric Bradner, CNN Politics, “‘Orange Is the New Black’ Actress Pushes Obama for Immigration Overhaul,” 2014. 53. US Citizen and Imigration Services, Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), October 14, Accessed October 15, 2016, https://www.uscis.gov/ humanitarian/consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca, 2016. 54. Orange Is the New Black, “(Don’t) Say Anything,” Written by Jenji Kohan, Alex Regnery, and Hartley Voss, Netflix, June 17, 2016. 55. Orange Is the New Black, “Toast Can’t Never Be Bread Again,” Written by Jenji Kohan and Tara Herrmann, Netflix, June 17, 2016. 56. Ibid. 57. Ira Shor, Empowering Educatio, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 34, 1992. 58. Sonia Saraiya, “‘Orange Is the New Black’ Season 4: Danielle Brooks on Big Death, Giving a Voice to ‘The Left Behind,’” Variety, June 24, http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/ orange-is-the-new-black-season-4-danielle-brooks-taystee-poussey-black-lives-matter1201803274/, 2016.

BIBLIOGRAPHY “A Teacher’s Voice I: The Effects of Replacing Negative Self-Talk With Positive Self-Dialogue on Fifth Graders’ Self-Esteem.” Research Quarterly for Exercise and Sport 72, no. 1, A-55, 2001. Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. New York: The New Press, 2011. Anyon, Jean. Radical Possibilities: Public Policy, Urban Education, and a New Social Movement, Second Edition. New York: Routledge, 2014. Berliner, David C., and Bruce J. Biddle. The Manufactured Crisis: Myths, Fraud, and the Attack on America’s Public Schools. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Books, 1995. Blanchard, Anne Louise. “Foreword.” In US Immigration and Education: Cultural and Policy Issues across the Lifespan, by Elena L Grigorenko, ix–xi. New York: Springer Publishinc Company, 2013 Clifford, Amos. Teaching Restorative Practices with Classroom Circles. San Francisco: Center for Restorative Process. Accessed October 16, 2016, at http://www.healthiersf.org/ RestorativePractices/Resources/documents/RP%20Curriculum%20and%20Scripts%20and %20PowePoints/Classroom%20Curriculum/Teaching%20Restorative%20Practices%20in %20the%20Classroom%207%20lesson%20Curriculum.pdf. Bradner, Eric. CNN Politics. “Orange Is the New Black’ Actress Pushes Obama for Immigration Overhaul,” 2014. Columbia University. National Center for Children in Poverty. Accessed August 15, 2016. http://www.nccp.org/topics/childpoverty.html. Cranton, Patricia. Becoming an Authentic Teacher in Higher Education. Malabar, FL. Krieger Publishing Company, 81, 2001 Csaszar, Imre Emeric, and Theresa Buchanan. “Meditation and Teacher Stress.” Dimensions of Early Childhood 43 (1): 4–7, 2015 Democracy Now. “‘Black Trans Bodies Are Under Attack’: Freed Activist CeCe McDonald, Actress Laverne Cox Speak Out.” February 19, 2014. http://www.democracynow.org/2014/ 2/19/black_trans_bodies_are_under_attack.

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Goralnik, Lissy, Kelly F. Millenbah, Michael P. Nelson, and Laurie Thorp. “An Environmental Pedagogy of Care: Emotion, Relationships, and Experience in Higher Education Ethics Learning.” Journal Of Experiential Education 35: 412–428, 2012. Guerrero, Diane. “‘Orange Is the New Black’ Actress: My Parents Were Deported.” November 15. http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-oe-guerrero-immigration-family-separation-2014111 6-story.html, 2014. Guerrero, Diane, and Michelle Burford. In the Country We Love. New York: Henry Holt and Co, 2016. Hillman, Keith. “Why Is Teacher Stress So Common?” Journal of Teacher Stress. http://www. stresstips.com/why-is-teacher-stress-so-common/, 2015. Jain, Geetika, Harish Kumar Tyagi, and Anil Kumar. “Psycho-Social Factors Causing Stress: A Study of Teacher Educators.” Journal of Education and Practice 6 (4): 125–131, 2015. Kafka, Judith. The History of “Zero Tolerance” in American Public Schooling. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. McLaren, Peter. Life in Schools: An Introduction to Critical Pedagogy in the Foundations of Education, Sixth ed., 2015. National Sexual Violence Resource Center. “Statistics about Sexual Violence.” http://www. nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/publications_nsvrc_factsheet_media-packet_statisTics-aboutsexual-violence_0.pdf. Nevins Stanulis, Randi, and Brenda H. Manning. “The Teacher’s Role in Creating a Positive Verbal and Nonverbal Environment in the Early Childhood Classroom.” Early Childhood Education Journal 30, no. 1: 3–8, 2002. Noddings, Nel. Educating Moral People: A Caring Alternative to Character Education. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, Columbia University, 2002. Orange Is the New Black. “A Tittin’ and a Hairin’.” Netflix. Written by Lauren Morelli, June 11, 2015. Orange Is the New Black. “Don’t Make Me Come Back There.” Netflix, Written by Sara Hess, June 11, 2015. Orange Is the New Black. “(Don’t) Say Anything” Netflix, Written by Jenji Kohan, Alex Regnery, and Hartley Voss, June 17, 2016. Orange Is the New Black. “Finger in the Dyke.” Netflix, Written by Lauren Morelli, June 11, 2015. Orange Is the New Black. “Fool Me Once.” Netflix, Written by Sara Hess, July 11, 2013. Orange Is the New Black. “F*cksgiving.” Netflix, Written by Jenji Kohan, Sian Heder, Piper Kerman, July 11, 2013. Orange Is the New Black. “Friends in Low Places.” Written by Jenji Kohan, Alex Regnery, and Hartley Voss, Netflix, June 17, 2016. Orange Is the New Black. “Imiginary Enemies.” Written by Gary Lennon, Netflix, July 11, 2013. Orange Is the New Black. “It Was the Change.” Netflix, Written by Sara Hess, June 6, 2014. Orange Is the New Black. “Lesbian Request Denied.” Netflix, Written by Sian Heder, July 11, 2013. Orange Is the New Black. “Low Self-Esteem City.” Netflix, June 6, 2014. Written by Nick Jones. Orange Is the New Black. “Toast Can’t Never Be Bread Again.” Netflix, Written by Jenji Kohan and Tara Herrmann, June 17, 2016. Orange Is the New Black. “W-A-C Pack.” Netflix, Written by Lauren Morelli, July 11, 2013. Orange Is the New Black. “We Have Manners. We’re Polite.” Netflix, Written by Jim Danger Gray, June 6, 2014. Orange Is the New Black. “You Also Have Pizza.” Netflix, Written by Stephen Falk, June 6, 2014. Robert, Sarah A. Neoliberal Educational Reform: Gendereded Notions in Global and Local Contexts. New York: Routledge, 2016. Root, Robert L. The Rhetorics of Popular Culture: Advertising, Advocacy, and Entertainment. Vol. 16, 1987.

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Sanders, Marla S., Kathyryn Haselden, and Randi M. Moss. “Teaching Diversity to Preservice Teachers: Encouraging Self-Reflection and Awareness to Develop Successful Teaching Practices.” Multicultural Learning and Teaching 9 (2): 171–85, 2014. Saraiya, Sonia. “‘Orange Is the New Black’ Season 4: Danielle Brooks on Big Death, Giving a Voice to ‘The Left Behind.’” Variety, June 24: http://variety.com/2016/tv/news/orange-isthe-new-black-season-4-danielle-brooks-taystee-poussey-black-lives-matter-1201803274/, 2016. Shor, Ira. Empowering Education. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. US Citizen and Imigration Services. Consideration of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA). October 14. Accessed October 15, 2016. https://www.uscis.gov/humanitarian/ consideration-deferred-action-childhood-arrivals-daca, 2016. Vaandeering, Dorothy. “Implenenting Restorative Justice Practice in Schools: What Pedagogy Reveals.” Journal of Peace Education 64–8, 2014. What Is Rape Culture? http://www.wavaw.ca/what-is-rape-culture/ (accessed October 16, 2016).

Chapter Eleven

Thinking Philosophically The Power of Pop Culture in Developing a Personal Philosophy of Education Chad William Timm

Developing and articulating a personal philosophy of education is simultaneously the most important and most difficult task facing students in a teacherpreparation program. We know effective teachers embrace the process of reflecting on their thinking, often referred to as metacognition. Effective teachers think about their students’ thinking, they think about their own thinking, they think about what is and is not working in their practice: they are perpetually thinking things. To use reflective practice effectively, however, requires practice. This is where licensed classroom teachers have a significant advantage, thinking and practicing the art of teaching each and every day. Students entering teacher-preparation programs, however, are typically eighteen- to nineteen-year-old students who only a few months prior sat in high school classrooms eagerly anticipating their own graduation. They have no practice to think about. Furthermore, first-year students in a teacher-preparation program typically take a Foundations of Education course as an introduction to the field of education. This course is usually packed full of a little bit of everything: a taste of history, a dab of philosophy, an appetizer of curriculum, instruction, assessment, and maybe even a smidgen of classroom management. Because reflective practice is so important to effective teaching, future teachers must begin immediately reflecting on their own practice. In order to facilitate thinking reflectively as soon as possible among my students, my own reflective practice led me to develop a way to introduce Foundations of Education students to reflective practice through an examination of educational philoso221

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phy. I chose to not only emphasize educational philosophy but to purposefully attempt to teach it through meaningful connections to popular culture. After all, pop culture is everywhere, ranging from television, film, and music to social media. Whether seeing them watching movies on their laptops in the student center between classes or listening to music on their phones as they walk across campus, my first-year education students are constantly connected to pop culture. 1 Instead of a passive consumption of popular culture, I use my Foundations of Education courses to teach future educators how to be active analyzers of popular culture as a way to develop a habit of reflective practice and a personal philosophy of education. THE IMPORTANCE OF REFLECTIVE PRACTICE Reflective practice is essential to effective teaching. The phrase “lifelong learner,” perhaps one of the most clichéd phrases in contemporary education, means a lifetime committed to productive reflection for the purpose of selfimprovement. For a future educator, demonstrating a commitment to reflective practice is perhaps the most important skill one can develop. Reflective practice is the intentional process of deeply interrogating a teacher’s assumptions about what their students know and can do based on evidence, and whether or not the educational experiences facilitated by the teacher are the most appropriate for the context. 2 A teacher makes instructional decisions based on what they know about their students, what they know about educational theory, and in what they believe is meaningful to the teacher on a personal, philosophical level. Knowing a student in this context requires a teacher to consider the students’ level of readiness in relation to a standard or objective. This knowing also includes an awareness of how the student prefers to learn and what interests them in their life outside of school. 3 Being a reflective practitioner requires that a teacher consider what they know about their students before, during, and after an educational experience. More than that, reflective practice also requires a teacher to know themselves in a way that allows them to honestly confront themselves both in success and failure. Effective reflective practice depends on self-examination, and self-examination requires an interrogation of assumptions that typically comes from prior teaching experience. While the actual practice of teaching is a critical piece of the reflective process, those experiences must be linked to effective practices rooted in research. Teaching without the guidance of theory and philosophy can lead to repeated mistakes and failures. After all, we do not know what we do not know. Educational theory and philosophy helps provide guidance so that our reflections on our practices are informed by what research has shown to be effective. Consequently, I actively seek to link the

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study of educational theory and philosophy in Foundations of Education courses to the habit of reflective practice. USING POP CULTURE TO DEVELOP A REFLECTIVE PRACTICE AND A PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION Instead of setting out to teach specific philosophies of education, I structure my foundations of education course around big questions: where does knowledge come from, what does it mean to be educated, and what is the purpose of schooling? From these fundamental questions we investigate other related questions, like what are the responsibilities of an educated person and what role should teachers and students each play in the classroom? These questions are most closely linked with the branch of philosophy known as epistemology, which seeks to determine what can be considered knowledge and where ideas about truth come from. Focusing on epistemology is particularly relevant for future teachers because they must constantly wrestle with questions of knowledge and truth as they determine what and how to teach their own students. It is important to note that this is not a philosophy course, and these students are not philosophy majors. The purpose of this approach is to teach future educators to be reflective practitioners through self-examination and to apply that examination to their work as educators. Whether introducing students to the philosophy of Behaviorism by using a scene from the television show Big Bang Theory 4 or wrestling with the notion of universal truth while listening to the Johnny Cash song “What Is Truth,” 5 using popular culture in the form of popular songs, films, and television programs helps students identify a concrete, realworld context with which to think about a particular philosophical argument or position. I do not attempt to teach, nor could I if I tried, the whole of a philosophy or a philosopher’s work. Instead I use pop culture to introduce the philosophy/philosopher so that students can begin the process of self-examination that will continue not only throughout the remainder of their studies but hopefully in life. Beginning with important questions frames the class and the study of educational philosophy in a way that encourages meaningful praxis, is the intentional connection of practice and theory. Achieving praxis is significant not only for the purposes of teaching but for living or being in the world; teaching praxis through fundamental questions encourages students to link their reflection on theory and philosophy to who they seek to be in the world. We want all of our students, but especially our future teachers, to reflect not only on their teaching but on their lives. In essence students learn that reflecting on their practice is just an extension of living, as Socrates encouraged, an examined life. 6 In what follows I describe the process I use in my Foundations of Education courses to teach education students to think

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philosophically in order to develop the habit of reflective practice and eventually a personal philosophy of education. THINKING PHILOSOPHICALLY Thinking philosophically gets to the heart of why philosophy matters for future educators. It is important to emphasize that the big idea for this course is not to create a philosophy as one creates a product, but rather to teach students that philosophy is a way of thinking and living, a way of interpreting and making sense of the world, a way of seeking wisdom in order to become a reflective practitioner. Understandably, first-year students typically approach philosophical thinking in a personal way evidenced by comments like “Well, my philosophy on that issue is . . . ” or “I guess we just have different philosophies on this subject.” Comments like these typically do not reflect philosophical thinking at all, but rather a student’s opinion based on their own experiences. While personal opinions or experiences are relevant to explaining why we do what we do, if students are going to think philosophically and develop a reflective practice they need to rely on more than opinion and personal experience. Subsequently, they need to think critically by challenging their own assumptions, beliefs, and values, and attempt to use evidence to develop clear justifications for thoughts and actions. In other words, they must think philosophically! An important first step in this process is confronting the concept of opinion as it relates to where knowledge comes from and how we know what we know. I find that beginning with the question of truth, while daunting, is the most effective way to initiate this conversation. When students walk into class I have the following quote from the Declaration of Independence on the screen: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” 7 This statement is an excellent starting point for a discussion about what a “truth” is, and what unalienable rights could be considered as truths. Student responses typically assert that “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are universal truths because they are rights that we all have and can’t be taken from us.” At this point I hand students the lyrics from the song, “The Schuyler Sisters,” from the musical Hamilton. While we listen to the song as a class I ask students to compare one section of the song to the Declaration of Independence. In the section I am referring to, the character Angelica Schuyler sings about how she has been reading Common Sense by Thomas Paine. She sings “You want a revolution? I want a revelation” and then quotes the Declaration of Independence “We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal,” ending with the proclamation that when she meets

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Thomas Jefferson “Imma compel him to include women in the sequel.” 8 If we are endowed with these unalienable rights, how have we justified denying them to others like women, immigrants, or people of color? Can a right be unalienable if it can be denied or restricted? These questions get students thinking more deeply about what can be said to be true. It is important to note that my use of the song is for a pedagogical purpose. First, I want students to recognize that this question of universal truth is relevant outside of the classroom. Second, students must begin making textual connections, in this case connecting the Declaration of Independence to the song “The Schuyler Sisters.” This activity previews a pedagogical theme that cuts through the semester. Throughout this course I repeatedly challenge students to compare and contrast texts and to find examples of ideas or arguments across texts. I treat popular songs and scenes from television or movies as texts for students to analyze. Because they serve to provide examples of philosophical concepts or theories in the contemporary world, they help students make concrete connections to abstract concepts. Once students are thinking about what might count as a universal truth as it relates to unalienable rights, I ask them “What do you believe to be true?” The following discussion sets up later conversations directly related to four primary philosophies, Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, and Existentialism. Students need to understand that some educational philosophies rest on the belief in objective truths (Realism, Pragmatism) while others contend no such truths exist and instead truth is defined by the context and the individual (Idealism, Existentialism). Students often find this question perplexing, generally because they are not sure if we are talking about truth from the “Tell me the truth, did you steal the candy?” perspective, the “Tell me the Truth, does God exist?” perspective, or the “You can’t handle the truth!” Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men perspective. The point of the question is to challenge students to wrestle with the idea of truth and to start a conversation about where knowledge of truth comes from. Starting with the idea of objective or universal truths, I ask students to make a list of all academic ideas or concepts they believe always to be true, regardless of time or space. Student responses typically refer to science and mathematics, with assertions like “1 plus 1 always equals 2” or “We are always affected by the force of gravity, so gravity is a universal truth.” I ask students a follow-up question related to history: “What would be a good an example of a universal truth from US history?” Student responses generally emphasize historical facts, like “Terrorists attacked the World Trade Center on 9-11,” or “President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.” These questions begin the process of critical thinking in a way that necessitates thinking philosophically. This thinking requires asking questions about what we know or believe to be true, and where the knowledge of that

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truth comes from. Our discussion gets complicated when I ask students to explain a situation in which what they assume to be universally true is not. For example, where the impact of gravity can be minimized under water or in parabolic flight training for astronauts, or when 1 plus 1 does not equal 2 like when using the binary system. Does this mean that gravity is no longer a universal truth? What about the tragedy of September 11, 2001, according to the Chinese calendar? Of course the attack occurred, but September 11 reflects the Gregorian calendar created arbitrarily by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582. Does this mean the date is not universally true? Beginning with abstract concepts like universal truth, unalienable rights, and happiness gets students’ heads spinning. At this point I use another piece of popular culture to make the discussion more concrete, and funny. After all, as William Irwin and David Kyle Johnson point out, “A spoonful of pop culture helps the philosophy go down.” 9 In this instance the goal is to remind students why reason and logic are important when discussing knowledge and truth, and who better to demonstrate the importance of such novel concepts than Stephen Colbert? In fact, Colbert even sarcastically invented a word to describe the act of ignoring logic and reason when determining truth, what he calls “truthiness.” 10 According to Colbert, truthiness is “Believing something that feels true even if not supported by fact.” 11 For Colbert, the best way to determine the truth is to listen to your gut. Showing students the “Truthiness” segment from The Late Show with Stephen Colbert demonstrates what thinking philosophically does not look like. In this case Colbert’s truthiness serves as an effective non-example of thinking philosophically, and using a segment from his show is a humorous way of providing students with a concrete example of not using reason and logic and instead relying on intuition to form conclusions. The “Truthiness” segment is a useful prompt for a conversation about how students make decisions. I ask students if they have “gut” feelings, intuitions, or look for signs or omens when they are looking for answers to questions. Colbert’s point, while humorous, is actually a serious one. A Google search of “the science of gut feelings” actually returns 444,000 links, including a Scientific American article titled “Gut Feelings—the ‘Second Brain’ in our Gastrointestinal System.” 12 While intuition and gut feelings might be real, according to David Kyle Johnson they do not reflect philosophical thinking. As he points out in “Wikiality, Truthiness, and Gut Thinking: Doing Philosophy Colbert-Style,” a wonderful piece I assign students to read, “We also shouldn’t be gut thinkers, believing our intuition can be enough justification for controversial beliefs. Rather, we should defend our positions with arguments, and when we can’t defend them we should give them up.” 13 Some students invariably point out that Johnson’s statement about avoiding gut thinking is an example of claiming to know the truth of how we

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should engage in philosophical thinking. They often contend there is a place for feelings in decision making, and that faith itself defies empirical evidence. Instead of missing the point, these questions actually exemplify philosophical thinking. The very idea of universal truths, like the true way to engage in philosophical thinking, are heavily debated. Thus the point of this introduction to philosophical thinking is not meant to require certain beliefs, but to demonstrate to students a method of asking critical questions about big ideas in ways that cause us to reflect on our own beliefs and assumptions. When education students become licensed teachers they will be expected to make data-driven decisions when it comes to instruction and assessment and my goal is that these decisions involve the use of reason and logic, and not gut feelings. I end this opening lesson on thinking philosophically by making a classroom connection. In this case the classroom teacher is the fictional Katherine Watson, an art history professor at Wellesley College in the 1950s, played by Julia Roberts in the film Mona Lisa Smile. 14 Teacher education students view two short scenes from the film. The initial scene depicts Professor Watson’s first day of class, where she conducts an introductory lecture on art history. Watson quickly learns that her students have not only read the entire text before the first day of class, but all the suggested supplements as well. Watson underestimates her students’ level of readiness and as a result embarrassingly ends the lesson early, since her lecture followed the text closely. Before her next class, Watson reflects on what went wrong in her initial lesson and what she can do to recover from the failure. She begins her second lesson by projecting a slide of Carcass of Beef (1925) by Chaim Soutine. 15 One of her students, Betty Warren, played by Kirsten Dunst, asks “What is it?” to which Watson responds, “You tell me.” At this point Watson facilitates a discussion where her art history students wrestle with what should and shouldn’t be considered art, what makes good art good, who should make those decisions. Dunst’s character claims “If you’re suggesting that rotted side of meat is art much less good art then what are we going to learn?” Watson replies, “You’ve just outlined our new syllabus. . . . What is art, what makes it good or bad, and who decides?” 16 I encourage students to analyze this scene through the lens of philosophical thinking, asking them to think about how Roberts’ character addressed statements about the “true” meaning of a piece of art, the “truth” about what makes a piece of art good, or whether a black-and-white photograph of her mother even counts as art. Analyzing this scene provides a strong example of a teacher using her discipline to spark a conversation requiring philosophical thinking, one that encourages asking big questions about truths and how we come to know or refute them. Do we determine art’s worth or beauty using reason and logic, or does how it makes us feel, in our gut, matter? Ending our initial discussion with an analysis of this scene helps provide a concrete

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context for future teachers to connect the idea of thinking philosophically about where knowledge comes from to how it might relate to a classroom context. TEXT GRAFFITI Once students wrestle with thinking philosophically both through their own understandings of truth and analysis of Stephen Colbert and the scenes from Mona Lisa Smile, the next step is to interact with primary texts from each of the four foundational philosophies. Because these texts are challenging, I engage students in an activity called text graffiti where short excerpts from each philosophical perspective are placed on individual sheets of paper. It is important that the excerpt is placed on paper so that there is room for students to write comments and questions in the margins of the excerpt, and that each philosophy be represented on a different-colored piece of paper—for example, excerpts representing Idealism on blue paper and excerpts representing Realism on yellow paper. This way later on in the activity students can identify which of the excerpts represented each philosophy. Interacting with these texts is imperative, as it builds students’ proficiency with making textual references which helps them to develop a personal philosophy that is more deeply rooted in philosophy. I identify short excerpts that help students get to the root of the epistemological differences between the philosophies. For Idealism, students read Plato’s Allegory of the Cave 17 and an excerpt from Rene Descartes Meditations 18 highlighting the significance of the world of ideas and how the physical, material world is temporary and deceptive. For Realism, students read sections of Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica 19 and Francis Bacon’s Novum Organum 20 that emphasize the study of physical matter in order to come to understand universal truths. For Pragmatism, students read portions of John Dewey’s My Pedagogic Creed 21 and Experience and Education 22 that emphasize the manner in which truth is determined by what works and is the result of human experience. Finally, for Existentialism students read excerpts from Simone de Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity 23 and Jean Paul Sartre’s Existentialism Is a Humanism 24 that support the contention that truth is not universal or objective, but rather dependent on how individuals define what is true to them. At the beginning of the exercise each student has an excerpt in front of them, along with instructions for adding graffiti to a text. Those instructions include tips like “Explain what the excerpt makes you wonder,” “What does the excerpt tell you about where knowledge comes from?,” “What kind of perspective does the text give you about truth and our knowledge of it?,” or “Make a personal connection from your life experiences to the text.” Part of what is so powerful and effective about text graffiti is that students not only

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engage with the text, but with each other. After spending three to five minutes with the excerpt, students pass their excerpt to their right, so that each student has a new excerpt. Students are then instructed to read the new excerpt, the previous student’s graffiti, and then add more graffiti. On the second and subsequent turns, students can add comments or critiques of other students’ comments, write questions for previous students, or provide additional thoughts or analysis for the text. In this way students engage in a conversation with the text even though they are not speaking directly to each other. After approximately twenty minutes and at least four or five exchanges of texts, I facilitate a class discussion where students volunteer to read their excerpt and the graffiti related to it. The objective, at this point, is for students to interact with short texts related to the philosophies that wrestle with the question, “Are there objective or universal truths and where does knowledge of that truth come from?” Reading the philosophical texts is a difficult process because they are complex not only intellectually, but stylistically as well. When students interact with short pieces of the larger texts and do so in conversation with each other, they are more prepared to go back to the larger text and analyze it successfully. Keep in mind that in this context philosophy is not an end in itself but a way of engaging in thinking in certain ways in order to encourage the development of a reflective practice. Lecturing students about each philosophy does not require the deep engagement necessary to develop reflective practice. Before ending the text graffiti activity, I provide students with an opportunity to apply their new understandings to different context. Reading the text excerpts helps students start learning how to know and understand the different perspectives of each philosophy, but the next step is to apply those understandings to popular culture. Using the colored paper from the text graffiti activity, I assign students to four groups: Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, and Existentialism. Each group is given the lyrics to a popular song and their task is to compare their philosophical text excerpt to the song in order to identify the ways in which the song does and does not reflect their assigned philosophy. The Idealism group is assigned lyrics to the song “The Cave” 25 by Mumford & Sons, the Realism group is assigned John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High,” 26 the Pragmatism group is assigned 2Pac’s “Changes,” 27 and the Existentialism group is assigned Natasha Bedingfield’s “Unwritten.” 28 Each group then proceeds to “find” evidence of their philosophy in the song lyrics. For example, the text the Idealism group has is an excerpt from Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Students often link Socrates’ description of the slaves being released from their chains, writing, “At first when any of them is liberated and compelled suddenly to stand up and turn his neck around and walk towards the light, he will suffer sharp pains” with the song lyrics “So

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come out of your cave walking on your hands/and see the world hanging upside down.” 29 Here students see the similarity between the slaves in the Allegory of the Cave, startled and upset by their release from bondage, and the narrator of Mumford & Son’s The Cave who sees “the world hanging upside down.” The theme of the song reflects a new awareness of the world that gives the narrator a sense of freedom, inspired “To live my life as it’s meant to be,” but also a desire to help others come to this new understanding when he sings of holding on to hope and not letting others hold themselves back. 30 In the Allegory of the Cave, the slaves are led to believe that the shadows they see on the wall are the whole truth of the world. Of course their captors have tricked them, and in fact what they see is not the whole truth at all. Plato’s allegory reflects the notion that there is a universal, objective truth that exists outside of us and in order to understand it we must not rely on our senses, or the material world, because it will deceive us. We must, instead, rely on our minds and seek wisdom and virtue in the pursuit of learning the truth. Students in the other groups make similar connections between their song lyrics and the excerpts from their philosophies. Students in the Realism group connect Thomas Aquinas’ writings about how we can know that God exists by studying that which belongs to Him. Aquinas reflects the position of religious realism where the existence of universal, objective truths in the form of God can be found in God’s earthly creation. Students connect, “We can be led from them so far as to know of God whether he exists, and on to know of him what necessarily belong to him, as the first cause of all things” from Aquinas’ Summa Theologica to the section of “Rocky Mountain High” where John Denver sings of a young man who experiences God in nature, singing, “Now he walks in quiet solitude the forest and the streams/seeking grace in every step he takes” and “You can talk to God and listen to the casual reply.” 31 Both Thomas Aquinas and John Denver describe finding the universal truth of God’s existence in the beauty of the natural world. The Pragmatism group looks at the lyrics to 2Pac’s “Changes,” where the song’s narrator struggles with the reality of living in a violent and racist society. The song’s narrator is torn between the reality of living in a violent community, confronted by institutional racism and the need to do what’s necessary to survive and the hope that change is possible. Although he sings of police brutality, selling drugs, and the pressure to be ruthless and violent, later in the song he says, “I got love for my brother but we can never go nowhere/unless we share with each other/we gotta start making changes.” 32 Instead of interpreting the song as a contradiction filled with irony, students instead quickly see the similarities between “Changes” and an excerpt from John Dewey’s My Pedagogic Creed, where Dewey emphasizes the importance of experience in helping a child understand what works in a given situation. Dewey states,

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I believe that the only true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself. Through these demands he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling, and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs. 33

For the pragmatist, the truth is what works in a situation based on one’s lived experience. The truth of the narrator’s experience in 2Pac’s “Changes” reflects Dewey’s contention that “the only true education comes through . . . the demands of the social situations in which he finds himself.” The narrator wishes to make a better society, and a more harmonious future, but the realities of his lived experiences force him to make decisions he would otherwise not make. Through the experiences of life on the street the narrator is stimulated to act for the benefit of the greater community, thus advocating for necessary changes. Finally, the last group makes connections between an excerpt from Simone de Beauvoir’s Ethics of Ambiguity and Natasha Bedingfield’s song “Unwritten.” 34 For the existentialist philosopher, objective truth does not exist. There are no universal truths, no gods, and no laws of the universe that can be discovered through the material world. Truth, instead, is dependent upon the individual’s perception and is the result of human creation. Instead of being slaves in a cave escaping to see the truth of the world as it really is, or the Muslim or Christian uncovering the truth of God in nature, or the young person learning what is true based on lived experience, the narrator in “Unwritten” is liberated to create art out of her life. The narrator sings “I am unwritten/ . . . I am undefined/I’m just beginning.” 35 The song’s narrator has the power to define herself and to write her own story. For her, there is predetermined destiny or conclusion to her story. She essentially claims we are the authors of our own stories, and that only we have the voice to speak our own truth. In this way Bedingfield’s lyrics are informed by existentialist philosopher Simone De Beauvoir, who wrote, “One cannot start by saying that our earthly destiny has or has not importance, for it depends upon us to give it importance. It is up to man to make it important to be a man, and he alone can feel his success or failure.” 36 While philosophers of Idealism and Realism hold that knowledge already exists and we must come to understand it, Bedingfield and De Bouviour demonstrate that knowledge of truth is dependent upon who is writing the story. Reading Simone de Beauvoir and then listening to “Unwritten” helps students make sense of how existentialism is simultaneously liberating and anxiety provoking. Liberating in the sense that we write our own stories, but anxiety provoking in that we are completely responsible for the way those stories unfold.

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TRAVELING CONCEPT MAP While reading short philosophy excerpts, providing text graffiti, and connecting ideas about truth to popular songs allows students to practice thinking philosophically, the next activity challenges them to utilize their developing skills and then push them further, applying them to an educational context. In this activity students will again be divided into four groups, one for each of the four philosophies. Each group is given a large piece of poster paper, and in the center of each poster is a different movie quote. The group assigned to the philosophy of Idealism has a quote from The Matrix, the philosophy of Realism group has a quote from A River Runs through It, the philosophy of Pragmatism group has a quote from Vertical Limit, and the philosophy of Existentialism group has a quote from Woody Allen’s Play It Again, Sam. As a class we watch each of the four scenes together, then each group gathers around their poster and specific quote. Like the text graffiti exercise, this activity requires students to connect pieces of texts together and demonstrate how they reflect a particular philosophy’s position on truth and knowledge. I call this activity a traveling concept map because the groups will annotate their poster and then pass it to a different group, where more annotations will be made. Each time the poster is passed the new group will draw a line off of a previous comment and add a new bubble. Essentially students are building a concept map, or a graphic representation of their thinking where a main idea is represented in a bubble in the middle of the page with each subsequent line and bubble building off the original movie quote. The concept map is similar to the text graffiti exercise in that students engage with a text in a critical way, and engage in a conversation with each other about the text. While students work independently during the text graffiti activity, and only with one text, the traveling concept map requires students to collaborate with peers and connect texts together. In this instance students will be connecting the philosophical readings to the movie quotes. It is important to note that by this point students have read a number of excerpts from philosophers representing the four major philosophies. For Idealism, students have read pieces written by Plato and Rene Descartes. For Realism they have read pieces by Thomas Aquinas and Francis Bacon. For Pragmatism they have read pieces written by John Dewey and William James, and for Existentialism they have read excerpts written by Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. Reading these texts serves a number of pedagogical purposes, the importance of which is demonstrating strategies for engaging complex texts. The text graffiti exercise introduces students to short, complex text excerpts through a process of reflective graffiti writing. The traveling concept map, as I will demonstrate, encourages students to begin applying their understandings of the texts to education.

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As a class we watch all of the short movie scenes, and I encourage students to think carefully about how each scene depicts notions of truth or knowledge. After watching the movie scenes students get into their groups and begin by reading their movie quote and seeking to connect it to one of the texts they’ve read. For example, students in the philosophy of Idealism group have the following quote from The Matrix in the center of their poster: Morpheus, speaking to Neo says, “You’re a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind.” 37 Students discuss the message the quote conveys, and which of the philosophers they have read who provides insight into that message. In this particular instance students may draw a line from the movie quote and add the following quote from Descartes Meditations, “But I have sometimes found that these senses played me false, and it is prudent never to trust entirely those who have deceived us.” 38 Morpheus informs Neo that everything he thought was real was, in fact, not real at all. Rene Descartes wanted to determine a way to prove that God existed, so he conducted a thought experiment whereby he pretended an evil demon was tricking him and deceiving his senses. During this thought experiment Descartes systematically doubted everything until he could doubt no more. He concluded that the only thing he knew for sure, and could not doubt, was his own thinking. Descartes famously proclaimed, “Cogito ergo sum,” or “I think, therefore I am.” 39 Neo, like Descartes, discovers that the matrix tricked his senses and that his body was in a cocoon being used by machines as a source of energy. The only thing Neo knew for sure was that he could think. For Neo and Descartes, the objective truth is out there and we must not depend on the material world to lead us to it. We must instead use our minds. After each group adds a new bubble and makes a connection to one of our readings, the groups pass the poster to their right. Now the group that initially had the Realism poster has the Idealism poster and so on. For this round each group is instructed to add a quote from another text that supports or builds on the initial group’s quote. The second group with the Matrix quote reads both quotes on their poster and adds a new bubble with a quote from The Allegory of the Cave, “Then the prisoners would in every way believe that truth is nothing other than the shadows of those artifacts.” 40 Both quotes, first from Descartes and then from Plato, speak to the same ideas that Morpheus conveys to Neo. The physical, material world will deceive us. We must not depend on our senses to know the truth. Instead we must rely on our minds. Just like the characters stuck in the matrix often resisted knowledge that they were being tricked, the slaves in Plato’s allegory also resist the thought that the images they see on the cave wall are not the truth of things. Each group passes the posters three times, and by the fourth turn each group has its original poster. By this point the posters will have a movie quote in the center with three additional quotes from our readings represent-

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ing connections to where knowledge of truth comes from according to that philosophy. The next step for the traveling concept map is for students to read the textual references on their poster and make a connection to education. My question to each group is, “According to this philosophy, what is the purpose of education?” This is the first time I ask students to think about each philosophies’ implication in a traditional classroom environment, and it represents an important shift in emphasis. Up to this point students have been looking at Idealism, Realism, Pragmatism, and Existentialism to interrogate different perspectives on the existence of objective truth and how we know what we know. Now students must consider how each philosophy of knowledge relates to the purpose of education. For example, the Existentialism group looks at their quote from the film Play It Again, Sam (1972) when Woody Allen’s character asks a woman in an art gallery what she thinks of a particular Jackson Pollack painting. The actress replies: It restates the negativeness of the universe. The hideous, lonely emptiness of existence. Nothingness. The predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void with nothing but waste, horror and degradation forming a useless straightjacket in a black absurd cosmos. 41

When students watch this scene they are often startled by the dark and hopeless characterization of existentialism. Because there are no objective truths, no gods or demons, we are completely responsible for the decisions we make. Instead of universal truths existing in the world of ideas (Idealism) or matter (realism), we make the world as we see fit. While the character in Play It Again, Sam interprets this in a negative and lonely and depressing way, students often point to a passage of Existentialism Is a Humanism they’ve read where Jean Paul Sartre contends: What is meant here by saying that existence precedes essence? We mean that man first exists: he materializes in the world, encounters himself, and only afterwards defines himself. If man as existentialists conceive of him cannot be defined, it is because to begin with he is nothing. He will not be anything until later, and then he will be what he makes of himself. 42

While the absurdity of life and the reality of being alone on an insignificant planet can be traumatizing, it can also be incredibly liberating. From an educational standpoint, students see that Existentialism is about individuality and the freedom to turn life into art, essentially painting the picture of life as we see fit. Student discussions refer back to the earlier scene from Mona Lisa Smile, and to her art classroom where students discuss what art is and who gets to decide. I hear students comparing and contrasting philosophical per-

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spectives, with comments like, “Plato says there are universal truths in the heavens, and that a piece of art is just an imperfect copy of a perfect idea, while Sartre’s point is that since there is no perfect idea we get to decide for ourselves.” Bringing the traveling concept map activity to a close I gather the class together and debrief the connections between these four philosophies and what they mean for education. Analyzing The Matrix along with excerpts from Plato and Descartes, students assert that the role of education is to emphasize the world of ideas in order to align our thinking with universal truths. Studying the great literature from the past, for example, the wise teacher helps students come to understand what she already knows. Watching a scene from A River Runs through It, where Reverend Maclean kneels next to a beautiful stream and tells his young sons, “Long ago rain fell on mud and became rock, half a billion years ago. But even before that, beneath the rocks, are the words of God,” 43 conveys the importance of studying the physical, material world in order to determine universal truths. Thus the philosophy of Realism advocates the study of the particulars in order to determine these universals. As Francis Bacon wrote, an approach that “Derives axioms from the senses and particulars, rising by a gradual and unbroken ascent, so that it arrives at the most general axioms last of all. This is the true way, but as yet untried.” 44 Education from this perspective must encourage the study of matter in order to uncover the truths of the universe, although religious realists desire to connect more deeply with God while secular realists seek knowledge of scientific truth. Finally, students conclude that the purpose of education according to the philosophy of Pragmatism is to use life experiences while seeking solutions to current or future problems. Education should not be separate from life, but should be intimately connected to life. Like secular Realism, Pragmatism encourages experimentation, but unlike Idealism and Realism the goal of education is not to uncover universal truths, whether religious or scientific, but rather what works and is deemed true in any given situation as it relates to everyday living. Students point to an excerpt from William James’ What Pragmatism Means, when he states, To attain perfect clearness in our thoughts of an object, then, we need only consider what conceivable effects of a practical kind the object may involve – what sensations we are to expect from it, and what reactions we must prepare. Our conception of these effects, whether immediate or remote, is then for us the whole of our conception of the object. 45

Pragmatism’s perspective from an educational standpoint, then, is to connect school learning with life experiences in order to solve problems, much like the tension the narrator in 2Pac’s song “Changes” struggles between realiz-

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ing the goal of living together peacefully and the reality of his lived experience in a troubled neighborhood. The truth, for the narrator of “Changes,” is what works practically to help him achieve his life goals. PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER One of the goals of the Foundations of Education course is that students will use philosophical thinking skills when observing licensed teachers during their practicum and student teaching experiences. While observing practicing teachers, education students can analyze how those teachers negotiate questions of truth and knowledge in their content areas/grade levels and reflect on what works. These activities contribute to the teacher education student’s own reflective practice. If knowledge of educational philosophy is going to aid in the development of a personal philosophy of education, teacher education students need opportunities to practice philosophical thinking independently. To this end, the final activity utilizing pop culture to develop philosophical thinking is an assignment requiring each student to choose a film that depicts formal education and analyze the various philosophies it depicts. Students use the same questions that guided our earlier conversations, and write a detailed analysis of a Hollywood educator. The assignment requires students to write an essay analyzing the ways in which the teacher specifically, and a film in general, represent various philosophies of education. For example, a student may choose to analyze how educational philosophy is depicted through the character of Mr. Keating in the movie Dead Poet’s Society, or Hillary Swank as Erin Gruwell in Freedom Writers. Students address the same questions we have addressed as a class, like “According to Mr. Keating, are there objective truths, where does knowledge come from, and what is the purpose of education?” Students also address the Hollywood teacher’s content area or grade level with questions like, “How does the fact that Ms. Gruwell teaches high school English language arts influence her philosophy of education? How would her approach to teaching be different if she were a math or science teacher?” Students also make textual references to the philosophies read as a class in their analysis. These textual connections are fundamentally important in reminding students to constantly link theory or philosophy with the observed teaching practice. Remember, an effective praxis requires practice informed by theory, which leads to new practice. When a Foundations of Education student watches Jack Black as Dewey Finn in School of Rock teach his students about how Rock and Roll can “stick it to the ‘man,’” 46 they might refer to an excerpt from Pedagogy of the Oppressed read in class where Paulo Freire states “Liberation is thus a childbirth, and a painful one. The man or woman who emerges is a new person . . . no longer oppressor nor

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longer oppressed, but human in the process of achieving freedom.” 47 Making this kind of textual connection helps me assess whether the student mastered not only identifying the relevant philosophy in practice, but making a connection to the scholarly text demonstrates an analysis rooted in textual evidence. CONCLUSION For a future educator, demonstrating a commitment to reflective practice is perhaps the most important skill one can develop. In this context reflective practice is the intentional process of deeply interrogating a teacher’s assumptions about what their students know and can do based on evidence, and whether or not the educational experiences facilitated by the teacher are the most appropriate for the context. Future teachers must begin developing a reflective practice as soon as possible, making a Foundations of Education course an ideal context given it is typically taken early in a student’s program of study. Because teacher education students generally have little practical teaching experience to draw upon and Foundations of Education courses tend to be abstract and theoretical, making concrete connections to practical examples of educational theory and philosophy can be difficult. Subsequently, in my own Foundations of Education courses I turn to popular culture as a pedagogical tool to encourage reflective practice. Popular culture in the form of television, film, and music serve as concrete examples for students to apply philosophical thinking skills. In order to be a reflective practitioner one must think philosophically and constantly reflect on what is true, where knowledge of that truth comes from, and what it means to be educated. Using pop culture in a Foundations of Education course to teach philosophical thinking helps students begin living a life of reflective practice, as they develop the habit of interrogating everything they see and hear in their everyday lives from the perspective of their own philosophy of education. NOTES 1. Wade C. Jacobsen and Renata Forste, “The Wired Generation: Academic and Social Outcomes of Electronic Media Use Among University Students,” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14 (2011). 2. See Stephen D. Brookfield, “The Concept of Critically Reflective Practice,” in Arthur L. Wilson and Elizabeth R. Hayes, eds., Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education (San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2000). 3. See David Sousa and Carol Ann Tomlinson, Differentiation and the Brain: How Neuroscience Supports the Learner-Friendly Classroom (Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press, 2011). 4. Big Bang Theory, “The Gothowitz Deviation,” written by Chuck Lorrie and Bill Prady (2009: USA: Warner Home Video, 2010).

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5. Johnny Cash, “What Is Truth?” in Set List: The Very Best of Johnny Cash Live, Columbia Records, 2010. 6. Plato, The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues (New York: Dover Publications, 1992), 37. 7. Thomas Jefferson, “The Declaration of Independence,” Historic American Documents, Lit2Go Edition (1776), accessed September 12, 2016, http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/133/historicamerican-documents/4957/the-declaration-of-independence/. 8. Miranda, Lin-Manuel. “The Schuyler Sisters.” Hamilton. Atlantic Records, 2015, Disk. 9. William Irwin and David Kyle Johnson, eds. Introducing Philosophy through Pop Culture: From Socrates to South Park, Hume to House. (Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2011), 1. 10. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, “The Word: Trumpiness,” Filmed [July 18, 2016], YouTube video, 6:08. Posted [July 18, 2016.] 11. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, “The Word: Trumpiness,” Filmed [July 18, 2016], YouTube video, 6:08. Posted [July 18, 2016.] 12. Justin Sonnenburg and Erica Sonnenburg, “Gut Feelings—The ‘Second Brain’ in our Gastrointestinal System,” Scientific American, May 1, 2015, http://www.scientificamerican. com/article/gut-feelings-the-second-brain-in-our-gastrointestinal-systems-excerpt/. 13. David Kyle Johnson, “Wikiality, Truthiness, and Gut Thinking: Doing Philosophy Colbert Style,” in Wiliam Irwin and David Kyle Johnson, eds., Introducing Philosophy through Pop Culture (Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011), 36. 14. F. Johanson (Executive Producer) and M. Newell (Director), Mona Lisa Smile [DVD] (USA: Revolution Studios, 2003). 15. “Chaim Soutine Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works,” The Art Story, accessed September 1, 2016 http://www.theartstory.org/artist-soutine-chaim.htm. 16. F. Johanson (Executive Producer) and M. Newell (Director), Mona Lisa Smile [DVD] (USA: Revolution Studios, 2003) 17. Plato, Republic, translated by G. M. A. Grube revised by C. D. C. Reeve. (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992), 186–187. 18. Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations (New York: Penguin Books, 1968). 19. Thomas Aquinas, “The Summa Theologica Question 12 article 12,” Summa Theologica, Accessed September 12, 2016. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa/home.html. 20. Francis Bacon, “Book 1, Aphorism 19,” Novum Organum, accessed October 18, 2016, http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/bacon-novum-organum. 21. John Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Libraries, 2011). 22. John Dewey, Experience and Education (New York: The Free Press, 1997). 23. Simone de Beauvoir, Ethics of Ambiguity (New York: The Citadel, 2000). 24. Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007). 25. Mumford & Sons, “The Cave,” in Sigh No More, Island Records, 2009. http://itunes. com. 26. John Denver, “Rocky Mountain High,” in Rocky Mountain High, RCA Records, 1972. http://itunes.com. 27. 2Pac, “Changes,” in Greatest Hits, Amaru, Death Row, Interscope, and Jive, 1998. http:/ /itunes.com. 28. Natasha Bedingfield, “Unwritten,” in Unwritten, Phonogenic Records, 2004. http:// itunes.com. 29. Mumford & Sons, “The Cave,” in Sigh No More, Island Records, 2009. http://itunes. com. 30. Ibid. 31. John Denver, “Rocky Mountain High,” in Rocky Mountain High, RCA Records, 1972. http://itunes.com. 32. 2Pac, “Changes,” in Greatest Hits, Amaru, Death Row, Interscope, and Jive, 1998. http:/ /itunes.com. 33. John Dewey, My Pedagogic Creed, 3.

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34. Natasha Bedingfield, “Unwritten,” in Unwritten, Phonogenic Records, 2004. http:// itunes.com. 35. Ibid. 36. Simone de Beauvoir, Ethics of Ambiguity, 115. 37. The Matrix, Directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski (Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers, 1999), DVD. 38. Rene Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations, 96. 39. Descartes, Discourse on Method and the Meditations, 103. 40. Plato, Republic, translated by G. M. A. Grube revised by C. D. C. Reeve (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992), 186–187. 41. Play It Again, Sam, Directed by Herbert Ross (USA: Paramount Pictures, 1972) DVD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jbnueb2OI4o. 42. Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism Is a Humanism, 22. 43. A River Runs through It, Directed by Robert Redford (USA: Columbia Pictures, 1992), DVD. 44. Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, Book 1, Aphorism 19. 45. William James, “What Pragmatism Means,” in Pragmatism: A Reader, edited by Louis Menard (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), 95. 46. School of Rock, Directed by Richard Linklater (USA: Paramount Pictures, 2003), DVD. 47. Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum Publishing, 1990), 33.

BIBLIOGRAPHY A River Runs through It. Directed by Robert Redford. USA: Columbia Pictures, 1992. DVD. Aquinas, Thomas. “The Summa Theologica Question 12 Article 12.” Summa Theologica, Accessed September 12, 2016. https://www.ccel.org/ccel/aquinas/summa/home.html. Bacon, Francis. “Book 1, Aphorism 19,” Novum Organum. accessed October 18, 2016, http:// oll.libertyfund.org/titles/bacon-novum-organum. Bedingfield, Natasha.”Unwritten.” in Unwritten. Phonogenic Records, 2004. http://itunes.com. Big Bang Theory. “The Gothowitz Deviation.” Directed by Mark Cendrowski. Written by Chuck Lorrie and Bill Prady. 2009. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2010. DVD Brookfield, Stephen D. “The Concept of Critically Reflective Practice.” In Arthur L. Wilson and Elizabeth R. Hayes, eds., Handbook of Adult and Continuing Education. San Francisco: Jossey Bass, 2000. Cash, Johnny. “What Is Truth?” In Set List: The Very Best of Johnny Cash Live. Columbia Records, 2010. “Chaim Soutine Biography, Art, and Analysis of Works.” The Art Story. Accessed September 1, 2016. http://www.theartstory.org/artist-soutine-chaim.htm. De Beauvoir, Simone. Ethics of Ambiguity. New York: The Citadel, 2000. Denver, John. “Rocky Mountain High.” in Rocky Mountain High. RCA Records, 1972. http:// itunes.com. Descartes, Rene. Discourse on Method and the Meditations. New York: Penguin Books, 1968. Dewey, John. Experience and Education. New York: The Free Press, 1997. Dewey, John. My Pedagogic Creed. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Libraries, 2011. Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. New York: Continuum Publishing, 1990. Irwin, William, and David Kyle Johnson. eds. Introducing Philosophy through Pop Culture: From Socrates to South Park, Hume to House. Malden: Wiley Blackwell, 2011. Jacobsen, Wade C., and Renata Forste “The Wired Generation: Academic and Social Outcomes of Electronic Media Use Among University Students.” Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 14 no. 5 (2011): 275–280. James, William. “What Pragmatism Means.” In Pragmatism: A Reader, edited by Louis Menard New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Jefferson, Thomas. “The Declaration of Independence.” Historic American Documents, Lit2Go Edition (1776). Accessed September 12, 2016, http://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/133/historicamerican-documents/4957/the-declaration-of-independence/.

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Johanson, F. (Executive Producer) and Newell, M. (Director). Mona Lisa Smile [DVD]. USA: Revolution Studios, 2003. Johnson, David Kyle. “Wikiality, Truthiness, and Gut Thinking: Doing Philosophy Colbert Style.” In Wiliam Irwin and David Kyle Johnson, eds., Introducing Philosophy through Pop Culture. Malden: Wiley-Blackwell, 2011. Miranda, Lin-Manuel. “The Schuyler Sisters.” Hamilton. Atlantic Records, 2015, Disk. Mumford & Sons. “The Cave.” In Sigh No More. Island Records, 2009. http://itunes.com. Plato. Republic. Translated by G. M. A. Grube, revised by C. D. C. Reeve. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, 1992. Plato. The Trial and Death of Socrates: Four Dialogues. New York: Dover Publications, 1992. Play It Again, Sam. Directed by Herbert Ross. USA: Paramount Pictures, 1972. DVD. Sartre, Jean Paul. Existentialism Is a Humanism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. School of Rock. Directed by Richard Linklater. USA: Paramount Pictures, 2003. DVD. 2Pac. “Changes.” In Greatest Hits. Amaru, Death Row, Interscope, and Jive, 1998. http:// itunes.com. Sonnenburg, Justin and Erica Sonnenburg. “Gut Feelings—The ‘Second Brain’ in our Gastrointestinal System.” Scientific American. May 1, 2015. http://www.scientificamerican. com/article/gut-feelings-the-second-brain-in-our-gastrointestinal-systems-excerpt/. Sousa, David and Carol Ann Tomlinson. Differentiation and the Brain: How Neuroscience Supports the Learner-Friendly Classroom. Bloomington, IN: Solution Tree Press, 2011. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. “The Word: Trumpiness.” Filmed [July 18, 2016]. YouTube video, 6:08. Posted [July 18, 2016.] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= NqOTxl3Bsbw. The Matrix. Directed by Lana and Lilly Wachowski. Burbank, CA: Warner Brothers, 1999, DVD.

Part V

Looking Theoretically Research Utilizing Popular Culture

Chapter Twelve

Using Multimodal Literacy to Teach Gender History through Comic Books, or, How “The Wonder Women of History” Became “Marriage à La Mode” Andrew Grunzke

It has been nearly thirty years since John O’Connor published his article “History in Images/Images in History” in The American Historical Review. That article was something of a groundbreaking call for historians to open their discourses to increased use of visual texts as primary evidence: While the number of historians who work in television and film will always be small, the lessons they can teach their colleagues are important in two ways. First, they can help anyone involved in the research and writing of modern history to think about the contributions that visual evidence can make to their understanding of the past. It has now been 150 years since the invention of photography, a hundred years since the invention of motion pictures, and fifty years since the invention of television. 1

One can certainly debate whether O’Connor’s prediction that the number of historians working in visual mass media will always be small was a prescient one. Certainly, it seems, the number has remained small, but not nearly as small as it was three decades ago. His broader point—that the study of history could benefit from opening itself to examinations of a greater diversity of visual texts—remains as significant as ever. The importance of the use of visual texts as primary historical evidence is even more important when it comes to the idea of teaching history. As it 243

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stands, O’Connor was correct in his assertion that “even well-educated Americans are learning most of their history from film or television.” 2 If students’ understanding of history is going to be shaped by the historically focused mass media they consume, as instructors, the time in our history classes that we would normally spend teaching critical readings of texts and journal articles needs to be extended to teaching students to be thoughtful and active viewers of historical television and films. Even in expanding the social studies curriculum to include critiques of popular media, nevertheless, one generally tackles this important issue from only one direction. The curriculum tends to treat popular media as another type of secondary historical source; they are historical narratives constructed by another person’s (or people’s) readings of the historiography and primary documentation surrounding the period being portrayed. In essence, this approach to including popular media in the teaching of history equates historical film and television (including historical fiction film) with secondary historical research. It does little, though, to alleviate the other underlying problem to which O’Connor was pointing: the secondary historical literature remains largely unshaped by the extant popular visual media that could serve as primary evidence in the creation of that secondary literature. In the interests of providing a specific example, teachers of history are more concerned about getting students to critique the historical accuracy of the miniseries Roots (1977) with respect to what it teaches its audience about slavery by comparing it to the other secondary histories their students are reading than encouraging them to look at Roots as a primary text about how Americans in the 1970s thought about race relations. According to the conception of the use of popular culture texts in the classrooms outlined by Alverman, Xu, and Carpenter, there are essentially four approaches to popular culture in the classroom. One is to discourage its use altogether. Often schools or teachers campaign to get students to spend less time, for instance, playing video games or watching television. The second approach is to teach students how to analyze popular texts. In this approach, the teacher attempts to provide students with the analysis skills of some sort of “ideal” viewer, trying to get them to “accurately” determine the underlying messages in the texts they consume. The third approach is to encourage students to engage with popular media by using the children’s preferred text to create engagement in the classroom. Finally, there is the fourth approach; this one asks students to be self-reflexive in their own uses of popular culture, examining how popular culture shapes our emotional, political, social, and material lives. 3 This chapter seeks to articulate a different approach to the use of multimodal literacies to enhance instruction of gender history through the inclusion of comic books (in this case Wonder Woman comics of the postwar era) in the curriculum as primary historical documents. In so doing, it seeks to

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realize O’Connor’s vision of a history classroom that foregrounds visual media not simply as sources of secondary historical knowledge, but as primary evidence that both deepens the quality of the instruction, as well as the discipline itself. To achieve this, the chapter employs a version of Alverman, Xu, and Carpenter’s third approach to including popular media in the classroom. It attempts to describe a high-interest and engaging way of approaching curriculum development by employing the sorts of multimodal texts that students enjoy. That is not to say, obviously, that the average student sits around reading old postwar Wonder Woman comics. These same students do, on the other hand, routinely engage with an ever-increasing variety of multimodal texts. By including older comics in the curriculum, the teacher is encouraging students to familiarize themselves with the historical antecedents of the types of multimedia texts that make up the bulk of contemporary reading material. My own scholarly background is multidisciplinary; I have long been interested in both children’s media and history of education. Often, I have combined these interests in historical examinations of the ways in which children’s literature has served as a method for the informal education of youth, particularly with respect to the inculcation of cultural values. My own academic interests have especially focused on serial fiction (dime novels, series books, comic books, and the like), as there is a long history of adults actively working to keep this literature away from children, in an effort to keep “low-art” texts from teaching values that deviated from those traditionally middle-class ones held by children’s literature gatekeepers, including especially librarians and teachers. Because of my background, I am frequently asked to teach two varieties of university courses: those within the social foundations of education and those focusing on language arts methods, including courses in adolescent literacy and children’s and young adult literature. The use of Wonder Woman texts to teach gender history blends these research and teaching interests, looking to examine how new research in multimodal literacy can inform how we approach work within the discipline of history of education and looking at how informally educational primary texts can be used to teach the principles of multimodal literacy. By and large, students aren’t used to looking at history through that lens. When primary documents are used in the history class, they tend not to be multimodal texts. Certainly, the teacher might provide students with photographs of the time period and make efforts to bring visual literacy skills into the examination of primary documents, but even this is largely rare by comparison to textual evidence. Most often, we tend to employ written texts as primary documents. These texts are generally not popular culture texts and, when they are, they were rarely produced for the enjoyment of young people. In other words, we can expand our notions of primary historical documents, while simultaneously choosing texts that appeal to our students.

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This project also aligns itself with Alverman, Xu, and Carpenter’s fourth approach to using popular culture in the classroom. In the case of Golden and Silver Age Wonder Woman comics, this particular set of primary texts asks students to develop an understanding of the prevailing gender attitudes of the American postwar by studying informally educational portions of popular media and identifying how gender was coded in them. Moreover, it asks students to make connections, examining how the media shaped the gender identities of young people in the eras in which they were created. The implication of this instruction, of course, is that our own contemporary media is also serving to shape our own notions of gender. We can, therefore, use the historical examinations of gender coding in primary historical texts as a way to encourage students to become more self-reflective readers of contemporary popular culture texts. PART I: TEACHING MULTIMODAL LITERACY: THE CASE FOR COMICS IN THE CLASSROOM Often, people tend to view the texts of popular culture as ephemeral and their impact, therefore, as minimal. The texts, however, we encounter as children often have a way of endearing themselves to us well into our adult lives. Our identities are shaped by those texts. Adults’ recollections of popular childhood media programs are intertextually linked not only with each other, but also with the narratives of their experiences and feelings as children growing up with family and friends. Importantly, these texts also form the backdrop for our everyday lives; popular culture is, in no small sense, everyday culture. 4 Its impact, then, is not minimal, for it provides a significant portion of the cultural landscape in which our identities (including our literary tastes) are shaped. Neither is popular culture ephemeral. Narratives, tropes, and characters are recycled. Texts get reimagined, rebooted, and revived. The threads of certain themes can be traced to their historical antecedents, while other times similar texts reflect the unique cultural climate that created them. There were children in the 1940s who anxiously waited for the next issue of Sensation Comics to read about the next adventure of Wonder Woman, just as there were children in the 1970s who eagerly awaited Linda Carter’s television portrayal each Wednesday night, and there are young adults who are sharing the newest Wonder Woman trailer on social media as they wait for the 2017 film. That is not to say that Wonder Woman’s portrayal in popular media has been static or that she has meant the same things to each of those three groups of children. Neither is it to say, though, that there aren’t enduring themes around which each of these respective texts have built themselves.

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What is clear, however, is that Superman is likely the most recognizable character in all of American literature. The narratives featuring him could hardly be described as ephemeral or his impact minimal, while at the same time Action Comics is, perhaps oddly, not a mainstay of secondary or postsecondary American literature courses. As Bonnie Norton points out, even in 2003, the Archie comics website got 13 to 14 million hits per month. 5 Archie first appeared in comic book pages in 1941. These texts resonate with people; they shape culture and are shaped by culture. For the past half-century, both children and adults have spent most of their leisure time consuming electronic mass media: broadcast and cable television, radio, film, Internet-based social media, cellular phone applications, and the like. 6 Despite the rising popularity of graphic novels, sequential narrative art is a rather antiquated, often analogue, medium. By comparison, the textbook, the novel, the short story, and (at times) the newspaper form the overwhelming majority of classroom reading. When it comes to classroom teaching, comic books represent an extension of the sorts of leisure reading that students perform outside of school, rather than an extension of the type of school reading most commonly experienced by students. For these reasons, when it comes to the use of comics in formally educational settings, teachers and librarians have recently sought to be more inclusive of this sort of text. Often, this is done explicitly for the “cool” factor. Librarians often add graphic novels to their collections in order to make the library seem like a more inviting (and socially acceptable) place for reluctant readers. 7 Teachers (usually language arts teachers) include lessons involving comic books in their class in an effort to seem as though they are giving students ownership over the selection of reading material for the classes and staying current with the reading interests of young people. These reasons, in and of themselves, may not be bad reasons for including comics in classroom teaching. Increasing student engagement and allowing students to have a voice in the content of the course are, indeed, worthy goals that can, in and of themselves, improve student learning. This attitude is, however, not without its problems. Current scholarship tends to stress the motivating power of comics for reluctant readers. In so doing, the scholarship tends to present the inclusion of comic books in the classroom simply as a stepping-stone for students to more serious reading. This, ironically, can serve to reinforce the notion of the canon: instead of viewing comics as worthwhile reading material in themselves, we view them as valuable only insofar as they are able to guide students into reading the types of literature more traditionally valued by teachers and librarians. In turn, because comic books are a different medium, this inadvertently reinforces the idea that written literacy is a more complex and worthy process than the visual literacy represented by comics. Comic books have been seen as an intermediate step toward textual literacy—and not as an opportunity to

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practice complex forms of multimodal literacy. If one really seeks to break down the canon and/or to give students a voice in canon formation, the teacher must seek to promote the idea that sequential art is precisely that, an art. How we assign artistic value to genres and media is a process that makes examining comic books a worthwhile endeavor in the classroom. 8 Many scholars of education have been advocating for decades for increased curricular emphasis on developing students’ visual literacy skills. Visual literacy is a branch of literacy that teaching students to “read” images. At times, visual literacy instruction teaches student to employ semiotics to look at how a created visual image uses signifiers to communicate meaning. When we teach literacy, we guide students to interpret the printed word by applying their understandings of vocabulary, metaphor, and genre. To teach visual literacy, the instructor asks students to analyze images, by applying their understanding of color, icon, and the means by which various media communicate ideas and feelings to readers. Both literacy of the printed word and visual literacy rely on the student’s ability to actively construct meaning by interpreting codes and signs. 9 In a culture in which students spend most of their leisure time in the presence of electronic media, it is of huge importance for students to develop their literacy skills toward understanding visual images. It is essential for our students to become visually literate in this media environment in order to recognize stereotypes and clichés, develop an awareness of the ways that images serve to affect emotion and sentiment, and distinguish facts from propaganda. 10 Educators have long understood that they can use a child’s visual literacy skills to scaffold for their written literacy instruction. This is, after all, the premise of the children’s picture book. The combination of words and pictures provides visual support for children to decode the written text. Rarely do teachers see that the inverse relationship is also true. The printed word can be used as a means of providing support for understanding the meaning of an image. That is, teachers can build their students’ visual literacy skills by using texts that pair visual images with words, in the same way that they teach written literacy skills by pairing visual images and words. Because of their exposure to multimedia texts, students often feel the most comfortable with visual texts while educators, whose training is more often in written literacy than visual, tend to feel more comfortable teaching written texts. If teachers don’t employ visual texts in the classroom, it is often because they are less comfortable teaching that material. Because they often lack training in integrating media and media literacy into what they do, when they do use such texts in the classroom they often do so in a way that is an extension of the way they generally use it at home (i.e., for entertainment). Students are rewarded with a movie or get to read a graphic novel as a fun supplement to the more “serious” material. Visual texts become an addendum, at best, or a diversion, at worst, from the real work of the classroom.

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As the concept of teaching visual literacy got traction within language arts classrooms, the idea that there are multiple types of literacies that can be and ought to be taught also blossomed. Different scholars advocated for the addition of audio, gestural, and spatial literacies to visual and linguistic (written) literacy. From there, the term multimodal literacy developed as a means of describing a way of making meaning of a text that requires the readers to engage in two or more of the different types of literacy. Once the definition of literacy was expanded to include these new dimensions, the type of text that could be brought into the classroom as a means of teaching them also grew. In addition to picture books and films, teachers could use manga and comic books, hip-hop lyrics, advertising, and a host of other relevant materials for increasing their students’ literacy skills. Each of these types of texts asks us, as teachers, to realize that competency with the written word is no longer the only skill required to participate meaningfully in the culture. This is especially true in online environments in which video, sound, image, and text are all combined in newly interactive ways. They also provide new opportunities for teachers to bridge the culturally diverse student bodies that might occupy their school. All the while, expanding the scope of the texts to be used in the classroom also serves to foster critical inquiry, creativity, and communication. 11 In other words, by expanding the scope from traditional literacy instruction to multimodal literacy, teachers are promoting not only a deeper understanding of multimedia texts, but are doing so in a way that promotes engagement and cultural sensitivity. Multimodal literacy instruction then seeks to move the classroom away from static, printed text to dynamic text, often supported by sounds or pictures. This, in turn, gives rise to two important reasons for teaching multimodal literacy. First, it draws on students’ out-of-school literacies to help them perform better in school. Second, helping students to develop their own multimodal literacy skills promotes students’ full participation in a workforce and larger culture that invites students to both read and create multimodal texts. As technology gets more advanced, multimodality in literacy skills becomes increasingly important. Information is often most effectively transmitted in visual form, and the rise of the Internet has led to increasingly visual forms of information sharing. The use of comic books in the classroom means that the image in the text is not a “distraction” as much as it encourages students to practice making multimodal meanings of a text. It may be the case that using comic books to teach literacy skills is preparing students more efficiently for the type of meaning-making they will be performing outside of school. 12 Comic books can help students negotiate complex systems of meaning-making, equipping them with critical literacy skills that extend beyond the printed word (linguistic, visual, audio, gestural, and spatial patterns of meaning), including both discourse and genre conventions. 13

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The concept of text has changed from traditional printed materials to a variety of media including the Internet, film, and television. Adults frequently bemoan the amount of screen time children are spending and the relative lack of independent reading in which children are engaging. It isn’t necessarily the case, though, that children aren’t reading; they just aren’t reading in the same way. Whether it goes by the name information literacy, visual literacy, computer/digital literacy, or media literacy, children are still engaging in complex types of reading. In fact, Millennials have more access to information than any generation in the history of the world. Access to information and hours of screen time may translate into “tech savviness,” however, that does not mean that today’s youth are “media savvy.” Students often have a false sense of competency. Teachers mistake the students’ ability to use the technology to access the information with the ability to understand the information. 14 Nobody mistakes the ability to open a book and turn pages with the ability to read. Likewise, people can easily make a distinction between threading film into a projector with understanding the film being screened. Knowing how to access information is not the same as understanding content. Understanding how to engage in online discourse is not the same thing as understanding the implications of living in a digitally mediated society. 15 In this information age, we have access to more statements about the world than ever before. Not all of these statements, however, are true. In fact, we have access to more false statements about the world than ever before. Finding claims is not the same as evaluating their quality. 16 There is no reason, then, to assume that with digital and visual media that just because students can access them that they are reading them effectively. When it comes to applying the information to which they have access to academic pursuits, like, say, using sources discovered on the Internet as primary evidence in developing a historical argument, students require direct instruction. Interestingly, the concept of literacy is itself not static. What constitutes literacy has changed over time, and there is often a generation gap with respect to the concept of literacy. The literacies among the generations can, in turn, become disconnected. 17 When the question is viewed not as whether students are becoming literate, but what sorts of literacies they are developing, the social climate in which students are developing interpretative frameworks also becomes an important question. Students will learn those skills they feel are necessary to function, and the skills that are necessary to function change over time. It can be difficult for teachers who developed their literacy skills within one social context (and, usually, this is an academic one) to know which of the new literacies to teach and how to approach teaching them. It is vital, however, that we work to instruct our students using multimodal techniques, so as to expose students to wide-ranging sources for making meaning. As the social milieux in which students are

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exercising their literacies change, those students’ literacies may not remain functional. An inability to engage in a variety of literacies can hamper students’ ability to enter new social spheres. At the same time, as teachers we need to be aware and respectful of those literacies our students bring with them and harness those abilities to increase student motivation. Much of this can be accomplished simply by expanding the sorts of texts we use in our classrooms. PART II: EXPANDING THE HISTORY CURRICULUM WITH COMICS Up until now, this chapter has almost exclusively discussed literacy instruction. There is an adage running through educational institutions these days that “every teacher is a literacy teacher.” One almost hates to repeat something that verges so close to cliché. Still, teachers working outside of traditional language arts and English classrooms are actively encouraged to incorporate instruction in the sorts of literacy that typify the readings within their discipline. So, education scholars outside of language arts have begun to extol the benefits of taking multimodal approaches to content area reading instruction. Little work has been done in the social studies, but Kress et al. argue that learning science, at least in a certain sense, is learning to talk science. 18 Building on this notion, then, using multimodal techniques in class not only aids the students in developing their content area knowledge, but it also changes the content area itself. This is perhaps more obvious in history. As O’Connor expressed, adding photography, film, television, and other popular media to the practice of history provides a new, rich picture of the historical era under study. O’Connor suggested in his article that most media studies are conducted in cinema studies, literacy studies, and communications, not in history. That, I think, remains largely true to this day. Part of the reason, O’Connor suggests, is that there is something of a theory vacuum with respect to the use of multimodal texts in history: “few historians think of film and television as anything more than lightweight entertainment, and in part because of the absence of any accepted, coherent, and comprehensive methodology for analyzing them as historical artifacts.” 19 These theoretical orientations are much better established in media studies discourses. Scholars can examine these multimodal texts from a variety of theoretical approaches, such as Marxism, feminism, queer theory, semiotics, and so on, which are often less commonly practiced by historians. Primary textual evidence has a very long history of use in the conduct of historical research. Archives are often arranged in such a way as to make the particular context (who produced the artifacts and when) the chief vehicle for

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their organization. This represents a good starting point for the inclusion of multimodal texts in historical analysis, as well. As Michael Lesy expounds, “Knowledge of the who, what, where, when, or why of an image, knowledge of its users, promulgators, and audience, will permit and investigator to understand and use an image in a scholarly way.” 20 This echoes an approach to teaching multimodal texts in the language arts classroom laid out by Considine et al. They developed three-pronged approach for introducing any text, including a multimodal one, in the classroom, focusing on text, audience, and production (simplified to the acronym T.A.P.). For this approach the developed a series of questions to ask students when they are confronted with a new text in the classroom. When focusing on the text, they suggest, students need to ask themselves what is the medium of the text? To what genre does it belong? What codes and conventions does the text employ? In this respect, teachers of history will need to introduce or build upon the literacy skills students have learning in language arts and English classes. With respect to audience, students need to inquire who is the target audience for this text? Who is not being addressed by it? How and why did it appeal to that audience? Finally, with respect to production, students need to try to develop answers to questions like who created the text? What techniques did they use? How was it marketed and distributed? What laws governed its production and consumption? In answers these questions, students begin to understand the meaning of the text itself and its place in the cultural context in which it was created. The impact of these questions goes beyond making meaning of the text itself. Societies are shaped by their communication technologies. So, understanding the meaning, audience, and production of a text teaches us not only about the text itself but about the culture in which it was created. As this chapter turns its attention to comic books, an important consideration to make is that society was shaped, at least in part, by the comics it produced. The use of innovative media literacy techniques in our history classes can help our students understand how media representations of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation affected society. Our understanding of the dynamic nature of literacy, too, reinforces the relevance of using comic books in the history classroom. If literacy shifts across generations then understanding how, why, and what people read in a given time period can give us a more complete (or perhaps a different) picture of the era itself. Considering the example of the postwar era in the United States, the answer to the question of which laws and policies governed comic book production shifted drastically after the Comic Code Authority was established in 1954. This led to a divergence of literacies of adults and adolescents between the 1940s and 1950s. The Comic Codes of the 1950s were an attempt to regulate a certain type of literacy and to dissuade a certain demographic from consuming a particular literary medium.

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This was hardly the beginning of the intergenerational divergence of literacies, but it does parallel the current divergence between the generation of digital natives and digital immigrants. In other words, the idea that literacy is not static, but changes over time is a relatively new and exciting frontier of historical study. The use of comic books as a primary source can be a valuable resource for researching how literacy has evolved. Historians can add to the understanding of language arts pedagogy by helping to develop a conceptual understanding of how cultural shifts lead to shifts in the ways that people read, both in the way people have made meaning of the texts with which they engage and in the texts they have chosen to consume. Another lesson can be learned from looking at the development of literacy education in recent years. Scholars continue to advocate for the inclusion of high-interest, meaningful texts that provide students with a choice and reflect the type of reading they most frequently choose for themselves. Just as language arts classrooms haven’t, history has not always privileged that sort of text with respect to the selection of primary evidence. This gap in the examination of primary evidence magnifies the importance of using texts like comic books in the history classroom. Previously anti-comic crusaders attempted to cast the image in the graphic texts as a “distraction” from more high-minded texts even though such texts, literacy scholars now argue, actually encourage students to practice making multimodal meanings of a text. These same sorts of prejudice have kept such texts out of the usual sources of primary data employed by historians. Comics are associated with childhood. This has made the medium a victim of ageism. However, when you are discussing the informally educative elements of Wonder Woman comics, for instance, this common stigma that has kept comics from being the object of serious study (and, likely, kept them from being cited as primary documentation in historical studies) makes them valuable in this capacity. What did mass-produced texts aimed at lower- and lower-middle class audiences of mainly children (at least in the 1950s) teach in their informally educative supplements? It may be the case that using comic books to teach literacy skills in the modern classroom is preparing students more efficiently for the type of meaning-making they will be performing outside of school. That being said, including comics in the history classroom is also providing primary data to help develop an understanding of traditionally under-examined historical groups. Art education scholarship, which obviously has a vested interest in promoting visual literacy skills, has done a better job than most other disciplines of embracing the multimodality of text. Studying works of visual art has led to an understanding that “all cultural sites that involve imagery include various ratios of other communicative modes and many employ more than vision.” 21 Stated even more starkly, “Visual images appear in contexts that are invariably multimodal.” 22 Works of visual art, even nonrepresentational art,

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often have, for instance, titles. For scholars involved in studying written literacy, that relationship isn’t nearly as clear. Words do not always appear in contexts that are (at least on their face) multimodal. That being said, it makes almost as little sense for literacy education to focus solely on the printed word as it does for art education to focus only on the visual image. Literacy education also needs to work to find its place within the discourse of visual culture. Words and pictures are, in most modern contexts, mutually supportive. Imagery and language always occur within a context. History, then, also needs to adjust its focus, as it is the job of the historians to reconstruct the context in which a given multimodal text was created. Reading the multimodal image requires an understanding of the context in which it was created, and looking at the patterns of multimodal images from an era can help us understand that context. In short, multimodal literacy is a necessary component to creating historical narratives. PART III: THE CASE OF WONDER WOMAN Children’s access to serial fiction and adult outrage to those texts runs in a seemingly perpetual cycle. Nineteenth-century librarians worked tirelessly to limit the availability of dime novels to children. At the turn of the twentieth century, the dime novel was gradually replaced with the series book, and the locus of the adults’ ire shifted with it. When comic books came to dominate children’s reading during World War II and the postwar, it was only a matter of time until adults turned their attention to regulating children’s access to the medium. Much of my own scholarly work has been dedicated to documenting these conflicts between children’s desires to read freely and widely and adults’ campaigns to shape children’s beliefs through media. Comic books were a particularly interesting case. During World War II, superhero comics dedicated themselves to promoting the war effort through fairly overt propaganda. The narratives frequently featured heroes like Captain America or Wonder Woman fighting the Japanese or Germans. Adults, if not directly encouraging comic reading, rarely objected to either the format of the medium or its content. By the mid-1950s, adult attitudes toward comics had shifted drastically. The Senate was holding hearings on the relationship between comic book reading and juvenile delinquency. Community organizations were gathering comics for public book burnings. The comic book industry was well on its way to adopting the strict Comic Book Code. Much of the vicious rhetoric surrounding comics focused on adult fears that comic books contributed to abnormal sexual behaviors and the subversion of traditional gender roles. As I was researching the shifts in the contents of comics from the World War II Era to the postwar with respect to visual depictions of gender, it

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occurred to me that my experience reading the volumes of reprinted comics is substantially different from the experiences of the children who read them off newsstands than when they were new. Those comics contained advertisements. They included calls to buy savings bonds for the war effort. They featured public service announcements asking for readers to encourage their mothers and sisters to become nurses. They included a number of supplemental features not included in reprints, but from which readers learned a great deal. I discovered in some old issues of Wonder Woman, nestled among these primary source treasures, two long-running supplemental features: “Wonder Women of History” and “Marriage à La Mode.” Throughout the 1940s, issues of Wonder Woman featured small vignettes dedicated to women’s history, entitled “Wonder Women of History.” These segments, each of between one and four pages in the length, profiled the historical accomplishments of a different woman, such as Sojourner Truth, Marie Curie, and Sacagawea. All told, there were fifty-seven “Wonder Women of History.” These ranged from the usual cast of characters (e.g., Joan of Arc) to the rather less popularized (e.g., Myra Colby Bradwell, first woman lawyer admitted to the bar in Illinois; Sarah Josepha Hale, first female editor of an American magazine; and Ellen Swallow Richards, first American woman to enroll in an institute of higher scientific learning). William Marston had initially created Wonder Woman as the female superhero that would inspire young girls to seek empowerment. Much can be (and certainly has been) made of Marston’s agenda of trying to usher in a radical feminist age in which men voluntarily relinquish all political control to women who were, naturally, more equipped to wield that power. “Wonder Women of History” was, in many respects, part of the educational push of the comic and sought to give readers, particularly young, female readers, knowledge of the contributions women had made in world history. In the end, the comic’s authors were promoting an educational agenda that differed substantially from that of the public school. For many students, “Wonder Women of History” was their first exposure to women’s history. Even if it wasn’t, it was directed at seriously different social aims than the sort of women’s history they were getting in school (see table 12.1). In his infamous 1953 book Seduction of the Innocent, Frederic Wertham charged Wonder Woman with giving girls “wrong ideas” about a woman’s place in society and promoting lesbianism in youth. After the Comic Code Authority was established by the industry in 1954 the writers and editors of Wonder Woman, presumably seeking distance from those critiques, jettisoned the “Wonder Women of History” feature in favor of “Marriage à La Mode,” a column that described marriage customs from around the world. This vignette selected a different culture each issue in which it was included; the segment appeared frequently, but not every month. The quasi-anthropological, informally educational piece provided a brief description of a mar-

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256 Table 12.1. Issue

“Wonder Woman of History” by Date and Issue Number

Date

Wonder Woman of History

1

Florence Nightingale

2

Clara Barton

3

Edith Cawell

4

Lillian D. Wald

5

Susan B. Anthony

6

Fall 1943

Madame Chiang Kai-Shek

7

Winter 1943

Joan of Arc

8

Spring 1944

Sister Elizabeth Kenny

9

Summer 1944

Jane Addams of Hull House

10

Fall 1944

Juliette Low

11

Winter 1944

Julia Ward Howe

12

Spring 1945

Helen Keller

13

Summer 1945

Sojourner Truth

14

Fall 1945

Abigail Adams

15

Winter 1945

Evangeline Booth

16

March–April 1946

Madame Curie

17

May–June 1946

Emma Willard

18

July–August 1946

Hannah Adams

19

September–October 1946

Elizabeth Blackwell

20

November–December 1946

Lucretia Mott

21

January–February 1947

Annie Oakley

22

March–April 1947

Sarah Bernhardt

23

May–June 1947

Amelia Earhardt

24

July–August 1947

Maria Mitchell

25

September–October 1947

Dolly Madison

26

November–December 1947

Carrie Chapman Catt

27

January–February 1948

Sacagawea

28

March–April 1948

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

29

May–June 1948

Dorothea Lynde Dix

30

July–August 1948

Nellie Bly

48

July–August 1951

Anne Dacier

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riage custom from that culture, usually as a way of marking its foreignness from the traditional American wedding. When viewed alongside one another, these supplements to the Wonder Woman provide a vivid example of the way that multimodal texts were employed as informally educational tools to shape young people’s notions of gender, and the way those texts were also shaped by the prevailing cultural attitudes of the society in which they were created. These comics were an extension of American youths’ personal worlds (not their academic worlds). This makes their function as educational texts different from the curricular materials in the classrooms. These are the materials over which students had ownership and pleasure. Students initially read the comic books as part of the “literary underlife” in the 1940s and 1950s. The school did not sanction comic reading, especially in the 1950s and beyond. These comics were books students were reading purely for fun. The educational insets in the comics, then, were marked different, in both tone and subject matter, to the sorts of history students were encountering in their classrooms. They were also visually marked as different from the comic superhero narratives within which they were located. The reading of these educational segments (especially in terms of literary sponsorship) is quite complex; they required a rather sophisticated set of multimodal literacy tools. Children, the primary audience at the time, read these comic books for amusement. As such, the tone could not be wholly didactic (though the visual signifiers of the segments indicated a shift in the function of the text). Children reading the comics were engaging in analyses of representation in the comic books. The books switched from the serialized fictional narrative to the one-page non-fictional insert. There were visual markers of this shift. Nevertheless, the iconography, especially when it came to “Wonder Women of History,” also attempted to establish a visual link between the accomplishments of the profiled historical figure and the actions of the female superhero in the comic narrative in which the historical vignette was embedded. In short, the educational supplements provide a powerful opportunity for modern students to practice analyzing how visual signifiers were used as demarcation of the featurettes as non-fictional and educational, while still linking them to the adventure narratives alongside which they were read. Framed differently, “Wonder Women of History” gives a unique opportunity to answer the “text” questions of the T.A.P. in order to apply multimodal textual analysis to primary historical popular culture texts. The sponsorship of the comics was also a complicated web of competing influences. Marston clearly had an agenda he was trying to advance with Wonder Woman comics. Of course, he didn’t have carte blanche to publish whatever he wished; the publishers had influence over what went into the books themselves, and the level of readership the comics maintained largely drove these decisions. Because of the sharp deviation between the aims of the comics and the public schools, though, government and other private influ-

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ences also mediated the content of the comics. Wertham’s charges of the lesbianism in Wonder Woman comics, coupled with the threats of direct censorship of the comics and the hostility of teacher’s and librarian’s journals to comic books as reading material for children, shaped the educational aims of the comics. As the threat of government censorship increased, comic publishers’ willingness to give creative license (especially when it came to gender politics) to comic authors waned. With Marston having died, there wasn’t really anyone left to fight for Wonder Woman as a vehicle for social change. You can see a palpable shift in the comics. Wonder Woman narratives became increasingly preoccupied with her alter-ego’s romantic entanglements with love interest Steve Trevor; “Marriage à La Mode” and its emphasis on matrimonial customs reflected the shift in emphasis of the narratives necessitated by Wertham’s critiques and the newly established Comic Code. The “Marriage à La Mode” sections of the comics in showcasing marriage traditions of ethnicities around the world illustrated that marriage was not simply an American institution, but a global one. Being a wife was not merely the proper aspiration of young girls in the United States, but was, rather, a role that girls in Central Africa, Korea, New Guinea, and the Navajo nations (among many others) sought. Analyses of “Marriage à La Mode,” reflecting a deliberate response to external attempts to shape comic book content, represent a chance for students to practice answering the “production” questions of the T.A.P. model, looking at how production constraints impacted the content of children’s media (see table 12.2). Paired in this way, there are remarkably powerful reasons making Wonder Woman comics useful for using multimodal literacy to teach women’s history. “Rosie the Riveter” iconography served as a model for the creation of Wonder Woman, and the way that the comics promoted progressive notions of the role of women in society, including and especially encouraging women to seek higher education as a pathway toward emancipation, typified the approach the comics took in the 1940s. There was a drastic shift as the Comics Code forced Wonder Woman to give up ideas of a radical feminist government, the symbolic “breaking of chains” (which was simultaneously psycho-sexual bondage imagery, as well as a visual metaphor for female liberation), the subtext of higher education for women, and the monthly nonfiction supplement. By having students examine the “Wonder Women of History” and “Marriage à La Mode” segments within the context of the larger comics and the educational and social histories of the two era in which they were published, the history teacher has an opportunity to sharpen students multimodal literacy skills while using the comics as primary historical documents to illustrate the shifting gender attitudes in the American postwar.

Using Multimodal Literacy to Teach Gender History through Comic Books Table 12.2.

259

“Marriage à La Mode” by Date and Issue Number

Issue

Date

Marriage à La Mode Segment

69

October 1954

Wedding Customs

70

November 1954

Wedding Customs for Southern Europe

71

January 1955

Wedding Customs

77

October 1955

Wedding Customs

78

November 1955

Wedding Customs

79

January 1956

Wedding Customs from White Russia, Central Asia, and the Middle Ages

81

April 1956

Wedding customs in Thuringia, China, Ancient Rome, and among the Hopi Indians

82

May 1956

Wedding Customs

83

July 1956

Wedding Customs

84

August 1956

Wedding Customs from the Cook Islands, Siberia, China, and about Midsummer Night

86

November 1956

Wedding Customs

89

April 1957

Wedding Customs in China, Hungary, Rumania, and India

90

May 1957

Wedding Customs from Germany, Mongolia, England, and New Guinea

91

July 1957

Wedding Customs in the Philippines, Bosnia, Tunisia, and India

92

August 1957

Wedding Customs from the Solomon Islands, Sikkim, Malaysia, and Java

94

November 1957

Marriage Customs in China, Morocco, ancient Greece, and Armenia

95

January 1958

Wedding Customs in Norway, Rumania, Russia, and New Guinea

96

February 1958

Wedding Customs in Syria, Ireland, Yucutan Peninsula, and South Africa

100

August 1958

Wedding Customs in Korea, New Guinea, Venezuela, and China

101

October 1958

Wedding Customs from Sicily, Thailand, Japan, and among the Plains Indians

102

November 1958

Basque, English, Czechoslovakian, and Indian weddings ceremonies

103

January 1959

Wedding Customs from Spain, France, Poland, and among Gypsies

106

May 1959

Wedding Customs from Norway, Java, Japan, and Turkey

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260 Issue

Date

Marriage à La Mode Segment

107

July 1959

Wedding Customs in Normandy, Siberia, Africa, and Hungary

108

August 1959

Wedding Customs in Hungary, Germany, Spain, and ancient Rome

110

November 1959

Wedding Customs from Cambodia, China, and among Inca Indians

112

February 1960

Wedding Customs from Ethiopia, Finland, the South Pacific, and Baluchistan

116

August 1960

Muslim, Dyak, Japanese, and Somali Wedding Customs

118

November 1960

Wedding Customs from Rwanda, Serbia, India, and South America

119

January 1961

Wedding Customs from Cambodia, Congo Free State, and Bermuda

SOME CONCLUDING REMARKS Some of the central questions with respect to popular media have concerned how has the concept of “woman” as a cultural construct changed over time and how literature and media influence ideas of femininity. A media studies approach to studying gender in popular media often has “students [analyzing] a variety of texts and media by applying feminist theory to construct meaning.” 23 In essence, that is similar to what I suggest doing with my Wonder Woman texts. However, we are applying these ideas to primary sources to get a sense of how these texts both reflected and shaped the notions of gender in which they were created. In moving the primary documentation away from written texts and toward multimodal ones, including TV, film, advertising, or even short featurettes nestled among the pages of old comic books, the history teacher makes the way that media shapes gender understandable and applicable. English and language arts teacher may teach students to “read gender.” That is a fine goal, but this particular project extends that concept to the teaching of history. It asks for students to “read gender” historically, applying visual literacy techniques to primary historical documents in an effort to understand how gender was constructed in the respective eras in which the documents were produced. This represents a three-pronged (at least, but not necessarily exclusively) instructional approach. First, we want students to understand that our notions of gender are shaped by the texts with which we engage. This was also, of course, true of children in the postwar era. The films we watch, the music we hear, and the books we read often mirror the gender attitudes of the culture in which they are created. Likewise, as children learn to read those texts, they learn the way that gender is coded in the culture in which they live. These

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texts serve as an informal education in gender. Studying multimodal texts from the past give us a deeper sense of the educational mechanisms by which certain culture values were transferred. Second, we want students to move beyond an understanding of history through secondary sources. Students need to understand that history is written by people who are examining primary evidence and providing an interpretation based on that evidence. The types of sources they choose to examine shape the conclusions to which they came. Multimodal sources, therefore, shape the historical discourse. As O’Connor argued thirty years ago, including visual texts can deepen and change our understanding of the past. Developing new tools for incorporating multimodal texts as primary documents can expand the documents that form the basis for our understanding of the past. Those tools can also change the way we use the documents we have to develop those historical narratives. Third, students can engage with history using a type of text that provides multimodal ways of reading. Of course, this is a complex issue. We want students to build multimodal literacy skills, in order to shape those skills for use in their future lives (or, indeed, current lives). We also want our courses to incorporate multimodal texts in order to maintain student interest. Students are accustomed to these sorts of texts, and we want to include relevant and engaging texts in the curriculum. That these are primary texts not frequently examined in the discipline is an added layer of relevancy, broadening the discourse itself. Visual history is, of course, a vibrant field, and social studies education can benefit from the broadened perspective created by the inclusion this type of text in the classroom. Gendered comics provide a new way of exploring the interplay between popular media and concepts of gender in the era in which they are created. History instruction can be transformed through the inclusion of multimodal primary texts in the classroom. This particular chapter advocated for the use of comic books to teach the gender history of the Postwar. Of course, increased use of multimodal texts as primary sources has the potential to enhance history instruction of any era and in areas other than gender. Indeed, increasing the focus on multimodal texts may provide avenues for new historical interpretations based on a wider range of primary evidence. Much work remains to be done, both by scholars of education who seek to develop new methods for approaching multimodal texts in the classroom and by historians seeking to incorporate new literacies and widen the theoretical lenses used for analyzing these multimodal primary texts.

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NOTES 1. John E. O’Connor, “History in Images/Images in History: Reflections on the Importance of Film and Television Study for an Understanding of the Past,” The American Historical Review 93, no. 5 (1988): 1200. 2. Ibid., 1201. 3. Donna E. Alverman, Shelley Hong Xu, and Marilyn Carpenter, “Children’s Everyday Literacies: Intersections of Popular Culture and LanguageArts Instruction,” Language Arts 81, no. 2 (2003): 145–154. 4. Ibid., 145–146. 5. Bonny Norton, “The Motivating Power of Comic Books,” The Reading Teacher 57, no. 2 (2003): 140. 6. Robert Kubey, “Media Literacy and the Teaching of Civics and Social Studies at the Dawn of the 21st Century,” American Behavioral Scientist 48, no. 1 (2004): 70. 7. Dale Jacobs, “More than Words: Comics as a Way of Teaching Multiple Literacies,” English Journal 96, no. 3 (2007): 22. 8. Rocco Versaci, “How Comic Books Can Change the Way Our Students See Literature,” English Journal 9, no. 2 (2001): 65. 9. Debbie Abilock, “A Seven-Powered Lens on 21st Century Literacy,” Multimedia Schools 10, no. 6 (2003): 32. 10. Robert Kubey, “Media Literacy and the Teaching of Civics and Social Studies at the Dawn of the 21st Century,” American Behavioral Scientist 48, no. 1 ( 2004): 70. 11. Kathy A. Mills, “Shrek Meets Vygotsky: Rethinking Adolescents’ Multimodal Literacy Practices in Schools,” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 54, no. 1 (2010): 36. 12. Norton, 141. 13. Jacobs, 25. 14. David Considine, Julie Horton, and Gary Moorman, “Teaching and Reading the Millennial Generation through Media Literacy,” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 52, no. 6 (2009): 472. 15. Jason Ohler, Digital Community, Digital Citizen. New York: Corwin, 2010. 16. Neil Postman, Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future. New York: Vintage Books, 1999: 91–92. 17. William Damon, “Reconciling the Literacies of Generations.” Daedalus 119:2 (1990): 33. 18. Gunther Kress, Carey Jewitt, Jon Ogborn, and Tsatsarelis Charalampos. Multimodal Teaching and Learning: The Rhetorics of the Science Classroom. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. 19. O’Connor, 1201. 20. Michael Lesy, “Visual Literacy,” The Journal of American History 94, no. 1 (2007): 144. 21. Paul Duncum, “Visual Culture Isn’t Just Visual: Multiliteracy, Multimodality, and Meaning,” Studies in Art Education 45, no. 3 (2004): 252. 22. Ibid., 254. 23. Laraine Wallowitz, “Reading as Resistance: Gendered Messages in Literature and Media,” English Journal 93, no. 3 (2004): 26.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Abilock, Debbie. “A Seven-Powered Lens on 21st Century Literacy: Instilling Cross-Disciplinary Visual, News Media, and Information-Literacy Skills.” Multimedia Schools 10, no. 6 (2003): 30–36. Alverman, Donna E. “Media, Information Communication Technologies, and Youth Literacies: A Cultural Studies Perspective.” American Behavioral Scientist 48, no. 1 (2004): 78–83.

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Alverman, Donna E. and Allison H. Heron. “Literacy Identity Work: Playing to Learn with Popular Media.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 45 no. 2 (2001): 118–122. Alverman, Donna E., Shelley Hong Xu, and Marilyn Carpenter. “Children’s Everyday Literacies: Intersections of Popular Culture and LanguageArts Instruction,” Language Arts 81, no. 2 (2003): 145–154. Considine, David, Julie Horton, and Gary Moorman. “Teaching and Reading the Millennial Generation through Media Literacy.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 52, no. 6 (2009): 471–481. Damon, William. “Reconciling the Literacies of Generations.” Daedalus 119, no. 2 (1990): 33–53. Duncum, Paul. “Visual Culture Isn’t Just Visual: Multiliteracy, Multimodality, and Meaning.” Studies in Art Education 45, no. 3 (2004): 252–264. Dyson, Anne Haas. “‘Welcome to the Jam’: Popular Culture, School Literacy, and the Making of Childhoods.” Harvard Educational Review 73, no. 3 (2003): 328–361. Kress, Gunther, Carey Jewitt, Jon Ogborn, and Tsatsarelis Charalampos. Multimodal Teaching and Learning: The Rhetorics of the Science Classroom. New York: Bloomsbury, 2014. Jacobs, Dale. “More than Words: Comics as a Way of Teaching Multiple Literacies.” English Journal 96, no. 3 (2007): 19–25. Kubey, Robert. “ Media Literacy and the Teaching of Civics and Social Studies at the Dawn of the 21st Century .” American Behavioral Scientist 48, no. 1 (2004): 69–77. Lesy, Michael. “Visual Literacy.” The Journal of American History 94, no. 1 (2007): 143–153. Mills, Kathy A. “Shrek Meets Vygotsky: Rethinking Adolescents’ Multimodal Literacy Practices in Schools.” Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy 54, no. 1 (2010): 35–41. Norton, Bonny. “The Motivating Power of Comic Books.” The Reading Teacher 57, no. 2 (2003): 140–147. O’Connor, John E. “History in Images/Images in History: Reflections on the Importance of Film and Television Study for an Understanding of the Past.” The American Historical Review 93, no. 5 (1988): 1200–1209. Ohler, Jason. Digital Community, Digital Citizen. New York: Corwin Press, 2010. Paul, Peter V. and Ye Wang. “Literate Thought and Multiple Literacies.” Theory into Practice 45, no. 4 (2006): 304–310. Postman, Neil. Building a Bridge to the 18th Century: How the Past Can Improve Our Future. New York: Vintage Books, 1999. Sewell, William C. and Shawn Denton. “Multimodal Literacies in the Secondary English Classroom.” The English Journal 100, no. 5 (2011): 61–65 Versaci, Rocco. “How Comic Books Can Change the Way Our Students See Literature.” English Journal 91, no. 2 (2001): 61–67 Wallowitz, Laraine. “Reading as Resistance: Gendered Messages in Literature and Media.” English Journal 93, no. 3 (2004): 26–31. Williams, Rachael Marie-Crane. “Image, Text, and Story: Comics and Graphic Novels in the Classroom.” Art Education 61, no. 6 (2008): 13–19.

Chapter Thirteen

Exploring the Intersections of Social Identity, Popular Culture, and Men in Early Childhood Education Kenya Wolff, Melissa Chapman, and Josh Thompson

Recently comedic actor Eddie Murphy welcomed his ninth child into the world. On this joyous occasion he told reporters that he doesn’t plan on changing any of his daughter’s diapers. While this may not come as a surprise to many, given traditional cultural expectations of fatherhood, it was a shocking admission coming from the man who starred in Daddy Day Care. 1 Eddie Murphy took on the role of Charlie Hinton, marketing executive turned home child care provider. In the film, Charlie chastises his buddy for not being willing to change his son’s diaper. This film is not the first to rely heavily on the “fish out of water/man in a woman’s world” scenario (i.e., Mr. Mom, 2 Three Men and a Baby, 3 etc.) for comedic effect. But it is the first film to showcase the world of child care. It is also the first film to explore the issue of men in early childhood education, a topic of interest to those seeing equity and quality in early childhood care and education. According to the 2016 US Bureau of Labor Statistics, men make up only 4.5 percent of child care workers and only 2.4 percent of preschool and kindergarten teachers. 4 For several years, many teacher education programs and school districts have formally and aggressively attempted to recruit male teachers for younger children, with limited success. Societal biases regarding gender and the teaching of young children, along with low prestige and low pay have played a large role in keeping men out of the field. 5 This paper will examine discourses found in Daddy Day Care and juxtapose these discourses within the literature and the lived experiences of men teaching and caring for 265

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young children. Very often these experiences, coupled with the challenges that accompany all early childhood education teachers differ from the humorous images portrayed in Hollywood movies. Throughout this chapter, we include reports from the field using participant/observer personal ethnography. 6 These self-reports are recorded here by Josh Thompson, a sixty-one-year-old father of four adult children, grandfather of seven grandchildren all under eight years old, husband of one, married for thirty-five years. PUBLIC PEDAGOGY In our teaching early childhood education courses, it never ceases to amaze us at the number of references to this film that are made by students. Just recently while teaching an undergraduate course, one author overheard a young student talking to group, “Developmentally appropriate practice is just like when the dads in Daddy Day Care turned their teaching around and starting asking the kids what they wanted to do.” Later that same week while teaching a different class about early child care program models, a student explained to the class that a “home child care center is what they had in Daddy Day Care.” Similar looks of recognition came across students’ faces as they shared what Oprah Winfrey has called an “aha moment.” 7 What amazes us about this is that Daddy Day Care came out in 2003. This movie is thirteen years old, which means that many of our students were around six or seven years old at that time. Yet, for whatever reason, it has had a huge impact on them and a generation. This is important because we view the film as public pedagogy. Informed by the work of Antonio Gramsci and Stuart Hall, we posit that cultural studies, including popular culture, can be a powerful site for educational research. Furthermore, we can utilize films like Daddy Day Care to examine public discourse, as well as to study the impact of broader social forces that are circulating. Along the same lines, Shane Gunster has argued that we cannot effectively teach critical pedagogy unless we first take into account the cultural knowledge that students bring with them prior to entering our classroom. 8 Daddy Day Care is the only mainstream film that exists and focuses solely on the topic of child care. While this film is a comedy and was not intended to educate the public on the issues surrounding the care and education of young children, it very well may be the general public’s only exposure to the topic. Jeanne Brady stated, “We must become more attentive to the various pedagogical sites (both in and out of schools) in which the politics of remembering and forgetting produce different narratives of a national past, present and future.” 9 Along the same lines, Wright and Saldin argued that popular culture “can bring about learning that is far more powerful,

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lasting, and lifelong than learning in formal educational settings and other traditionally researched areas of teaching and learning. It must also be a site for ever-expanding educational research into that learning.” 10 While we understand that this film trades on gross generalizations about men for laughs, we do believe that these “generalizations” are important to examine, as they are based on cultural stereotypes and gender norms that have long been passed on from generation to generation. These discourses about men in early childhood education and child care will be explored in this chapter. In Daddy Day Care, Charlie Hinton (Murphy) is a laid-off, high-paid advertising executive who has little time for his four-year-old son. When he loses his job he is forced to remove his son from a pretentious (i.e., they learn German so they can better interpret Freud, sit at desks in straight lines, and prep for their SATs) and high-cost ($28,000 USD per year) preschool. Hinton’s wife returns to the workforce as a high-paid lawyer and the couple searches their city for reasonably priced child care options. What they run into is nothing new to American parents who face similar challenges. The affordably priced options are either scary (think chain smoker in a run-down trailer park cliché) or there is a waiting list that one needed to get on prior to the child’s conception. These issues, known together as the “child care trilemma” 11 identify the three largest challenges that exist for parents in the United States: finding quality, affordability, and accessibility of child care. Charlie Hinton decided that he will take care of his son, and in doing so figures that if he can watch other children he may be able to bring in enough extra money to keep his family financially afloat. He convinces his best friend who has also been let go from the marketing firm to join him, and Daddy Day Care is launched. Thompson’s reasons to teach young children came out of a loving, nurturing home environment where caregiver was modelled as the right thing to do, regardless of gender. 12 His decision to pursue a career in teaching resided in two simple life choices: 1. JOY! He decided early on in life to pursue joy and happiness as a model for optimal success. These motives were not hedonistic, egotistical, or self-serving, but instead aligned with a sense of community, service to others, and a quest for others to also find their joy, passion, and happiness. 2. As a left-handed, creative tempered being, he sought out non-conformity as the default option. He always tried the other option, tested the limits, and desired risk and novelty. He started working with young children regularly and professionally at eighteen years old. He cared for a three-year-old niece for five months when her parents worked, and added three other young children to the daily routine.

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Later, he taught music a few days a week in what is now a NAEYC accredited center for toddlers and young children. His first full-time teaching position was in a Montessori elementary classroom. After five years, he moved up to teaching three- to six-year olds, where he stayed for fourteen years. All four of his own children went through his three- to six-year-old classroom. Philosophically and theologically, he embraces the Platonic tripartite definition of being: “I am a spirit being. I have a soul. I occupy a body. The spirit part of me is essential, my true self, my identity. It is immortal. And it is gender-neutral” (see Galatians 3:28, “there is neither male nor female”). 13 METHODOLOGY The authors watched the movie Daddy Day Care several times, then downloaded the script and unitized it in order to analyze the data. Unitizing, as defined by Lincoln and Guba 14 is the smallest part of information about something that can stand alone. This not only facilitated analysis but also assisted in the organization of large amounts of data into sizable chunks. Each chunk of data was read and, using a pencil, a bracket was drawn around each section to indicate that it was a unit. The units were numbered and then cut out and placed on index cards. Each index card was coded in order to make referencing the original interview transcript possible. All units were coded, and the emerging themes were compared with each other looking for discursive themes categories. This process is referred to as “constant comparison.” 15 Memos were recorded in a journal after the transcription, coding, and unitizing of interviews during the analytical phase. The memos within the journal included a) reaction(s) to a particular interview or piece of data, b) a thought regarding the data’s relation to the theoretical lens, c) a shift or problem with the methodology, d) emphasis or thoughts on particular data that directly answered specific research questions. After the index cards were created, they were checked and re-checked. New and emerging themes were compared to the existing ones. When no new themes emerged, it was assumed that the data had met the saturation point and the themes were identified as patterns, categories. 16 These themes pertaining to men in early childhood, were further broken down into subcategories, which allowed for deeper analysis. The following themes were identified: low prestige/social status in early childhood; low pay for the work; low expectations/ requirements; questionable motives/only pedophiles want to work with young children; gender bias/early childhood education is “women’s work”; and gender bias/males are more fun and less competent. Once these themes were identified, the authors compared the themes with existing literature on the subject to look for similarities and contradictions.

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Low Prestige “But is this really how you want to spend the rest of your life? As a businessman, you’d have money, power, respect? You going to throw that all away to baby-sit a bunch of four-year-olds?” 17 This quote comes straight from Daddy Day Care but according to many men in the field of Early Childhood Education and Care, it could have come from a number of their friends and family members. 18 While we give lip service to the idea that children are our future and the most important investment we can make, in reality public perception of the role of caregiver and early childhood educator does not match this sentiment. Caregivers in the field of early childhood education are often referred to as “day care workers” and thought of as “babysitters.” The following scene from the movie highlights public perceptions around child care workers. Charlie and Phil run into their old boss who had let them go, who also is the father of Crispin, a child in their home child care center. FORMER BOSS: How do you know my kid? CRISPIN’S MOM: They’re his day care teachers, what do you think? FORMER BOSS: Day care? That’s what it is? Oh, my God. You’re wiping boogers for a living. Losers. 19

Women wanting to break through the glass ceiling into traditionally male careers do so in the pursuit of higher status and pay. Men who are interested in traditionally female careers tend to do so at the expense of personal prestige and pay. Women wanting to be physicians are rewarded with both higher social status and a bigger pay check. Men in nursing settle for less pay and prestige. For example, although Charlie Hinton is beginning to enjoy his new position as child care provider, he still feels pangs of loss at the power and prestige he has given up. The following scene takes place as his wife drives away in his sports car (he is left with the family mini-van) and he is left at home. SON: Remember when you used to work all the time? CHARLIE: Yeah, back when I had a real job. SON: Do you miss work? CHARLIE: I guess. I suppose so. I miss it. But don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I don’t like hanging out with you guys. It’s just that Daddy used to be a big shot down at work. I had my own office and a big, pretty view. Remember that big, pretty view Daddy had? A lot of cool things about that job . . . I had people working underneath me . . . and, just between you and me, the pay wasn’t that bad either. 20

In his field notes, Thompson reminds us that teaching is a noble and honorable profession. Teaching young children is equally valid and prestigious as teaching older children, or adults, or so he would hope and believe.

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But he recognized ways he managed other people’s misconceptions of his work; for example, instead of saying caregiver or day care worker, he turned the phrase, “I’m a Montessori teacher” as a term of power and prestige. Being a child of the 1960s, he was acutely aware of his position of power as a white, middle-class, educated male in the mid-twentieth century. He had choices. He had options. He intentionally activated his Privilege Card, not as a power trip over others, but instead, in his heart, he was exercising his options flagrantly as a method of modelling agency and authority for others to do so likewise. Low Pay Pay and prestige certainly go hand in hand in the United States. Low pay has also been listed as one of the reasons that men are less likely to go into early childhood education. According to Moss, the younger the child, the more gendered the field. And in the United States, the younger the child, the lower the salary. This is certainly the case when we look at certified teachers versus child care workers. 21 Child care workers are not only reported as making on average $3 less than janitors, only half of child care workers report having medical benefits. A recent study from the University of California found that 46 percent of child care workers qualify and utilize government assistance programs such as food stamps or Medicaid. 22 While the issue of low pay was explored in the movie, Charlie ultimately decides to leave his high-paying, highly prestigious job for a career in early childhood. Charlie made a decision in spite of the low pay. This is consistent with what the research that says about low pay not being the sole reason that men aren’t in early childhood education. If low pay were the only reason men didn’t enter the field, then there would be more men in early childhood education in countries with higher pay. This has not been the case in Denmark, Finland, and New Zealand, where child care is still viewed as women’s work. 23 Many men can be found working in low-pay jobs (fast food, temporary positions, or general labor positions); more men tend to enter them because they are socially accepted.

Table 13.1. Salary Comparison among Practitioners in the Early Childhood Education Field Average Yearly Salary

Hourly Rate

Child Care Worker

$20,320 per year

$9.77

Preschool Teacher

$28,570 per year

$13.57

Elementary School Teacher

$53,627 per year

N/A

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Thompson’s field notes reflect this as well. The man who preceded him in his first full-time elementary classroom left education to become an insurance salesman. Thompson always felt so sad for him, and used his story as a cautionary tale to make this job work for him and his family. Soon after his first child was born, he mentioned to his dad how he could see how it would be possible to give up his own dreams and aspirations to take care of his family obligations. He remembers driving in a car at the time, and his father asked him to stop, his hand on the dashboard; his father said, “The best thing you bring to your family is your passion. Never quit doing what you love.” Another example was one incident that came from working with a group of five-year-old kindergartners. Thompson was sitting in a small group, three or four children and himself. They were discussing work and the jobs done by their parents. Most children mentioned fathers, but some of the mothers of children at the table were also employed outside the home. Suddenly, one child picked up his head and asked, “Do you have a job, Mr. Thompson?” Low Expectations/Requirements “You seem smart, talented, highly ambitious. What on earth are you doing running a day care center?” 24 Those words come from Miss Harridan, the snooty prep school headmistress in the film. She is trying to convince Charlie to give up his child care center because he has poached some of her clients. Miss Harridan is verbalizing this perception that child care is for people who have limited options. Professionals wouldn’t waste their time with young children. In reality, this is simply incorrect. Many men who enter early childhood education have been previously successful in fields such as banking, business, law enforcement, and the armed forces. 25 However, we have an educational system that privileges the teaching of older children and undervalues working with young children. Professionals in the field have argued that in order to gain respect, one must simply push for higher caregiver qualifications and that this will also impact quality for children. These discourses centered around the need to professionalize the early childhood work force. 26 Yet, in reality without a shift in public perception and increased government funding for child care, this perception will not change. Simply creating higher educational qualifications will not change perception. We offer this sad fact as proof: early childhood education is the college major that leads to the lowest pay over a lifetime. 27 It’s almost as if people do not see teachers of young children as real teachers. Over and over in the film, the term “real job” is used to differentiate between child care and the “real world.” One of the most prolific lines of the movie is also one of the most telling. Charlie has decided to quit his “real job” after being rehired and he is giving a speech to the children, explaining that he is reopening his home child care business: “Any boob can run a day-

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care center but it takes a family to raise kids.” 28 Certainly from the movie, it appears as if “any boob” can run a home child care center. As Thompson’s field notes remind us that in spite of this belief, it is intellectually challenging to do child care work well. Many aspects of early education are intuitive. Many attributes, attitudes, and skills can be picked up along the way, without formal training or education. Parenting, and thereby early child care education, is ubiquitous; every child has a mother and a father, and two sets of grandparents, at least biologically. Montessori training, particularly, alerted him to the tremendous intelligence, focus, and study of young children that is required of competent, relevant teachers of young children. It was membership in the Teacher Research Network in the early 1990s that prompted him eventually to seek doctoral studies. Only Pedophiles Want to Work with Young Children Beyond limited pay and status, men wanting to break into a traditionally female workforce also face questions about their own sexuality and their ability to do the job adequately. 29 In the movie Daddy Day Care, Charlie and Phil encounter a parent who voices a common opinion that appears throughout the literature. CHARLIE: We are two loving, caring parents. We run a day care center. PARENT: You’re a couple of sickos! 30

A couple of lines that lead up to a funny scene in a movie, and yet a couple of lines that lead to an unfortunate reality many males in early childhood experience. Numerous studies have found the theme of males being perceived as pedophiles for entering early childhood, a field determined as “woman’s work.” 31 Take for instance, on his blog, Sam Strange wrote the following in his review of the movie: Daddy Day Care imagines a fantasy world in which this problem need not be so severe. It also imagines a fantasy world in which men are as responsible and loving as women. And then it imagines a fantasy world in which men do not rape children. That pretty much takes us down the checklist, ladies. 32

Charlie and Phil face parents who are resistant to let them care for their children because they are seen as potential sexual predators. In actuality, it is much more likely for a young child to be abused at home. In 90 percent of child abuse, the adult who commits the crime is the parent, relative, or neighbor. 33 It is understandable that parents are protective of their children, but making gross over-generalizations about all men doesn’t protect children. What does it mean to be a man? What are the expectations of men? The term masculinity and its associated expectations can be characterized differ-

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ently based on numerous factors: social setting, community, workplace, family values, and so on. 34 Sumsion 35 offers that an individual’s decision of what determines masculinity is based on his own particular journey in life through these circumstances. Jane Kenway implies these various factors, “offer a range of ways of being male, but separately and together privilege some as superior.” 36 Applying this principle, we get an idea of how the definition of masculinity would be perceived differently in our society based on age or sexual orientation. 37 Academic literature is rife with examples of this. R. W. Connell describes this phenomenon as hegemonic masculinity, or the idyllic form of masculinity in a particular society. 38 Tyson Smith and Michael Kimmel further argue “this hegemonic definition becomes the standard against which all other masculinities are to be measured and evaluated.” 39 Kenway proposes specific characteristics of what this looks like in our culture: “Hegemonic masculinity is associated with the hard, the dry and the strong . . . physical strength, instrumental skills, public knowledge, discipline reason, objectivity, rationality and competition.” 40 Therefore, we are measuring men who choose to go into early childhood against the qualities of masculinity that are popular in our culture and that come almost exclusively from forces of media. Due to the inundation of social media on cultural perspectives, the term and visual image of masculinity has been predetermined as how society views “masculine.” William Hewitt implies that males in the United States are “products of society’s assumptions about what it means to ‘be a man.’” 41 We see images on television, photos on social media pages, and magazines that are used to guide our definition of masculinity in an almost invisible manner. As a result, the identity we have attached to men is one of power, force, and sexual predators. Charlie Owen argues that the media sends a message that men are dangerous to children, providing images of them as “predatory strangers.” 42 These representations of what it means to be a man go almost “unnoticed” by the average individual. They are simply seen as a form of entertainment at the time and then easily forgotten. The reality? These images are shaping our definitions, viewpoints, and the very assumptions of what it takes to be a “man.” Jennifer Sumsion submits three assumptions reflecting popular culture views on masculinity that relate directly back to the characterization of males in early childhood being pedophiles: perceptions of males as non-discriminating playboys and sexual adventurers, as sexual predators and competitors, and as potential abusers of sexual power. 43 Because of these assumptions, all based in a sexual connotation, it appears almost obvious why our culture deemed early childhood as “woman’s work.” 44 Our society deems it acceptable for women to show affection physically to young students, and yet unacceptable for men to do so because of the possibility of sexual abuse. 45 “James,” a former early childhood teacher,

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discussed his own personal experience after a career of being placed under the microscope for showing affection to his students: “Before, it would be nothing for children to come up to me and there would be all this warmth and empathy. But now I just feel like holding them all at arm’s length and saying, ‘Don’t come near me. Don’t touch me. Just stay away from me.’” 46 Another teacher discussed his biggest fear of being seen as a child abuser. His recourse was to team up with a female teacher as much as possible to combat this potential stereotype. 47 In another situation, a teacher discussed his discomfort of children coming to him and sitting in his lap. This teacher stated that it was not the action of the children that made him uncomfortable, but what adults passing his classroom might think. 48 In the movie we saw this same scene played out when the “dads” were having a discussion with a prospective parent. PEGGY: “Wait. Don’t you believe in equality amongst the sexes? Can’t men do everything women can do?” CHARLIE: “No, we can’t. It’s unnatural. Little bit eeky.” 49

Again, we see this “unnatural” connotation that men caring for children is uncomfortable and strange. Connections between homosexuality and pedophilia are almost congruent in the fear-based idea of an early childhood male instructor being a sexual predator. “Associated with the concern over pedophiles is a homophobia which questions the sexuality of any man who wants to work in child care” 50 implying that all homosexual men abuse children. This premise of males in early childhood being homosexual is one found across this literature. 51 With the ongoing argument of early childhood being “women’s work” the connotation of a man in this field is that he is feminine, and ultimately gay. “James” decided to start wearing a wedding ring as a symbol that he was not gay. 52 Based on views seen on television and social media, there is the assumption of males being strong forces, obsessed with power, who are the lead financial contributor of the family. This hegemonic masculinity mentality could influence the viewpoint of males being pedophiles, for lack of any “good” reason to choose early childhood. Discussing a former early childhood educator, Sumsion discussed how the choice to move into this field “violated his community’s expectations of masculinity which, in relation to work, emphasized providing financially for dependents through manual labour or mechanical or technical competence, in short by having a ‘man’s’ job.” 53 Therefore, by selecting a career with low pay, one that is not deemed a man’s job, it causes suspicions among our culture as to motivation behind selecting the career. 54 Low pay, no social clout, so why wouldn’t they be pedophiles?

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Thompson commented on these notions in his field notes. While the presumption of pedophilia was never foisted upon him directly, he was aware of these false notions within the culture. His protection against false accusation was a robust safety procedure; he generally taught as a part of a team. He always provided for two-deep leadership. Whenever either child care provider needed to assist a child alone in the bathroom or walking out of the classroom, the procedure was rigorous: tell the other exactly when you left and when you returned, maintain line-of-sight with others, and communicate with parents in a detailed, timely manner. In a proactive stance against potential homophobic reactions to a man working with young children, he often quickly identified himself as a heterosexual, monogamous parent with a quip something like, “My children are in my class.” Even with these precautions, one parent told Thompson how the parent was uncomfortable initially with the idea of a man caring for his son in the three- to six-year-old classroom, but “then I met Josh.” 55 That parent withdrew from prejudice on the basis of informed personal opinion. Perhaps equally as shocking is that these viewpoints/assumptions are held not only by those outside the discipline of education, but by the very individuals working in the field. In a study of twenty-four female pre-service early childhood educators, one individual reported that it would depend on her own child’s gender if a male preschool teacher would be acceptable. 56 If she had a son, yes. If she had a daughter, no. Another reported that it is the role of a preschool teacher to be a caregiver and men were incapable of this role. 57 Our society’s view of hegemonic masculinity has also penetrated the very males working in the field of early childhood. Referring back to “James,” he discussed his own feelings of anxiousness associating with other men in the field that could potentially be pedophiles stating, “I know that I am all right but I can’t know for sure about them.” 58 Another male in the field stated, “God, do they [other adults] all think I’m a pervert because I’m bouncing this little girl on my knee?” 59 Thus literature and the media unfairly labels all males in early childhood as sinister and operating with an alternative motive of abuse toward children. Perhaps until our own culture shifts its definition of masculinity and what it takes to “be a man” will this ever change. Early Childhood Education Is “Women’s Work” In a culture driven by equality, it is interesting the gap that still exists in regards to child care. This gap is noted not only in respects to fewer male teachers in early childhood, but in family units at home regarding man parenting. In the movie Daddy Day Care, a mother displays shock that a fellow mom is leaving her son with the “daddies.” She responds, “You have trouble

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with them being guys? Are you from the Dark Ages? Aren’t you for gender equality and all that jazz? 60 Consider one man’s view after having to get his children ready for school and nursery by himself. “I just don’t think it’s any job for a man. I adore my children, but I like them most when my wife is there to do all the fiddly stuff and I can just do any catching, cuddling and heavy lifting that may be required. . . . One-way ticket to the 1950s please.” 61 Is it deemed unnatural for men to care for young children because of the 1950s? Because it has always been that way? Possibly. There are also many other theories presented. • Women are created to be caregivers, more so than males. • Women typically earn less than men and are more apt to stay home if child care becomes too expensive. • Women tend to feel guiltier than men in regards to leaving their children to go to work. • Cultural expectations from family for the mother to discontinue working after having a baby. • Society expectation for men to be the sole provider for their family. 62 For example, after switching to part-time work to share child care with his wife, Gideon Burrows found that it was not that men could not do childcare, but that they did not want too. “The truth is that men don’t really want to do child care, and are successfully using convenient excuses to avoid it.” 63 With some, or all of these components being true, it is easy to see how this idea of it being unnatural for men to be in early childhood has developed . . . because men typically do not have this type of parenting responsibility with their own children. Parents see it unnatural for males to be early childhood teachers because they automatically assume their child’s teacher will be female. 64 What Peeters refers to as “gender mechanism” 65 provides the understanding on how this assumption was brought to fruition. Gender mechanism acknowledges the understanding of how gender affects child care and its constructs. First, early childhood teachers pass along their own cultural construction of gender identity in their role of being male or female. 66 Secondly, according to Cameron et al., gender impacts the “historical and pedagogical understandings of why child care exists, how it is conducted and organized, and what is gender appropriate.” 67 These understandings have progressed and changed over time 68 resulting in early childhood being deemed more mother’s work solely based on the “concept of care” being a maternal role. 69 In the early childhood environment, teachers are called upon to exhibit what is considered maternal roles (nurture, care, encourage, etc.) that are traditionally labeled characteristics found in females rather than males. Bar-

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nard et al. 70 refereed to the gender stereotype that woman can create a more nurturing environment than their male counterparts. In relation to early child care female teachers, “Women workers were referred to as providing a ‘maternal role,’ ‘more in-depth caring and nurturing.’” 71 One pre-professional early childhood education student offered the perspective that children themselves think of their female teachers as mothers and that they long for the care of their mothers when they are at school. 72 This reference to the maternal role in early childhood has been a detriment to encouraging males in both parenting and early childhood. “Men do not feel like pitting themselves again the woman-mother version of care in early childhood education and care.” 73 Cameron et al. hold that we need to separate child care from “mothering” before we can adequately create a gender neutral culture in early childhood. 74 Until that culture emerges, many parents do not feel comfortable relying on males to emulate this nurturing environment defined by our culture for their child. This theme also creates an interesting juxtaposition from the last. Parents deem males incapable of nurturing or imitating those characteristics provided by women, therefore making them incapable of being successful early childhood teachers. And yet, we spent pages discussing nurturing men being labeled as pedophiles. Is there a magic line where males could be nurturing and/or “mothering” enough and yet not nurturing enough to be considered a pedophile? In contrast with our heroes from Daddy Day Care who accidently stumbled into their engaging relations with young children, Fred Rogers intentionally created a public pedagogy phenomenon through innovating in early education on a number of fronts. Primarily he is known for pioneering the use of television as a mass media tool to engage young children in meaningful, purposeful activities in the daily PBS television show Mister Rogers Neighborhood (1968–2001). His success in communicating and connecting across the airwaves originated in his view of the child as competent, intelligent, and a worthy communicative partner. Even though the “communication” was one-way, children felt heard, as if their social and emotional state was acknowledged and valued. Despite his success connecting with young children, his effeminate style and demeanor became a derogatory view of masculinity. His style was considered “coddling” or “baby talk” by some and not valued as engaging and relational for the young child. However popular digital combat has become, a much older type of American manhood continues to be highly valued—represented by a 143-pound minister who displays tenderness, nurturing, and the human desire for connection and cooperation. Appearing on made-for-analog programs, Fred Rogers offers none of the excitement and adrenaline-producing action that digital combat creates. Calming, and relaxing his viewers, he is generally considered to be America’s favorite surrogate father. 75

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A corollary to the notion that early education is women’s work is the view of women as “gatekeepers” to their children, either their own or their students. This is often equated with the “mother bear” syndrome of protection and isolation from threats to her progeny. Men sometimes report being permitted or allowed into care for their own children, or to establish rapport with a class of children in their care. At other times, they are shut out, expected to be incompetent or uninterested in learning how to care for children. Once again, Thompson’s field notes reflect this notion in his experience. 76 He explains that mentoring has long been established as an ideal entry into a profession. His first true teaching mentor was Mrs. Betty Martin, Director of the weekday school for three-, four-, and five-year-olds where he taught music. Only in retrospect, many decades hence, can he look back and see her caring hand guide him through the profession he has enjoyed and in which he has seen much success. Betty mentored him on three levels. First, Betty welcomed him as a new music teacher, with specific needs to manage materials, equipment, schedules, content knowledge, and skill development of the children and their teachers, balanced with public output such as putting on a pretty good program for Mothers’ Day and other holidays. Next, Betty welcomed him into the early childhood profession with high expectations for classroom management, parent/teacher interactions, ongoing professional development, and collegial responsibilities toward other teachers. These high expectations came with many forms of scaffolding, modelling, supervision, and just the right amount of confidence where she would leave him to work his own way out of a corner. Finally, the ultimate gift, Betty helped him identify how to navigate the female-dominated field of early childhood education as male. She alerted him to this closed notion of teaching young children as woman’s work and provided tools to engage families in ways that turned the conversation to be about the child, and not about the gender of the teacher. Males Are More Fun and Less Competent As the daddies begin their initial kick off of Daddy Day Care, it appears the individuals concerned with their ability to successfully work with children is founded. There is constant turmoil with kids running around as if completely unsupervised and in total control, instead of their providers running the show. In these first few days of Daddy Day Care, we watch a common theme unfold on the screen that is expressed in our own cultural views: Men are just less capable of taking care of the needs of children. A scene in the movie shows Miss Harridan, the snooty headmistress of a prep school, confronting Charlie about her concern for his lack of experience with taking care of children. In a condescending tone, she proclaims that any dummy can be a parent but watching other people’s children is a calling.

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The media is full of examples that “dumb down” the abilities of fathers. Think of popular television shows within the last few decades: The Flinstones, The Simpsons, Everybody Loves Raymond, Family Guy, Married with Children, or Mad Men. The depictions are of fathers presented as clueless, inept, crazy, or just plain stupid. For example, there is a scene in Daddy Day Care when Phil refuses to help change his son who has taken a bowel movement after being constipated for over a week. A few years ago, a similar television commercial for Huggies Diapers alludes to this same thing claiming, “To prove Huggies can handle just about anything, we put them to the toughest test imaginable: dads, alone with their babies, in one house, for five days.” 77 Thompson’s field notes 78 express similar thoughts coming from his own life, not professional experience. He recollects that while his own father probably never changed a diaper, his older brothers were proactive with all manner of care, dressing, cooking, and changing diapers. He explains that he probably changed a diaper of a niece or nephew when he was twelve or so. One working procedure in his home is “Atari,” which is Japanese for “I found it”; whoever finds the soiled diaper changes it. Constant representation in the media of men being completely incapable of handling children has trickled into the world of education by making the assumption that men in those positions will act the same way. This interpretation is also detrimental in the future of men going into early childhood education. Campbell states, Negative general portrayals of fathers/husbands/men in TV commercials and sitcoms contributes to a decrease in men wanting to assume those roles in society, and creates the impression among others that men need not assume such roles anyway, that such simply aren’t important (as interviewed by Peterson). 79

This theme also stretches to include the impression that men are more fun than competent. In media, television, and movies there is an impression of “fun” covering up each facet of their alleged incompetence in being a child care provider. In an online live chat session sponsored by the Illinois Early Learning Project, Dr. Brent McBride responded to a question from a session participant based on movies portraying the stereotype of men being “fun” and not competent: [Nancy AL]: Do you think television shows or films that portray men caring for children in a “cute” way, such as Kindergarten Cop or Three Men and a Baby, encourage the idea that it’s funny to have men involved with babies and young children? [Brent McBride]: . . . I get irritated when I see these shows because they just reinforce negative stereotypes. Men are just as capable of providing competent

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Liss and Schiffrin 81 mentioned Daddy Day Care as one of many examples where media portrays fathers as being inept when first controlling children. After an unsuccessful attempt to discuss the “mission statement” with the children in Daddy Day Care, disaster ensues. The children are served a lunch full of snack cakes and donuts, which leads to kids jumping on the piano, calling 911, bouncing on the couch, watching an inappropriate television show, drinking bubbles, hanging on the curtains, running with glass, tearing up pillows, and one of the dads getting stabbed with a pair of scissors. This same themes can be seen in other movies, such as Kindergarten Cop, Three Men and a Baby, Game Plan, and Mr. Mom. After a set of disastrous events, the men begin to “figure it out” and the movie changes from calamity to what appears to be a lot of “fun.” The films villain and competitor, Miss Harridan, expresses concern when this shift happens, exclaiming, “They’re selling fun. I can’t compete with fun.” 82 Harridan is quick to acknowledge the difference in students’ reactions to different learning opportunities in Daddy Day Care that appear to be based on fun (football games, puppet shows, singing, etc.). This phenomenon is one found in the literature as well. Roberts and Moseley discuss that fathers tend to be more playful and based on humor, which turns out to be very beneficial for children. 83 Fathers interacting in the form of play can lead to a child learning “emotional self-control” and understanding how to build and maintain relationships. 84 In the field of early childhood, Owen gives this notion of “play” as means of trepidation for males. Men, it was said, were more likely to play football, to do things outside and to “muck about.” They “let the kids get on with it” and “are not inhibited by risk.” . . . Parents reflect the observation that men in the home do the “fun” child care and women do the routine nurturing: the women are described as providing the essential care while the men are “helping.” 85

Wardle believes when male early childhood instructors precipitate this quality as fathers playing with their children into the classroom, it goes against the very nature of how early childhood programs operate with, “quiet, sedentary activities that create a minimum of mess.” 86 If this culture continues in the early childhood classroom of “an insistence on quiet, no rough-andtumble play, restrictive outdoor play rules, no messy activities, no indoor gross-motor activities, etc.” 87 Wardle believes we will continue to see a decline in the number of males seeking jobs in the field.

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CONCLUSION A look at popular movies lead to the confirmation in the theme of men appearing to be incompetent, but fun. In the literature it was discovered that while the theme of men being fun was substantiated, it was not in any way related back to their capabilities or a theme of ineffectiveness. Interesting to note, that while not being judged by capabilities, men do feel a concern about the topic of “play” or “fun” when going into early childhood because of a fear they will not be able to interact with children in this way that is natural for them. Public pedagogy works both ways—it originates within social norms and customs extant in culture. It also informs culture by articulating what is otherwise inarticulate. The view that men are not normally the primary caregivers of young children, especially in a professional mode, is here contradicted with success and innovation. The lack of progress or shift in cultural norms over the years since the release of Daddy Day Care reflects on the intransient nature of the concept. One factor in this intransience is the very nature of power; men possess cultural power, valence, and value. To surrender that power to become a caregiver also surrenders power to change societal views on men in the lives of young children. NOTES 1. Geoff Rodkey. Daddy Day Care. DVD. Directed by Steve Carr. Culver City: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2003. 2. Hughes, John. Mr. Mom. DVD. Directed by Stan Dragoti. Century City: 20th Century Fox, 1983. 3. Serreau, Coline, James Orr, and Jim Cruickshank. Three Men and a Baby, DVD. Directed by Leonard Nimo. Burbank: Buena Vista Pictures, 1987. 4. “Current Population Survey,” US Department of Labor Statistics, Accessed August 1, 2016 at http://www.bls.gov/cps/home.htm#charemp. 5. Margaret Cooney and Mark Bittner. “Men in Early Childhood Education: Their Emergent Issues.” Early Childhood Education Journal, 29, no. 2 (2001): 77. 6. See the following: Bronislaw Malinowski, The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia: An Ethnographic Account of Courtship, Marriage and Family Life among the Natives of the Trobriand Islands, British New Guinea (New York: Halcyon House, 1929); and Glaser, B., and L. Strauss. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. London, United Kingdom: Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 1967. 7. Oprah Winfrey, “Aha Moment.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. October 20, 2016. 8. Shane Gunster, “Gramsci, Organic Intellectuals, and Cultural Studies,” Vocations of Political Theory (2000): 239. 9. Jeanne Brady, “Multiculturalism and the American Dream,” In Kinder-culture: The Corporate Construction of Childhood, eds. Shirley Steinberg and Joe Kincheloe (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1997), 224. 10. Rodman Redman Wright and Jennifer A. Sandlin, “Cult TV, Hip Hop, Shape-shifters, and Vampire Slayers.” Adult Education Quarterly 59, no. 2 (2009): 135. Accessed September 2016.

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11. Gwen Morgan, “Stalemate or Consensus? Barriers to National Policy.” Theory into Practice 28, no. 1 (1989): 41. 12. Josh Thompson, “Why I Teach.” Early Years: Journal of Texas Association for the Education of Young Children, 37, no. 2 (in press): 51. 13. Galatians 3:28, Revised Standard Version. 14. Yvonna Lincoln, and Egon Guba, Naturalistic Inquiry (Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1985). 15. Lincoln and Guba, Naturalistic Inquiry, 341. 16. Barney Glaser Car and Anselm L. Strauss, The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research (London, United Kingdom: Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 1967). 17. Rodkey, Daddy Day Care. 18. Cooney and Bittner, “Men in Early Childhood Education,” 79. 19. Geoff Rodkey. “Old Boss.” Daddy Day Care. DVD. Directed by Steve Carr. Culver City: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2003. 20. Rodkey, Geoff. “Dad’s in Charge.” Daddy Day Care. DVD. Directed by Steve Carr. Culver City: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2003. 21. Peter Moss, “Who Is the Worker in Services for Young Children?” Children in Europe, no. 5 (2003): 2. Accessed September 12, 2016. 22. Marcy Whitebook, Deborah Phillips, and Carollee Howes, “Worthy Work, STILL Unlivable Wages: The Early Childhood Workforce 25 Years after the National Child Care Staffing Study” (Berkeley, CA: Center for the Study of Child Care Employment, 2014). 23. Sarah Farquhar, Lance Cablk, Adam Buckingham, David Butler, and Russell Ballantyne, “Men at Work: Sexism in Early Childhood Education,” in Child Forum Research Network, Porirua (2006). 24. Rodkey, Daddy Day Care. 25. Bryan Nelson and Bruce Shepard, Men in Child Care and Education: A Handbook for Administrators and Educators. Minneapolis, MN: Men in Child Care Project. N.d. 26. Michelle Ortlipp and Christine Woodrowm, “Discourses of the Early Years Learning Framework: Constructing the Early Childhood Professional,” Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 12, no. 1 (2011): 56. 27. Daniel Paquette, “What It’s Like to Graduate from College with the Lowest-Paying Major?” Washington Post on September 29, 2014. 28. Rodkey, Daddy Day Care. 29. Ruth Simpson, “Men in Non-Traditional Occupations: Career Entry, Career Orientation and Experience of Role Strain,” Gender, Work and Organization, 12, no. 4 (2005): 363–80. 30. Rodkey, Daddy Day Care. 31. See the following: Cynthia Barnard, “Recommendations for Improving the Recruitment of Male Early Childhood Education Professionals: The Female Viewpoint” (MEd project, Grand Valley State University, 2000); Cooney and Bittner, “Men in Early Childhood Education,” 77; Jane Kenway, “Masculinities in Schools: Under Siege, on the Defensive and Under Reconstruction?,” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 16, no. 1 (1995): 70; Jan Peeters, “Including Men in Early Childhood Education: Insights from the European Experience,” New Zealand Research in Early Childhood Education, 10 (2007): 15; Jennifer Sumsion, “Rewards, Risks and Tensions: Perceptions of Males Enrolled in an Early Childhood Teacher Education Programme,” Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 28, no. 11 (2000): 87; and Lynda Wiest, “The Current Status of Male Teachers of Young Children,” The Educational Forum, 68, no. 1 (2004): 62. 32. Sam Strange, “Sam Strange Remembers Daddy Day Care” (blog), August 1, 2016 (8:45 a.m.), http://birthmoviesdeath.com/2013/03/15/sam-strange-remembers-daddy-day-care. 33. National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information—Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services, “Statistics on Sexual Abuse,” last modified August 15, 2016, https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/ statistics/can/sexabuse/. 34. See the following: Kenway, “Masculinities in Schools,” 61; and Jennifer Sumsion, “Critical Reflections on the Experiences of a Male Early Childhood Worker,” Gender and Education, 11, no. 4 (1999): 455. 35. Sumsion, “Critical Reflections,” 456.

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36. Jane Kenway, “Masculinities in Schools,” 61. 37. Tyson Smith and Michael Kimmel, “The Hidden Discourse of Masculinity in Gender Discrimination Law,” Signs, 30, no. 3 (2005): 1830. 38. R. W. Connell, Masculinities (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005). 39. Smith and Kimmel, “The Hidden Discourse,” 1831. 40. Kenway, “Masculinities in Schools,” 63. 41. William Hewitt, “A Man’s Gotta Do What a Man’s Gotta Do!” Masculinity and Manhood in Social Studies Education,” Social Studies, 95, no. 2 (2004): 83. 42. Charlie Owen, “Men’s Work? Changing the Gender Mix of the Child Care and Early Years Workforce,” Facing the Future: Policy Papers, last modified June 2003, http://www. familyandchildcaretrust.org/sites/default/files/files/2.1.7%20Changing%20the%20Gender%20 Mix%20in%20Early%20Education%20and%20Child care.pdf. 43. Sumsion, “Critical Reflections,” 459. 44. Ibid. 45. Barnard, “Recommendations for Improving.” 46. Sumsion, “Critical Reflections,” 463. 47. Wiest, “The Current Status,” 66. 48. Cooney and Bittner, “Men in Early Childhood Education,” 81. 49. Geoff Rodkey. “Prospective Parent.” Daddy Day Care. DVD. Directed by Steve Carr. Culver City: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2003. 50. Owen, “Men’s Work?” 51. See the following: Barnard, “Recommendations for Improving”; Owen, “Men’s Work?”; Sumsion, “Critical Reflections,” 458; and Wiest, “The Current Status,” 62. 52. Sumsion, “Critical Reflections,” 459. 53. Ibid., 458. 54. Ibid., 459. 55. Thompson, “Why I teach,” 51. 56. Ramazan Sak, Ikbal Tuba Sahin, and Betul Kubra Sahin, “Views of Female Preschool Pre-Service Teachers about Male Teaching Colleagues,” Social and Behavioral Sciences, 47 (2012): 589. 57. Ibid., 590. 58. Sumsion, “Critical Reflections,” 460. 59. Ibid. 60. Rodkey, Daddy Day Care. 61. Richard Holt, “Why Men Should Never Be Made to Look After Children.” The Telegraph, last modified October 6, 2014, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/ fatherhood/11138505/Why-men-should-never-be-made-to-look-after-children.html. 62. Andrea Mara, “Motherhood and Work: Why Do More Women Than Men Stay at Home with Children?,” The Journal.ie., last modified August 7, 2014, http://www.thejournal.ie/ readme/why-do-more-women-than-men-stay-at-home-with-children-1608613-Aug2014/. 63. Gideon Burrows, “Childcare—Why Don’t Men Pull Their Weight?,” The Guardian, last modified July 5, 2013, https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/05/childcare-menpull-weight. 64. Sak, Sahin, and Sahin, “Views of Female,” 590. 65. Peeters, “Including Men in Early Childhood Education,” 18. 66. Ibid. 67. Claire Cameron, Peter Moss, and Charlie Owen, Men in the Nursery: Gender and Caring Work (Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2001), 8. 68. Cameron, Moss, and Owen, Men in the Nursery, 8. 69. Peeters, “Including Men in Early Childhood Education,” 19. 70. Barnard, “Recommendations for Improving.” 71. Owen, “Men’s Work?” 72. Sak, Sahin, and Sahin, “Views of Female,” 588. 73. Peeters, “Including Men in Early Childhood Education,” 18. 74. Cameron, Moss, and Owen, Men in the Nursery, 11

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75. Sue Matheson, “Good Neighbors, Moral Philosophy and the Masculine Ideal.” in Revisiting Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Essays on Lessons about Self and Community 2016, ed. Kathy Jackson and Steven Emmanuel (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2016), 46. 76. Thompson, “Why I Teach,” 51. 77. Vivelapub, “Huggies Dad Test,” YouTube video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v= j7kX8ZKylD4. 78. Thompson, “Why I Teach,” 51. 79. Sarah Peterson, “Dumbing Down Dad: How Media Present Husbands, Fathers as Useless,” Deseret News Family, last modified February 27, 2013, http://www.deseretnews.com/ article/865574236/Dumbing-down-Dad-How-media-present-husbands-fathers-as-useless. html?pg=all. 80. Brent McBride, “Father/Male Involvement in Early Childhood Programs,” Illinois Early Learning Project, last modified June 2002, http://illinoisearlylearning.org/Chat/mcbride/index. htm. 81. Liss Miriam and Holly Schiffrin, Balancing the Big Stuff: Finding Happiness in Work, Family, and Life (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). 82. Rodkey, Daddy Day Care. 83. Paul Roberts and Bill Moseley, “Father’s Time: Understanding the Challenges of Fatherhood,” Psychology Today, last modified May 1, 1996, https://www.psychologytoday. com/articles/199605/fathers-time. 84. Roberts and Moseley, “Father’s Time,” https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/ 199605/fathers-time. 85. Owen, “Men’s Work?” 86. Francis Wardle, “Men in Early Childhood: Fathers & Teachers,” Earlychildhood News, last modified 2008, http://www.earlychildhoodnews.com/earlychildhood/article_view.aspx? ArticleID=400. 87. Francis Wardle, “The Challenges of Boys.”

BIBLIOGRAPHY Barnard, Cynthia, Lori Hovingh, Michele Nezwek, Deborah Pryor-Bayard, Jill Schmoldt, James Steven, Wendy Sturrus, Susan Wabeke, and Lorie Weaver. “Recommendations for Improving the Recruitment of Male Early Childhood Education Professionals: The Female Viewpoint” (2000). ERIC, ED 440 759. Brady, Jeanne. “Multiculturalism and the American Dream.” In The Corporate Construction of Childhood 1997, edited by S. R. Steinberg and J. L. Kincheloe, 219–26. Boulder: Westview. Burrows, Gideon. “Childcare—Why Don’t Men Pull Their Weight?” The Guardian. July 5, 2013. https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jul/05/childcare-men-pull-weight. Cameron, Claire, Peter Moss, and Charlie Owen. Men in the Nursery: Gender and Caring Work. SAGE Publications, 2001. Connell, R. W. Masculinities. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005. Cooney, Margaret, and Mark Bittner. “Men in Early Childhood Education: Their Emergent Issues.” Early Childhood Education Journal, 29, no. 2 (2001): 77–82. Farquhar, Sarah, Lance Cablk, Adam Buckingham, David Butler, and Russell Ballantyne. “Men at work: Sexism in Early Childhood Education.” Childforum Research Network, Porirua (2006). Glaser, Barney, and Anselm L. Strauss. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. London, United Kingdom: Wiedenfeld and Nicholson, 1967. Gunster, Shane. “Gramsci, Organic Intellectuals, and Cultural Studies.” Vocations of political theory (2000): 238–259. Hewitt, William. “A Man’s Gotta Do What a Man’s Gotta Do!” Masculinity and Manhood in Social Studies Education.” Social Studies, 95, no. 2 (2004): 83–85. Holt, Richard. “Why Men Should Never Be Made to Look After Children.” The Telegraph. October 6, 2014. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/relationships/fatherhood/11138505/Whymen-should-never-be-made-to-look-after-children.html.

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Hughes, John. Mr. Mom. DVD. Directed by Stan Dragoti. Century City: 20th Century Fox, 1983. Kenway, Jane. “Masculinities in Schools: Under Siege, on the Defensive and Under Reconstruction?” Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 16, no. 1 (1995): 59–79. Liss, Miriam, and Holly Schiffrin. Balancing the Big Stuff: Finding Happiness in Work, Family, and Life. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. Lincoln, Yvonne, and Egon Guba. Naturalistic Inquiry. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, 1985. Malinowski, Bronisław. The Sexual Life of Savages in North-Western Melanesia: an Ethnographic Account of Courtship, Marriage and Family Life Among the Natives of the Trobriand Islands, British New Guinea. New York: Halcyon House, 1929. Mara, Andrea. “Motherhood and Work: Why Do More Women Than Men Stay at Home with Children?” The Journal.ie. August 7, 2014. http://www.thejournal.ie/readme/why-do-morewomen-than-men-stay-at-home-with-children-1608613-Aug2014/. Matheson, Sue. “Good Neighbors, Moral Philosophy and the Masculine Ideal.” Jackson, K. M. and Emmanuel, S. M. Revisiting Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood: Essays on Lessons about Self and Community. Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2016. McBride, Brent. “Father/Male Involvement in Early Childhood Programs.” Illinois Early Learning Project. http://illinoisearlylearning.org/Chat/mcbride/index.htm. Morgan, Gwen. “Stalemate or consensus? Barriers to national policy.” Theory into Practice, 28, no. 1 (1989): 41–46. Moss, Peter. “Who Is the Worker in Services for Young Children?” Children in Europe, no. 5 (2003): 2–5. Accessed September 12, 2016. National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information—Administration for Children and Families, US Department of Health and Human Services. Accessed on August 15, 2016. https://www.childwelfare.gov/topics/systemwide/statistics/can/sexabuse/. Nelson, Bryan. The Importance of Men Teachers: And Reasons Why There Are So Few. Washington, DC: NAEYC, 2003. Nelson, Bryan, and Bruce Shepard. Men in Child Care and Education: A Handbook for Administrators and Educators. Minneapolis, MN: Men in Child Care Project. N.d. “Occupational Employment and Wages, May 2015.” Occupational Employment Statistics. March 30, 2016. Accessed September 11, 2016. http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes399011. htm. Ortlipp, Michelle, and Christina Woodrowm. “Discourses of the Early Years Learning Framework: Constructing the Early Childhood Professional.” Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 12, no. 1 (2011): 56–70. Accessed September 8, 2016. Owen, Charlie. “Men’s Work? Changing the Gender Mix of the Child care and Early Years Workforce.” Facing the Future: Policy Papers. June 2003. http://www.familyand childcaretrust.org/sites/default/files/files/2.1.7%20Changing%20the%20Gender%20Mix% 20in%20Early%20Education%20and%20Child care.pdf. Paquette, Daniel. “Half of America’s Child Care Workers Need Food Stamps, Welfare Payments or Medicaid.” Washington Post on July 11, 2016. Paquette, Daniel. “What It’s Like to Graduate from College with the Lowest-Paying Major?” Washington Post on September 29, 2014. Peeters, Jan. “Including Men in Early Childhood Education: Insights from the European Experience.” New Zealand Research in Early Childhood Education, 10 (2007): 15–24. Accessed September 11, 2016. http://www.stop47.be/files/includingmeninearlychildhoodeducation. pdf. Peterson, Sarah. “Dumbing Down Dad: How Media Present Husbands, Fathers as Useless.” Deseret News Family. February 27, 2013. http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865574236/ Dumbing-down-Dad-How-media-present-husbands-fathers-as-useless.html?pg=all. Roberts, Paul, and Bill Moseley. “Father’s Time: Understanding the Challenges of Fatherhood.” Psychology Today. May 1, 1996. https://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/ 199605/fathers-time. Rodkey, Geoff. “Prospective Parent.” Daddy Day Care. DVD. Directed by Steve Carr. Culver City: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2003.

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Chapter Fourteen

Loyal Opposition Conservative Student Resistance to Jazz Culture in the 1920s Jacob Hardesty

Hoagy Carmichael, every bit the campus bon vivant, once quipped, perhaps with characteristic overstatement, “The postwar world came in with a bang of bad booze, flappers with bare legs, jangled morals, and wild weekends.” Such sentiments were quite common on college campuses in the 1920s. Nicely summing up the general feeling of jazz-drenched campus life, one Ohio State student rhetorically asked, “‘Are we as bad as we’re painted?’ ‘We are.’” Indeed, the extant literature on young people in the 1920s has generally included such sentiments in recreating the attitudes of young people throughout the decade. Scholarship on young people and 1920s jazz culture has emphasized the enthusiasm and excitement young people expressed for this new force in popular culture. As the standard interpretation goes, young people, particularly those on college campuses, embraced the freedoms in dress, dance, and decorum that jazz allowed. 1 While such expressions most certainly represent the majority of undergraduates on campus, it would be a gross overstatement to argue such beliefs represent a totality of Jazz Age college students. Indeed, solely focusing on jazz aficionados neglects an often vibrant back and forth between college students about trends in popular culture. This paper addresses that imbalance by highlighting the conservative student response to jazz culture in the 1920s. I argue undergraduate jazz culture opponents largely fell into one of three groups: female students who disapproved of sexualized jazz dances, black students who did not want to be associated with the scandalous new genre, and aesthetic conservatives who thumbed their noses at jazz’s “primi287

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tive” nature. To be sure, these voices represented a minority on college campuses. And yet, the standard interpretation ignores them to such a degree, one reading today may rightly wonder whether they existed at all. This paper helps complicate the dynamic of culture shifts on college campuses, highlighting an often vocal minority who looked at changes in popular culture with skepticism. I divide the student arguments against jazz into two types: those that primarily emphasized dancing and those that took a more holistic view. DANCING ARGUMENTS Much of the enjoyment and disdain for jazz on college campuses in the 1920s centered around the seeming ubiquity of popular jazz dancing, particularly for those institutions than enrolled both men and women. As Beth Bailey correctly pointed out in her work on young people’s evolving dating habits, “On campus, dances were part of college life.” Scholarship from the period also spoke to the prominent role dancing played on universities’ social scene. Robert Cooley Angell’s noted 1928 study of undergraduate students’ lives, The Campus: A Study of Contemporary Undergraduate Life in the American University, placed students’ interest in dancing as paramount to the undergraduate experience at the University of Michigan where his research took place. Regarding general interest in student recreation, Angell wrote, “Dancing is perhaps the most popular diversion of all.” Campus newspapers regularly made similar claims. In 1920 the University of Illinois Daily Illini reported the junior prom was the “acme” of the social season. Similarly, a 1926 piece in Indiana University’s Daily Student recounted that school’s senior prom “caps social season on campus.” Yet Angell’s study differentiated itself from such reporting by attempting to provide some quantifiable context to such claims about dancing’s omnipresence, estimating that roughly 1,500 of the University of Michigan’s 9,000 students attended off-campus dance halls weekly. 2 Dances were also costly, again particularly in larger institutions. Bailey’s analysis of undergraduate dating habits provided some dollars figures on what schools were spending. In 1924, the University of Michigan spent $80,000 annually on both formal and informal dancing, while the University of Wisconsin spent $100,000. These dollars went to any variety of expenses, including paying the performers, decorations, and overtime pay for faculty and staff chaperones. In 2016 dollars, such figures would be roughly $1.1 and $1.3 million, respectively. Further, the cost of attendance created a type of class-based segregation at these supposedly school-wide events. One University of Massachusetts student newspaper in 1926 noted that “Those who are unfortunate enough not to be able to take it in, can only stand and look in

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from the outside at the glittering lights.” 3 Commentaries such as this are the exception though, at least in terms of cost allocations needed for campus dancing. Yet such class-based realities rarely appeared as a component of student opposition. Such fiscal analysis likely found few sympathetic ears in this period of “dance madness” or “dance craze.” 4 In other cases, students found humor in dancing’s popularity, or at least in possible post-dance activities. Such humor was on display in one piece written for the Flamingo, a monthly humor magazine produced by students at Denison University, in the case of one anonymously written article under the pen name “Et Tu.” The piece’s introduction—“I firmly believe there are scattered across the country a number of attractive coeds who have never been kissed. I have never met one”—seems to suggest a male author. The author then continues “I believe that 96% of those who dance do so because they like to pet. The other 4% are business men who need the exercise.” 5 Other jokes focused on the social aspect of dancing and the desirability of obtaining as many dance invitations as possible. One such example in Trinity University’s Trinitonian read, “Papa—Have you heard from Mary lately?/ Mama—Yes. She said that she almost flunked in her [exams] but has received three bids to the Junior Prom/Papa—At last! My investment is bearing fruit.” 6 Yet attitudes about this dancing-based competition for popularity varied widely, though. While jazz champions and opponents typically agreed jazz dancing was more sensual than the waltz and fox trot of the previous generation, they disagreed on whether those more affective steps represented any sort of challenge to the morality of young people. 7 Humor aside, other students looked at this dance craze as a cause for concern simply for its omnipresence. While arguments here occasionally focused on dancing itself, it was the extra-musical consequences that most often drew the ire of detractors. An unnamed author writing in the Ohio State Lantern—and subsequently cited in the Daily Illini—lamented how dancing had become so ubiquitous on college campuses that many students did not even consider other possibilities for recreation. The author begins by recounting a recent Saturday Evening Post piece by Nina Wilcox Putnam that “laments that hold that jazz has on the country at large. She satirizes its effect on food, clothing, furniture and other articles of domestic interest.” 8 Without going into further specifics—which may have been particularly helpful explaining, in one example, jazz’s effect on furniture—the Lantern author then offers up dating as one further example of the effect jazz had on contemporary life: “Jazz has deprived the modern girl of her abilities to entertain a man. She only waits until he asks ‘where shall we go?’ Then away to the haunts of syncopation or unessential trimmings.” The writer continues by lamenting the various activities that young people increasingly shun in favor of jazz dancing, including sleighing, coasting, and skating. Like jazz, such recreational activities do have a presumably desirable physical component;

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young people are doing things together. Yet the necessity for exercise is not the author’s central concern. That worry centers around the near monopoly jazz dancing has on college students’ preferences for recreational activities. The author concludes by offering up a way forward out of this uncreative social malaise: “When will this seemingly irresistible force—jazz—cease to hold domination over the so-called good times of college students today? When the man puts his foot down and says ‘No!’” And while this was certainly a minority view at the time, the piece was received well enough that it was reprinted the next week in at least one other college newspaper. 9 Beyond social consequences, a considerable amount of student opposition to jazz dancing was religiously based, a disdain which was particularly prevalent at more conservative Midwestern Lutheran Colleges. Here, students had few qualms speaking out against the dances that were quickly gaining popularity on other campus. Moorhead Minnesota’s Luther College developed the sort of religiously conservative atmosphere where students would feel comfortable expressing such views that ran counter to the prevailing popular culture trends. Such was the case with an unsigned editorial in Luther College’s student newspaper The Concordian. Not mincing words, the author bombastically described aficionados of contemporary jazz dancing as modern-day “Sadducees.” 10 Outraged with such lewd behavior, the author went so far as to write out a fictional “creed” such students implicitly follow: “The chief end of man is to have a good time and to have a good time and get all the fun possible before the shadows fall and the curtain drop and we disappear forever into the great unknown.” Characteristically, this argument did not simply stop of dancing itself, but presented it as intrinsically linked to other social vices, writing of the inseparability of “dancing and drinking and singing music hall songs and dancing jazz.” The author concluded by contrasting these various behaviors to a more devote existence, that of a “[man of] God.” Such was the purpose of those short-sighted college students “whose purpose seems to be make a good thing of this world” at the seeming expense of eternal damnation. 11 Other Luther College students framed their arguments against dancing more around jazz aesthetics, or as the argument went, the lack of. Writing in the college literary magazine, one junior put forward an anti-jazz argument that actually downplayed the role of religion—at least explicitly—in favor of a sort of cultural degradation argument that took a more all-encompassing view of popular culture and its inevitable discontents. The title, “Are We Missing Something?” suggests a balanced, reflective approach. However, as quickly as the first sentence, the author begins his attack on popular culture in modern times: “We are living in a materialistic and mechanical age.” The author proceeds to contrast contemporary popular culture with the fine arts, arguing “in this mad rush, we are missing the better and higher things of life, which are contained in the fine arts.” Examples here include: reading popular

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magazines, not books; the general neglect of poetry and sculpture; as well as a lack of appreciation of the natural world (including, the “stately pine tree”). Similarly, this conservative student critic recognizes jazz as “the music of our day,” even going so far as to acknowledge “in many homes the jazz music is the most conspicuous.” Like in other parts of his argument, though, the author does not attempt any sort of sustained explanation of young people’s affinity for jazz over other musics. Instead, as in the other areas he cites, the author opts for a sort of binary argument: popular culture is bad, while higher culture is good. Or, “why is it necessary to play jazz while there is such an immense store of good music?” Whereas classical music is, simply, “good,” jazz is fundamentally “superficial.” 12 This religiously based opposition extended to larger state schools as well. And despite this any anti-jazz attitude being a minority among students, it could also prove a real embarrassment for institutions, particularly in instances that publically challenged institutions’ ability to monitor their students’ extra-curricular activities. In perhaps the decade’s most public attempt to maintain the character of their institutions, university officials across the Big Ten Conference fought back against public commentary that portrayed schools in a particularly negative and embarrassing manner. In 1926 a former University of Illinois student, William O. Cross, published an article in the Episcopal weekly magazine The Witness. Cross, who was then a student for the ministry, charged that “Drinking is now a minor vice for dating, a comprehensive diversion which includes dancing, drinking, and petting.” In one example, he told of a trip by train the University of Illinois football team made which included a “drunk . . . pajama dance” aboard the train. Attempting to maintain a moral standing for the school, university officials quickly responded “There was a dance in one of the coaches, but it was orderly, chaperoned, and everybody was fully clothed.” For his part, Cross did not single out the University of Illinois, but criticized schools across the wider Big Ten Conference for allowing similar indiscretions. 13 Dr. George Craig Stewart, himself an Episcopal rector and faculty member at Northwestern University, issued a detailed rebuttal to Cross’ challenges. In a letter to the editor of The Witness, Stewart offered the somewhat dubious defense that “There was petting at college in my days; then it was called spooning, but it was not necessarily immoral, nor is bobbed hair, nor short skirts, nor dancing to the syncopated strains of jazz.” Others offered more cogent defenses. Without going into specifics, the president of the University of Chicago argued, “No sweeping indictment of the undergraduate is warranted.” The Dean of Student Affairs at the University of Minnesota conceded, if true, the charge had a “vicious nature” but countered, “I feel certain that the morals of our students, both men and women, are better, not worse [than in previous generations].” 14

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Still, institutional religious affiliation itself was not synonymous with opposition to popular dancing and jazz culture on campus. Catholic institutions, among others, did not impose such limitations as did some conservative Protestant schools. A variety of events at Catholic universities featured some amount of jazz dancing, even in officially sanctioned events. At Minnesota’s St. Catherine’s University, the “famous Freshman Jazz Orchestra” provided the music for that class’ first dance of their college careers, apparently with the approval of campus administrators. The school newspaper editorialized “That was the first party to be given by the Class of ’24, but we hope that it will not be the last.” Likewise, students at Loyola University in Chicago were given permission to dance as they wished, both on and off campus. In 1924, the Pi Alpha Lamba fraternity included a Charleston dancing exhibition at their pre-Christmas “informal.” Despite the title, considerable planning went into the event, held not in the fraternity’s house, but at the Auerton Hotel, under a “myriad of colorful draperies,” with music provided by the “Jinx Bryan’s Syncopators.” Dances at Notre Dame University, perhaps the nation’s most prominent Catholic institution, featured some of the most well-known jazz performers of the decade, including Isham Jones and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings. Student interest in dancing at Notre Dame was so high that one undergraduate musician rented a floor of a nearby downtown South Bend building to hold dances each Wednesday afternoon. A five-dollar investment to rent the space typically returned a whopping fifteen dollars for each band member. 15 Four hundred and thirty miles to the south of South Bend and Notre Dame, a similar debate was taking place (though on very different terms) at Nashville’s only all-black institution of higher education, Fisk University. In the fall of 1926, the Fisk campus community was discussing the merits of lifting the decades-long campus ban on any and all dancing. For years, the rationale for the ban’s ongoing existence did not change: dancing in any form was simply “a violation of the traditions of the university.” Yet while the traditions had not changed, by the mid-1920s this broad ban on any form of dancing was increasingly being seen as arcane, an unnecessarily heavyhanded solution to a problem that a growing number students and faculty alike believed did not exist. 16 But unlike at many Catholic institutions, a sizable number in the Fisk student body publically voiced support for continuing the dancing ban. These student arguments generally emphasized the various pernicious behaviors they feared dancing could lead to. That is, they did not necessarily criticizing jazz itself, but its extra-musical consequences. Pejorative descriptions of the music came second to other critiques, while not eschewing any sense of causality. One Fisk senior wrote angrily how, “In the hasty exchange of partners, one girl confides to another that she is ‘dead’ on her feet, but the urge of the Syncopators is as relentless as a ringmaster’s whip. She is a

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stenographer and has worked at her desk overtime in order to secure this night’s pleasure. . . . The moon, a mere wraith, mocks the folly of men.” Others were careful not to mention the word “jazz” or any closely associated terms—as if doing so would lead to some level of credibility. Another Fisk student held that “[The dancer] must have the appropriate music, stage setting, and costuming. . . . The dancer who attains real skill has a good investment which brings her happiness, good health, and a means of satisfying her cravings for self-expression.” 17 Yet more moderate student voices expressed a similar argument, though many stopped short of saying jazz was free of corruptive influences. Instead, the case for lifting the campus dancing ban largely rested on the complaint, something of a technicality, that it was too broad. As the reasoning went, not all types of dancing were equally iniquitous. Thus, by banning any form of dance, the administration excluded those that may actually have some potential benefit to students. In a carefully worded argument—one that went out of its way to praise the benevolent administration—one junior warned, “A restriction that denies unto a group of individuals that which is wholesomely good and inherently desired has a tendency to destroy the character of that group of individuals.” 18 In the end, after President Jones unilaterally lifted the ban in December 1926, many Fisk students greeted the end of dancing prohibition with a sense of cautious optimism. Jones’ decision came, in part, to pacify growing student unrest on campus. The previous year, previous president Fayette A. McKenzie resigned following an unprecedented student strike over his policies about control over student life. Students criticized him for being tyrannical; W. E. B. Du Bois went so far as to write critical pieces about McKenzie in The Crisis as well as in American Mercury. The president was unrelenting in his discipline and uneven in his punishments, at one point writing, “fidelity to school and college youth requires unfailing and constant supervision, constant insistence on regularity, reliability and fidelity.” Lifting the dancing ban, in addition to agreeing to eventual university recognition of fraternities and sororities, acted as, perhaps, an appeasement, a compromising gesture to the students by the new president. Following this lifting of the dancing ban, one anonymous Greater Fisk Herald student writer cautioned “We must not give occasion for regret.” 19 NON-DANCING ARGUMENTS Some students look at jazz-drenched popular culture and were alarmed at the challenges to morality is posed to young people more generally. Unlike student critics who focused more on dancing, this line of argument took a more all-encompassing view, one that did occasionally reference jazz dancing, but did not necessarily stop there. While the perceived lewd jazz dancing

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was certainly a concern for critics, it was not the primary worry but part of a more multifaceted critique that also included aesthetics, ethics, and genderbased arguments. For these jazz opponents, the problem extended beyond solely the shimmy and the Charleston. This line of argument was apparent at the University of Illinois, when one student wrote a letter to the editor in 1920 complaining of their classmates’ greater interest in jazz music over more traditional school fight song. The author—who only provided initials— wrote “Judging from the remarks in Sunday’s Illini, the University band would be immensely popular at football games if it would play jazz instead of the ‘peppy’ marches and Illinois songs it usually played.” Characteristic of this line of argument, the author did not stop at a solely aesthetic complaint, but instead insisted jazz represented a sort of moral decline endemic to that generation. Specifically, jazz characterized “miry-minded individuals” whose increasing presence on campus brought with it a “vulgar mediocrity.” 20 A moralistic emphasis on jazz’s supposed iniquities aligned with what many campus deans believed was the harm caused to students. Many administrators reasoned that if they could minimize or stop young people’s interest in jazz, they would also simultaneously be working to counteract their interests in associated vices like drinking, smoking, and sex. In a failed, if not heavy-handed, attempt to eradicate jazz from campuses, in 1921 the Illinois Deans of Women passed a resolution to “endeavor, in the coming year, to abolish from dancing parties jazz music of the objectionable type.” One Illinois Dean of Women participant nicely summarized the social challenges that swirled around jazz. Specifically she identified, “The problem of dress, the problem of dancing, and the problem of chaperones.” Left unsaid here, though clearly a concern, is the implication that these articulated concerns, either individually or together, can act as sort of aphrodisiacs for the students they are charged with overseeing. The Chicago Tribune’s choice of words for the article—“Women Deans Open Fight on Jazz in Dancing”—similarly suggested a multi-front campaign against jazz. 21 That same year, the Dean of Men at Penn State issued a comparable critique, complaining that students had somehow become cruder because of jazz since the culmination of the First World War. Framing his argument in terms of gender roles, he complained “Something of the reserve has gone out of the personality of our young women and something of the nobility has gone out of the attitude of our young men toward our young women.” Of course, for the majority of the student body, such a declaration by administrators to avoid something they greatly enjoyed likely made it all the more enticing. 22 That deans of men and women willingly spoke out against jazz is consistent with their professional responsibilities on campus, albeit in particularly gendered ways. Whereas deans of women typically had to both monitor the

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needs of the young women in the charge and fight for professional recognition, deans of men had the more singular responsibility of monitoring the college experiences of young men. In a certain sense, this reality developed as a historical inevitability given the vast majority of college students in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries were men. Yet the 1920s presented fresh social challenges for each group. Robert Schwartz pointed out in his history of deans of men, “Discipline became more complicated in the 1920s. . . . In the 1920s, a new ‘youth generation,’ a term coined by Life magazine, became the dominant force on college campus. College campuses were never quite the same again.” Here again, jazz existed not simply as an unfortunate aesthetic decision many young people were making. Instead, it was a tell-tale sign that students were engaging in other risky behaviors. Jazz served as a sort of compelling circumstantial evidence that students were engaging in additional vices, just out of the sight of watchful chaperones. 23 Still, a minority of students were willing to speak out about jazz’s ubiquity on campus. At the University of Chicago, female students spoke out against what they saw as a sort of cultural dominance jazz enjoyed over other arts in the early 1920s. As discussed in the Chicago Tribune article “Women Condemn Jazzy Tunes on U. of C. Campus,” female students at the university complained their classmates’ increasing interest in jazz was increasingly crowding out interests in other genres. The students singled out glee clubs as receiving increasingly less student interest, citing such organizations as harbengers of “good music.” One student insisted, “It’s a disgrace . . . the way this campus fails to support the glee clubs,” while also citing the campus orchestra and mandolin clubs as student organizations with declining membership. 24 A year earlier, a student at a very different institution articulated a more expansive argument against changes in popular culture—though expanding beyond solely music—warning “We are living in an age of degeneracy.” This student attended Hope College, a small liberal arts college in Holland, Michigan. While expressing the same sentiments, this critic did provided more details of the impending moral slide jazz characterized. Here, jazz culture contrasted with Emerson, Tennyson, and Galileo, proponents of “reason” and “empathy.” And while each undergraduate author when into different levels of specificity about what this impending iniquity may look like, they each ultimately argued that jazz culture did not exist solely as an aesthetic concern, but a much more concerning moral problem. 25 Other students pointed to jazz’s aesthetic inferiority as a cause for damnation. Indiana University’s campus literary magazine, The Vagabond, similarly took frequent aim at the various social and cultural failings that the editors believed accompanied jazz. The publication existed, in the words of its editors, to “[offer] a medium of expression for the literary life of the campus; and it hopes to hasten a rebirth of interest in science, arts, and the life at

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Indiana.” As the contributors apparently saw it, this regularly included chiding undergraduate students who appeared more interested in socializing than their scholarly pursuits. One piece, written as something of a parody of an American Mercury article, described how “when night fell, the young men searched the sorority houses and Memorial Hall to discover one of the osculatory [sic] daughters of jazz” while also complaining of the ubiquity of “necking” around the campus. Focusing more on fraternities, another piece lamented how “There has come, happily—and coincident with the discovery of Jazz—the dawn of a new era: the rise of the younger ignorencia.” Of course, such attitudes were not limited to this single Big Ten campus. The University of Chicago’s literary monthly, La Critique, lamented the “jazztinctured modern setting” that was leading to so much immorality among young people. 26 CONCLUSION Writing almost half a decade ago, Roderick Nash cautioned against the allure of overly reductive “Jazz Age” terminology and interpretation. True, Nash acknowledged, jazz music and its associated changes in dress and deportment that greatly worried those more comfortable in a world of—admittedly wounded—Victorianism. Yet, Nash correctly notes that “the revolution in morals, in sum, has been exaggerated out of all proportion to both its prevalence and its depth.” As his writing suggests, “jazz” in the 1920s carried a far wider meaning than it does today. Whereas contemporary views of jazz limits it to music, critics and supporters alike viewed jazz more as a choice of lifestyle, on that impacted decisions many young people made about drinking, dancing, and general decorum, among others. Though the majority of college students felt a near feverish gratitude for jazz. Jazz’s ubiquitous presence on college campuses provided the soundtrack for socializing and dancing throughout the decade. As one University of Illinois student wrote “Without the assurance of jazz from September to June, it would folly to matriculate.” 27 Still, a vocal minority looked at the changes that jazz brought with concern. Reasons for their opposition varied. In some instances these cautions were based on religious or moral convictions. Such critics typically cited increasingly sexualized jazz dances as perhaps the most prominent characteristic of a general campus moral decline. Others took a more aesthetic view, looking at the jazz as a crude approximation of art, one capable of lowering standards for taste for a generation to come. And though these voices typically were contained in small supportive communities on campus, they should be part of a more dynamic and representative history of the decade.

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NOTES 1. E.g., Paula S. Fass, The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920’s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1977); Nicholas L. Syrett, The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 183–228; Helen Lefkowitz Horowitz, Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present (New York, NY: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1987). Pro-jazz student quotes come from: Ralph G. Giordano, Satan in the Dance Hall: Rev. John Roach Straton, Social Dancing, and Morality in 1920s New York City (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008), 99; Peter G. Filene, Him/Her/Self: Gender Identities in Modern America, 3rd ed. (Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 142. 2. Beth L. Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989); Robert Cooley Angell, The Campus: A Study of Contemporary Undergraduate Life in the American University (New York and London: D. Appleton and Company, 1928), 165; Ralph McQuinn, “Junior Prom Comes Again with Spectacular Show of Splendor,” Daily Illini, February 10, 1920; N. A., “Prom with Inspiring Beauty Caps Social Season on Campus,” Indiana Daily Student, April 17, 1926. For additional discussion on dancing’s popularity in general, as well as the often formidable opposition to such practices, see: Anne Louise Wagner, Adversaries of Dance: From the Puritans to the Present (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997), 292–319. 3. Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America, 65. 4. The Gramaphone record and phonograph company argued in one advertisement “Few people will deny that the dance craze, which now holds everyone literally in its grip, owes nearly everything to the gramophone.” Mark Katz, “Introduction: Sound Recording,” in Music, Sound, and Technology in America: A Documentary History of Early Phonograph, Cinema, and Radio, ed. Timothy D. Taylor, Mark Katz, and Tony Grajeda (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2012), 19. 5. “Et Tu,” “Confessions of a College Cynic,” Flamingo, January 1923. 6. N. A., “Joke—Have You Heard from Mary?,” The Trintonian, June 8, 1920. 7. Beth Bailey’s work nicely sets the template for understanding the social dynamics at play. See Bailey, From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America, 63. 8. Ohio State Lantern, “Jazz Hounds,” Daily Illini, January 17, 1920. 9. Unfortunately, the author’s anonymity obscures any final degree of certainty whether a male or female was making this argument. And the text itself critiques both males and females for their particular faults in this current situation. Worth noting, though, is how the author gives the man the agency to say “No!” N. A., “Jazz Hounds,” The Ohio State Lantern, January 12, 1920; “Jazz Hounds,” Daily Illini, January 17, 1920. 10. The reference here to the Sadducees is not entirely clear. The Sadducees were a religiously conservative and wealthy Jewish sect that emphasized written law above oral traditions in existence the centuries before and after Jesus’ existence. The implication here may be antiSemitic, though the choice of the Sadducees remains unclear. 11. N. A., “The Sadducees,” The Concordian, February 1926. 12. Ernest Sihler, “Are We Missing Something?,” College Chips, May 1, 1920. Such sentiments were largely consistent with upper Midwest Missouri Synod Lutheran schools. See Carroll Engelhardt, On Firm Foundation Grounded: The First Century of Concordia College (Moorhead, MN: Concordia College, 1991). 13. Genevieve Forbes Herrick, “Rush to Defense of Co-Eds,” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 15, 1926. 14. Ibid. 15. Duncan P. Schiedt, The Jazz State of Indiana (Pittsboro, Indiana: [Self-Published], 1977), 28; ed. Aloysius J. Bremner, “The Loyolan” (The Internet Archive, 1926); N. A., “Class Notes,” Ariston, April 1921. 16. Herbert Shaw, “Dancing at Fisk,” The Greater Fisk Herald, October 1926. 17. Maurice E. Newsome, “They Call It Dancing,” ibid., December. 18. Anna L. Jones, “An Evaluation of the Art of Dancing,” ibid., April/May.

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19. N. A., “Dancing,” ibid., December; Joe M. Richardson, A History of Fisk University, 1865–1946 (University: University of Alabama Press, 1980), 84–85, 90–100; James Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935 (Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), 264–70. 20. W. B. M., “Thank the Band,” Daily Illini, October 14 1920. 21. Not surprisingly, the campus newspaper reported that “Student leaders express opinion that dancing and dance music at Illinois are not objectionable. N. A., “Women Deans Open Fight on Jazz in Dancing,” Chicago Daily Tribune, November 20, 1921; “Deans’ Anti-Jazz Resolution Not Necessary Here,” Daily Illini, November 22, 1921. 22. N. A., “Declares Jazz Lowers Tastes,” Los Angeles Times, August 14, 1921. 23. Robert Schwartz, Deans of Men and the Shaping of Modern College Culture (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2010), 10–11; Jana Nidiffer, Pioneering Deans of Women: More Than Wise and Pious Matrons (New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2000). 24. N. A., “Women Condemn Jazz Tunes on U. Of C. Campus,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 8, 1922. 25. N. A., “Women Condemn Jazz Tunes on U. Of C. Campus,” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 8, 1922; Ralph C. Meima, “Literature and Life,” The Anchor, January 24, 1921. 26. Vagabond Editorial Board, “Editorial,” The Vagabond 1, no. 1 (1923); Williams M. Toner, “Halltree—a Parody,” ibid., 3, no. 3/4 (1926); N. A., “Notes of Higher Culture at Indiana University—on Immorality,” ibid., 2, no. 1 (1924); Harry T. Moore, “The Stage,” La Critique 1930. This argument similarly aligned with the majority view among higher education faculty. In one representative case, a University of South Dakota Classics professor lamented how jazz had few enduring lessons to teach young people. He suggested readers “Turn for an hour a day from the brief-lived jazz-literature of today and seek the society of those writers whose fame has withstood the test of ages.” A. L. Keith, “The Reading Circle’s Program,” The Classical Journal 19, no. 2 (1923). 27. N. A., “Heaven Protect Jazz!,” Daily Illini, January 22, 1921.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aloysius J. Bremner, ed. “The Loyolan.” 1926. Anderson, James. The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935. Chapel Hill and London: University of North Carolina Press, 1988. Angell, Robert Cooley. The Campus: A Study of Contemporary Undergraduate Life in the American University. New York and London: D. Appleton and Company, 1928. Bailey, Beth L. From Front Porch to Back Seat: Courtship in Twentieth-Century America. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1989. Engelhardt, Carroll. On Firm Foundation Grounded: The First Century of Concordia College. Moorhead, MN: Concordia College, 1991. “Et Tu.” “Confessions of a College Cynic.” Flamingo, January 1923. Fass, Paula S. The Damned and the Beautiful: American Youth in the 1920’s. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977. Filene, Peter G. Him/Her/Self: Gender Identities in Modern America. 3rd ed. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. 1974. Giordano, Ralph G. Satan in the Dance Hall: Rev. John Roach Straton, Social Dancing, and Morality in 1920s New York City. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2008. Herrick, Genevieve Forbes. “Rush to Defense of Co-Eds.” Chicago Daily Tribune, September 15 1926, 1. Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Campus Life: Undergraduate Cultures from the End of the Eighteenth Century to the Present. New York, NY: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 1987. Jones, Anna L. “An Evaluation of the Art of Dancing.” The Greater Fisk Herald, April/May 1926, 14. Katz, Mark. “Introduction: Sound Recording.” In Music, Sound, and Technology in America: A Documentary History of Early Phonograph, Cinema, and Radio, edited by Timothy D.

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Taylor, Mark Katz, and Tony Grajeda, 11–29. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2012. Keith, A. L. “The Reading Circle’s Program.” The Classical Journal 19, no. 2 (1923): 106–10. McQuinn, Ralph. “Junior Prom Comes Again with Spectacular Show of Splendor.” Daily Illini, February 10, 1920, 9. Meima, Ralph C. “Literature and Life.” The Anchor, January 24, 1921, 2. Moore, Harry T. “The Stage.” La Critique, 1930. N. A. “Class Notes.” Ariston, April 1921, 20. ———. “Dancing.” The Greater Fisk Herald, December 1926. ———. “Declares Jazz Lowers Tastes.” Los Angeles Times, August 14, 1921, 14. ———. “Heaven Protect Jazz!” Daily Illini, January 22, 1921, 4. ———. “Jazz Hounds.” Daily Illini, January 17, 1920, 4. ———. “Jazz Hounds.” The Ohio State Lantern, January 12, 1920. ———. “Joke—Have You Heard from Mary?” The Trintonian, June 8, 1920, 4. ———. “Notes of Higher Culture at Indiana University—on Immorality.” The Vagabond 2, no. 1 (1924): 2. ———. “Prom with Inspiring Beauty Caps Social Season on Campus.” Indiana Daily Student, April 17, 1926. ———. “The Sadducees.” The Concordian, February 9, 1926, 4. ———. “Women Condemn Jazz Tunes on U. Of C. Campus.” Chicago Daily Tribune, March 8, 1922, 9. Newsome, Maurice E. “They Call It Dancing.” The Greater Fisk Herald, December 1926, 16. Nidiffer, Jana. Pioneering Deans of Women: More Than Wise and Pious Matrons. New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2000. Ohio State Lantern. “Jazz Hounds.” Daily Illini, January 17, 1920, 4. Richardson, Joe M. A History of Fisk University, 1865–1946. University: University of Alabama Press, 1980. Schiedt, Duncan P. The Jazz State of Indiana. Pittsboro, Indiana: [Self-Published], 1977. Schwartz, Robert. Deans of Men and the Shaping of Modern College Culture. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan US, 2010. Shaw, Herbert. “Dancing at Fisk.” The Greater Fisk Herald, October 1926, 12–13. Sihler, Ernest. “Are We Missing Something?” College Chips, May 1, 1920, 150–52. Syrett, Nicholas L. The Company He Keeps: A History of White College Fraternities. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Toner, Williams M. “Halltree—a Parody.” The Vagabond 3, no. 3/4 (1926): 4. Vagabond Editorial Board. “Editorial.” The Vagabond 1, no. 1 (1923): 2. W. B. M. “Thank the Band.” Daily Illini, October 14, 1920, 4. Wagner, Anne Louise. Adversaries of Dance: From the Puritans to the Present. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.

Conclusion But I Don’t Want to Read a Graphic Novel: Truth and Nuance about Pop Culture in Education Paul A. Crutcher and Autumn M. Dodge

Imagine the following conflict, mundane and real: Autumn slowly, contentedly woke, opened her eyes, and her phone and a graphic novel on the bed stand greeted her. She sighed then, rolled off the other side of the bed, away from the tedious book, and padded into the kitchen to feed her eager dogs. Clicking the teapot and radio on, she started aimlessly nibbling on tiny cookies. The argument pushed itself into her mind, drowning out NPR—Paul insistent that she read the graphic novel so they could continue their research project. Autumn poured the tea into a thermos, scooped up her keys, kicked into some shoes, leashed up the dogs, and headed out for the park. As her boxer pulled after squirrels and rabbits, she couldn’t shake the overwhelming idea that she should not just be able to read that graphic novel, but that she should want to, and that she should even advocate for the literacy goals achieved through comics and pop culture in the research. She stubbed her shoe on broken pavement she missed, righted herself, and decided she’d try again when she returned home. It had, after all, been four months since the book arrived, innocuously, on her front porch. In this chapter, we share, interrogate, and bear out the complexities in the organic conflict above and embedded in the comics panacea in education. Autumn frankly details how she (a) doesn’t enjoy the most dominant content in the comics medium (i.e., fantasy and science fiction), (b) doesn’t feel competent or interested in developing the skills to read comics and graphic novels, (c) simply prefers prose and conventional texts and sees a reason for their primacy, and (d) doesn’t take most comics and graphic novels seriously 301

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or see them as complex or substantive (i.e., through an emic view of literacy). She writes, for instance, “I know that Maus is something I should read, but I don’t want to,” a cumulative and honest expression of frustration or derision that we’ve both heard from preservice and inservice teachers and from professional colleagues. We see our chapter contributing to needed interdisciplinary work between education and the academic disciplines more proper and, perhaps more importantly, between cynics and fans. We see far more nuance in how graphic novels, visual literatures, pop culture are taken up than what the publishers, journals, or conferences would suggest. “Graphic novels” and pop culture are no more a panacea for issues in literacy or in education more broadly than are standardized tests or young adult literature (YAL) or iPads. And that’s okay. BEING IGNORANT AND INDOCTRINATED Bradford Wright opens 2003’s Comic Book Nation with the apt observation, “Few enduring expressions of American popular culture are so instantly recognizable and still so poorly understood as comic books.” 1 Wright engages the history of comics in the twentieth century in the United States, and his assertions that follow—how comics “have produced cultural icons recognized in every corner of the globe,” how “they remain inscrutable to most adults,” how “the average thirteen-year-old displays more knowledge about [comics] than the average professor of history, even a professor of cultural history” 2—must be accurate into the early 1990s. This chapter offers no similar history, but a stark contrast to the generational assertions above for our culture and dynamics in education and scholarship since the turn of the millennium. The contemporary arts and humanities are filled with scholars studying and teaching about comics, scholars who read Will Eisner in the 1970s and followed Scott McCloud before Twitter existed, who enjoyed the politics in Alan Moore’s Watchmen and Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns, and who celebrated Maus and Persepolis before they became part of the “best of” graphic novel frenzy since 2010. We should forgive teachers, scholars, and teacher educators in the social sciences for both their bewilderment and their willingness to indulge. Comics and graphic novels are “hot.” Teachers are bombarded today with articles, books, and conferences about using graphic novels in the classroom and with a rhetoric of comics as an educational panacea. We no doubt know that at conferences like the National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE), American Educational Research Association (AERA), the Literacy Research Association (LRA), and International Literacy Association (ILA) that teachers queue for any toolkits related to the purported panacea, including those shown in neon solidarity by the publishers. For the last several years, “graph-

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ic novels” have been touted to meet Common Core State Standards (CCSS), 3 Every Student Succeeds (ESSA), and other policy goals for rich, complex, narrative, and informational texts and for global competency, to promote critical thinking, critical analysis of texts, literacy for ELLs, and for visual, technological, and multimodal literacies—to say nothing of reaching all those diverse students and reluctant readers. 4 The Horn Book Magazine’s November/December 2015 issue shows jolly St. Nick running from a group of catapulting ninjas. The endearing cover opens into one of three feature articles and two of four columns on comics. The magazine is “about books for children and young adults,” and in some ways reflects the publishing industry—and its push to explode every new property into a transmedia phenomenon. Ransom Rigg’s unique novel Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, filled with his imagination and those unsettling found photographs, was reprinted as a graphic novel and then optioned for a fall 2016 movie. That move to capitalize on the novel’s success ignores what made the novel so compelling and what many comics and “graphica” (or all visual literature) fans and scholars would argue is unique about the medium. Regardless, Horn Book isn’t unique, but part of the larger trend described above. Many of the journal articles and conference presentations detail some form of definitional and how-to, explaining rudimentary skills for the uninitiated and showcasing the wonders (and less often the problems) in using or having students read and produce comics. Consider just the following titles produced for teachers across the last few years: Stephen Cary’s Going Graphic (2004), James Bucky Carter’s Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels (2007), Terry Thompson’s Adventures in Graphica (2008), Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher’s Teaching Visual Literacy (2008), Stephen Tabachnick’s Teaching the Graphic Novel (2009), Melissa Hart’s Using Graphic Novels in the Classroom (2010), Michael Bitz’s When Commas Meet Kryptonite (2010), Lan Dong’s Teaching Comics and Graphic Narratives (2012), Katie Monnin’s Teaching Graphic Novels (2013), Ryan Novak’s Teaching Graphic Novels in the Classroom (2013), Maureen Bakis’ The Graphic Novel Classroom (2014), and Matthew Miller’s Class, Please Open Your Comics (2015). Contemporary educational publishing often seems redundant on topics in this way (e.g., Google “close reading”), but there rarely exists an established interdisciplinary literature on the same topic—especially not one that would seem so at odds with educators’ popularization of that existing theory and research. With few exceptions, it can be difficult to reconcile the teacher books with the significant and groundbreaking theoretical work done in Will Eisner’s Comics and Sequential Art, Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics and Reinventing Comics, or the ongoing scholarship into literary, linguistic, and cognitive complexities and questions in research like Rocco Versaci’s

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This Book Contains Graphic Language, Neil Cohn’s The Visual Language of Comics, or Thierry Groensteen’s The System of Comics and Comics and Narration. Comics fandom and scholarship use the common argument that the medium is unique in its subversiveness (that the medium itself allows the authors and illustrators to do things not possible in other mediums, like film or music or prose), an argument is often ignored in teacher books. That ratty ‘zine or comic isn’t a part of the curriculum, and these articles are written by people who probably don’t know Robert Crumb or Alan Moore. 5 While working together on research about comics in English language arts (ELA) and social studies classrooms, we (the authors of this conclusion) began to identify our diverging and intersecting ideas about comics and pop culture in education. Imagine Autumn as the teacher/scholar who runs into this comics phenomenon as a result of her study of contemporary literacy research and Paul as the fan who follows his comics and pop culture passions into becoming a teacher/scholar. Much like the organic genesis for this book, for instance, Paul found that Autumn lacked some of the most fundamental knowledge about comics that any decent fan would understand, while Autumn found that Paul resisted some of the assertions about the literacy gains from comics in the literature. We stumbled into a complex and frustrating issue, and at its center was the excellent The Silence of Our Friends, a graphic novel by Mark Long, Jim Demonakos, and Nate Powell, about race, community, and civil rights in Texas in the 1960s. PROBLEMS AT ARF We were taking these tensions and questions into a research paper that we were writing and presenting at the American Reading Forum (ARF). 6 Immediately following the LRA annual conference, ARF included a collection of important figures in literacy, certainly, and featured panels with papers on visual literature, graphic novels, and multimodal literacy in a surprising five out of seven session blocks. That ARF paper considered visual literatures to integrate into a contemporary, secondary history/social studies course, particularly how the types of texts that have been used in these courses over time and how these texts are changing with the CCSS and the recent attention to popular culture in the classroom. 7 We chose award-winning and otherwise notable texts of importance to us, our teacher colleagues, and to modern debates—the civil rights movement—and went about reading and analyzing them. Well, one of us did. Autumn found that she simply did not want to read a graphic novel. 8 She looked at The Silence of Our Friends, the 252-page graphic novel, and balked. And it sat—unread, untouched—on her desk for weeks.

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Her strong reaction to reading a graphic novel really took her aback. She confessed her situation to Paul. Everything that she loves and is comfortable with in a regular novel, nonfiction text, or academic article—linear, traditionally structured writing that she can delve into and settle into a consistent zone—seems missing in a graphic novel. The word bubbles unsettle her and make concentrating difficult. Letterers using all caps, creative text styles, and splash dialogue, words exploding across the page, she finds jarring, physically uncomfortable. Even as kids, with her sister pleading to share her favorite Calvin & Hobbes collection, Autumn hasn’t ever liked reading comics. Autumn’s sister would just sit and read them for hours, laughing and showing their brother her favorite parts. They never appealed to Autumn for the same reasons described above, but being just a kid then—not someone steeped in thinking about literacy and types of texts—she just colloquially knew they “weren’t her thing.” Since this impediment to our research and writing—Autumn not wanting to read the graphic novel—was so palpable, we decided that when she did finally read the book it might be worth trying to capture the “ordeal” by writing a reflection on the experience. Perhaps it would be academically pertinent or, at the least, interesting. Her reflection at the time follows. THE DISCONNECT: AUTUMN On a depressing, grey Sunday, four full months after The Silence of Our Friends arrived in my mailbox and I was scheduled to start reading, I finally, albeit begrudgingly, read it. I woke up grumpy, fed the dogs and let them out, and then went back to bed, trying to put off what as I saw as a terrible task ahead of me. Rolling out of bed at noon, I looked at my email and found a frustrated note from Paul, which we followed with a half-hour conversation about the inchoate ARF paper. Paul cut to the chase—“Get back with me when you’ve read the novel.” I leashed up the dogs and took them to the park. Once home, I did a brief, mini preparatory food binge, and then I laid a blanket out in the living room, brewed some green tea, and started The Silence of Our Friends. My mind repeated the distinct mantra, “I don’t want to!” but I moved through the first several pages and found I’d finished in under three hours. The format prompted me to worry about the work of sifting through dissonant images and content, despite the fact that I knew The Silence of Our Friends was a memoir and, like memoirs and literature, would likely affect me in normative emotional ways. I thought I wasn’t going to like it, that it was going to be hard for me to read, my comprehension shutting down. I feared a lack of narrative linearity, familiar text structure, and my own levels of concentration and motivation. Instead, it was a literacy experience like I

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haven’t had before—something actively visual and what was going on in front of me felt apace. I was kind of in what Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls “flow.” 9 I found that there was depth to the characters that I never expected to find in this medium; I was emotionally and empathically involved in the novel. It was powerful and offered an experience different from anything else. The disconnect we discussed and I experienced is at least partly reflected in the aftermath of my resistance to The Silence of Our Friends—I haven’t read a comic or graphic novel since. I still don’t want to read comics and I look back on my journal and feel that my reactions and my reflections still don’t inspire me to do more than keep abreast with the latest articles in the field of literacy on the use of graphic novels and, of course, introduce and discuss the topic with my students. And this is okay—it’s not necessary for a teacher to love every text type that they teach or embrace all the latest instructional strategies they discuss in their teacher education classrooms. But it does mean that, unless I push myself, I will continue to have limited experience with graphic novels. As a teacher educator, it means that I will not be able to speak firsthand to the literacy practices required when reading graphic novels or what it looks like to design instruction incorporating them. However, my experience reading The Silence of Our Friends wasn’t a complete dead end for me in terms of my thinking about graphic novels and education. I realized that The Silence of Our Friends was (what I would describe as) a historical memoir—the first author actually experienced the events and portrayed himself within the text. He chose to tell his story and portray his message about his experience of racism and the civil rights movement in the graphic novel form. While it might not be so for others, I had a disciplinary literacy “aha moment” as I realized that some graphic novels actually are historically relevant documents because they are the medium through which actual figures in history tell their stories. The ways people choose to communicate their experiences and histories are relevant and understanding this is an aspect of thinking like an historian. 10 My “aha moment” was serendipitously followed by The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart interviewing John Lewis about the March graphic novels and the civil rights movement and asking him why he chose to tell his story through graphic novels. Stewart asked if the idea for the graphic novel “helps young people to get a sense of what you went through,” and Lewis affirmed that he’s “still here to tell the story” and to “inspire another generation of young people.” 11 Based on The Silence of Our Friends and March, I read an article in which Hillary Chute talks about her interest in the ways comics can be used in history. She writes, “I’m particularly interested in how comics consider the problem of representing history because my own work has centered on what the comics form makes possible for nonfiction narrative, especially on the ability of comics to spatially juxtapose (and overlay) past and present and

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future moments on the page.” She went on to pose points of discussion and questions that I thought can be useful in my teaching. Chute continues, “I’m interested in how comics expands modes of historical and personal expression while existing in the field of the popular. How does contemporary comics approach devastating public histories? Why do female artists blur the distinction between ‘private’ and ‘public’ histories?” 12 She noted, in particular, Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus. So, in my thinking a couple months after my initial reflections on reading The Silence of Our Friends—and into today—I feel that some of the stigma or at least cognitive dissonance about the content of graphic novels has been dispelled (particularly graphic novels as historical texts). At the same time, I still have concerns about the complexities—both cognitive and pedagogical—of using graphic novels in the classroom. I’m concerned about issues with the instructional reading process. While I found that I was indeed able to engage with the various characteristics of graphic novels (e.g., nonlinear, image-dominant, all-caps text), I had more trouble with recalling and identifying particular parts of the novel that wouldn’t have been a problem with a prose novel or an informational text. For example, when I wanted to go back and identify a particular event or interaction between the characters, I missed the thematic and structural chronology and memory of specific event locations on pages that I have when reading prose novels or informational texts. If preparing to teach a prose novel or informational text, I am often able to read through and return to the most salient points through memory and make notes, but preparing to teach a graphic novel requires an additional layer of rereading and note-taking (partly because comics and graphic novels can have sporadic pagination). The pace of reading a graphic novel, too, should probably be slower. I think I mustered a good deal of get-it-done adrenaline to power through The Silence of Our Friends but the work on graphic novels suggests that careful reading should take more cognitive processing. Chute explains that reading graphic novels can require slowing down; the form can place a great demand on our cognitive skills. Just as an author’s spatial construction of the page can beg rereadings and deliberately confuse narrative linearity (in comics, reading can occur in all directions), the basic narrative requires a high degree of cognitive engagement. 13

What Chute’s comments here make clear is that the reading of graphic novels requires different kinds of knowledge, skills, and literacy processes than reading traditional texts. Similar to studies of how online reading processes and comprehension differ from those for traditional linear texts, 14 the differences in reading processes and comprehension between graphic novels and traditional texts must be acknowledged and attended to. There are implica-

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tions for both the student reader and the teacher. 15 To assist students in developing literacy practices for reading and comprehending graphic novels, the teacher must have experience with them. As we noted above, a plethora of new books have been published that introduce teachers to the importance of graphic novels and how they can be used. In Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels, for instance, Don Leibold discusses using X-Men to examine Dante’s Inferno. 16 Chapters like these that admittedly would draw on students’ out-of-school interests in characters like the X-Men, Spiderman, Batman, or the Hulk reveal some additional problems. Perhaps the most substantial problem is background knowledge. Beyond not having experience with or interest in reading graphic novels or in the fantasy/science fiction genre, many graphic novels are derived from specialized Discourse and a vast pool of background knowledge that I do not have. Al-Saati discusses in her chapter the great many additional complexities and problems in thinking generously about any broad, universal appeal to pop culture. The world and history of the X-Men remains unknown—and of no interest—to me (the best I can muster is a trivia note about Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine in the movies). So while using X-Men in service of teaching Dante’s Inferno might well be an amazing way to teach students, it’s not a pedagogy accessible to all teachers. I thoroughly enjoy the smart analyses of media and culture on NPR, including an excellent spot with Bryan Singer, Michael Chabon, Art Spiegelman, Jules Feiffer, Margot Kidder, and Howard Jacobson about how Superman can be used to analyze and provide commentary on morality, Jewish myth, and American culture. 17 However, it’s important to distinguish my interest in critique from any possible interest in the specific media in these segments, whether comics or Sri Lankan politics or sharks. Engaging a pop culture scholar on NPR doesn’t prepare you to and is certainly different from integrating effective lessons using comics into our classrooms. I still lack requisite knowledge and am not compelled to begin pursuing it. I am not alone in my uncertainty and disinterest in teaching with comics and graphic novels. Diane Lapp, Thomas Wolsey, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey conducted a survey study of teachers’ attitudes about and ways of using graphic novels in their classrooms. Teachers expressed willingness to try graphic novels in their own teaching but felt “limited in their attempts to do so by lack of instructional models, lack of graphic novels in the classroom, and their own level of comfort with the genre” 18 (although the use of the term “genre” is arguably a misnomer in this context). It stands to reason that teachers would respond to a survey about comics or movies or iPads or QR codes or any other possible educational tool with this willingness, but that willingness is hampered by ignorance and shouldn’t imply interest.

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My engagement with the zeitgeist of graphic novels in the classroom began as I taught my first two years of a course on disciplinary literacy to preservice teacher candidates in a graduate literacy education program. My course was grounded in the work of Elizabeth Birr Moje, Timothy and Cynthia Shanahan, Stephanie McConachie and Anthony Petrosky, and Vassiliki Zygouris-Coe. 19 We focused on the shift from content area literacy to disciplinary literacy—moving from generalized reading and study strategies to the habits of mind and literacy practices of experts in the various disciplines (e.g., thinking like a scientist or an historian). Attentive to the contemporary literacy research, I noted the trend promoting graphic novels to support disciplinary literacy teaching. Such literature and conference presentations often claim that graphic novels are an innovative way to scaffold the literacy of English language learners (ELLs) and struggling readers. I felt it was important to expose my students to these ideas and thought it would make for productive classroom discussion. 20 Simultaneously, I knew that the concept of pairing graphic novels with disciplinary texts seemed at odds with some of the readings and materials. 21 I had my students read articles that offered contrasting perspectives. For example, Katherine Bucher and Lee Manning’s article discussed the unique ways graphic novels can introduce students to content. They mention, for example, Raymond Briggs’ Ethel and Ernest about “how ordinary individuals reacted to major events such as World War II.” 22 In contrast, William Brozo and Melissa Mayville’s article offered a list of graphic novels and manga specifically written and published for the purposes of teaching content (e.g., Understanding Global Warming with Max Axiom, Super Scientist; The Manga Guide to Statistics). 23 Surely these two articles emphasize similarly the power of graphic novels to introduce students to content in accessible and engaging ways. However, the kinds of materials they used (graphic novels written without classroom instruction in mind versus those designed specifically for curricular content) elicited confusion in our discussions. We wondered and debated whether the use of graphic novels would be supported by the tenets of disciplinary literacy we had been reading about. The students had mixed feelings. Several noted that they’d read comics when they were younger but didn’t necessarily associate this with use in the classroom. Others felt compelled to explore the idea such as the several students who used Mark Schultz and Zander Canon’s The Stuff of Life: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA in a thematic science unit they were designing for class. Graphic novels and disciplinary literacy was a minor part of the course, but students struggled throughout the course to understand how graphic novels worked with disciplinary literacy; several told me that our discussion of graphic novels undermined their understanding. 24 Again, continued literature in my field forwards the use of graphic novels as a way unique and important ways to reach at-risk student populations. For

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example, Karen Gavigan and Kendra Albright share their work with incarcerated youth whose writing of graphic novels about HIV/AIDS served to help them learn about the topic and increase their efficacy and literacy learning. 25 Douglas Fisher shares the experience of using graphic novels to engage diverse urban youth and showed advances in writing and reading, including more complex sentences. 26 Currently the literature conveys a strong moral imperative, and yet literacy research is conventionally empiricallybased, and the theoretical and qualitative corpus is matched by a dearth of empirical research about comics’ efficacy. Further, the current literature perpetuates unresolved questions and problems of the sort described throughout this chapter: • If graphic novels are a purposeful, scaffolding literacy tool, advocated in the literature and by the professional organizations, how should we view the teacher who is unwilling and uninterested in this particular literacy “best practice”? • If graphic novels are promoted through CCSS, ESSA, and other shared and standardized skills and knowledge based policies, if they are the dynamic, narrative alternative to the staid paintings and historical cartoons, are teachers who don’t use graphic novels shirking their responsibilities to build students’ visual literacies? • If graphic novels are part of students’ lives, and therefore part of the aims of respecting out-of-school and community literacy practices, students’ funds of knowledge, and social justice literacy initiatives, is the teacher uninterested in comics also defaulting to effective obsolescence and failing the students ethically? THE DISCONNECT: PAUL I work on a daily basis with teachers and with questions about educational practice and policy. I also teach university courses on pop culture and courses that include comics and graphic novels. What I primarily encounter is an ongoing spectrum of stigmas about the medium, from students and from preservice and inservice teachers, which do not seem echoed in the educational literature. From teachers, I have shared expletive-laden, derisive responses about using comics in classrooms, and I marveled when a student dropped my class because the illustrated and graphic novels were “satanic,” when the same novels are the basis for countless modern movies and receive extensive acclaim (e.g., Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, A Monster Calls). Fifteen years ago, we would have had difficulty garnering support for a paper on comics or graphic novels at NCTE, IRA/ILA, LRA, or

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AERA, but today the conferences have entire strands and SIGs and special issue journals on the subject. It is not clear what changed. My perspective derives more from the popular culture and comics studies fandom, theory, and research than it does from the educational literature, or more from the eclectic scholars and artists and bohemian thinkers at the Popular Culture Association (PCA) than with the jovial denizens of NCTE or ILA. One of the things I discussed at ARF, for instance, was the ways that educators and education scholars can cite educational research promoting the inclusion of comics while simultaneously reifying stigmas about the medium. As Autumn noted, scholars argue how comics positively impact motivation and efficacy for ELLs and reluctant readers, but if the educator champions comics only for the students who struggle with reading, the clear implications are that comics serve a limited purpose for a specific group and that comics are a transitional stage to on-target, prose texts. Imagine also the fundamental misunderstanding or ignorance about the history or art of comics. The educational craze is often about “graphic novels,” which comics scholars contend is a contentious term, perpetuated by publishers and educators. Instead, if a craze is warranted, it should be about comics more broadly, as a medium, rather than about a collection of books that are frequently published to capitalize on a craze rather than to maximize the medium or comics’ potential literariness or artistic value. And that prompts questions about the sort of “graphic novels” educators are championing. Conventional educational text selection often follows a series of awards or distinctions (e.g., the Newberry), but what criteria are educators using to assess artistic and literary merit? Even Michael Pagliaro’s interesting and clearly thoughtful article “Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words?” pits teachers against a rubric that seeks both to instruct teachers how to read comics and also to position those teachers as evaluators of the art, the paneling, the characterization, and other structural elements of comics. 27 The move is equivalent to teaching a teen how to drive a stick. He has seen a manual transmission before and has at least a vague sense of how it might operate. You explain it to him, show him how to shift, explain it again, and then trade seats. During the first or second lap around the parking lot, you ask him a series of questions about the clutch engagement point, gear feel, slippage, and relative precision compared to the manual in your neighbor’s E36 BMW M3. Add to the example that your teen just wants to go out on Friday without you driving him, and couldn’t care less about cars beyond Bluetooth sync, Google Play, navigation, and other things that anyone who knows cars will tell you have nothing to do with cars. 28 It’s easier to see educators using the manga adaptation of Huck Finn or the Hamlet graphic novel than it is to see educators finding comics that experts in the field might put in league with Huck Finn or Hamlet. Similarly, it’s easy to identify the teacher canon of graphic novels for schools, including

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Maus and Persepolis, 29 even if finding teachers who know icons Scott McCloud or Will Eisner or have read Watchmen or Dark Knight Returns or Saga or Black Hole is a challenge. The inclusion of comics is part of a broader movement in popular culture or curated pseduo-pop (e.g., educational publishers and manga versions of classic literature). At least two factors created this movement: One, lowperforming Title I schools and concerns over broad academic performance in US schools relative to other international competitors (and perhaps fear about Millennial and Gen Z apathy) spawned the current advocacy of high-interest and traditionally non-academic content (like comics) in classrooms. Two, the composition of the teaching force in K-12 and higher ed shifted from baby boomers to Gen Xers, or to a group who are far more likely to be familiar with and fans of pop culture from the 1980s and 1990s (including comics). Indeed, the demographics of K-16 teachers shift at precisely the time the late Millennial and Gen Z students introduce a technological and cultural chasm between teachers and students unlike anything since the introduction of compulsory public education in the United States in the early 1900s. I’m increasingly concerned that the current teacher education students don’t understand this problem and will face a much different and rapidly mutable educational space (e.g., imagine Eunice and the concept of reading books in Super Sad True Love Story). That is, people who want to be teachers don’t understand pop culture. More broadly it is arguable that there isn’t pop culture anymore except as nostalgia and adaptation. When I share concerns that my pop savvy references in class elicit dumbfounded ignorance from the students, colleagues have two responses: (a) to bring the pop in as an explicitly pedagogical move—showing an excerpt from Ex Machina and showcasing intersections between the film and Shelley’s Frankenstein—or (b) the more fraught pedagogical expectation that students will have seen the widely available, recent, and notable Ex Machina (or Deadpool or whatever). 30 The former is pedantic and undermines the concept of pop culture (assuming the definition of popular culture includes the idea that it is a contemporary media known popularly, or widely, especially among the youth). The latter operates on a premise that Bourdieu’s “cultural capital” remains a viable sociological description of the developed world. In 1977 when Pierre Bourdieu first coined the term cultural capital, there were three network TV channels (NBC, ABC, CBS) and PBS. In 1987 when E.D. Hirsch published Cultural Literacy, applying those sociological concepts to education, TV in the United States had expanded to include FOX. When I was a kid, in the 1980s, cartoons were on TV at around 3 PM during the week and run on Saturday mornings; I went with my dad and little brother on Tuesdays to pick up our pulls from the comic book shop. What’s happened to media since is unequivocally astounding. Consternation about

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Millennial and Gen Z culture is widespread, and certainly focuses on anecdotes about disposition and technology. In education, the cultural chasm between teacher and student, and the increasing scrutiny of teaching in the United States, prompted a policy scramble and the overwhelming “panacea” rhetoric—all you need is iPads, hip-hop, YAL, and/or graphic novels and you’ll be able to unlock a connection to the enigmatic and self-important students in your class. Yet if research tells us that the goal for integrating technology and pop culture is to understand student lives and to integrate that knowledge into teaching to maximize learning, such as student funds of knowledge and similar theory, it should be straightforward to do so. I describe a few of my classes to pose questions about how teachers today are to take calls to celebrate technology, media, and pop culture, like graphic novels. I teach an upper-level undergraduate course titled “Visual Literatures” that I led in Spring 2016 concurrently with a team-taught, eleventh- and twelfth-grade Arkansas School for Math, Science, and the Arts (ASMSA) course, “Comics in America.” My students, in their early twenties, were most excited to read Death Note (often for a second or third time) and to talk about videogames. The self-acclaimed geeks noted a subculture they participated in during high school that centered on manga and anime. The more we read and talked, the clearer it became that the interesting time in the late 1980s for comics generationally separated me (and the ASMSA teachers) from the Millennial and Gen Z students and the media they consumed through a combination of distribution channels, including cable TV like Cartoon Network, online streaming services like crunchyroll, online retailers like Amazon, and torrents and a host of other digital and analog means of consumption. In summer 2015 I taught “Pop Culture,” and was baffled by a nineteenyear-old student who struggled in and failed the course because she could never identify something she was passionate about or a fan of (in other words, she couldn’t identify anything that was pop culture). This experience deeply primed me to be thinking about the issue, and I took questions into my “World Literature” courses in fall 2015 and spring 2016. As a core university humanities requirement, and like other such courses, “World Lit” showcases the most diverse student cohort at the university. While working to connect their lives with content and culture from seventeenth-century Russian prose or twenty-first-century poetry from Pakistan, I polled the students about their favorite pop culture. The majority of the (anonymous) responses were vehicles for media or social media rather than conventional narrative media content itself, including Tumblr, Netflix, Pandora, Instagram, and Reddit. The problem, then, is not that these students don’t identify comics among their favorite pop culture, but that so much of the educational research argues

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that using comics and graphic novels in the curriculum taps into the hidden lives of students and facilitates an otherwise inaccessible motivation to learn. 31 Championed by teachers and scholars who often haven’t been in a comic book store, read a serial, or engaged any of the serious and substantive research and writing done by the interdisciplinary scholars and creators about comics over the past fifty years, it’s not surprising to encounter “comic” fatigue and confusion at conferences and in schools. CONCLUSION: RETHINKING POP CULTURE We know there are countless teachers doing thoughtful, interesting, and excellent things with comics, graphic novels, and all manner of other pop culture and technology. Activities and products informed by the passion and knowledge of the fan scholar and the literacy educator. However, we also know that there are smart, invested, professional teachers who have neither the background, knowledge, or interest in comics or graphic novels that would sustain effective pedagogy for integrating them. Students, too, exist in a context and mediate the vast media in the modern world in ways unlike any people before them; consequently, there isn’t a whole lot to sustain the idea that pop culture, including comics and graphic novels, even exists anymore, let alone that pop culture is something that’s going to be an educational panacea to reach Millennials and Gen Z. No amount of hype, pressure, or rhetoric from publishers and educators is going to change these facts. In other words, you’re not cool just because you use comics or any other pop culture and it’s perfectly okay if you don’t want to. In fact there are probably a lot of fans, geeks, and other subversive types (like Paul) who would be delighted if you (like Autumn) didn’t try. There are also a great many fantastic graphic novels available that all readers and teachers should certainly read and appreciate (just as pop scholars would write about movies, games, music, and more). They show a wealth of diversity showcasing all the things the comic medium can do that Scott McCloud would celebrate and that we should too. Eclectic art styles, lettering, content, and genres mean almost anyone can find a comic or graphic novel that will resonate with her experiences or tap her interests. That said, James Patterson novels should only show up next to the latest literary genius in tiny airport shops where that kind of spacing and camaraderie is inevitable. Just as the uberwealthy and the plebeians show up at the airport, though, we should understand that just because you’re reading a book and just because you picked up one doesn’t mean that you’re doing something worthwhile or developing literacy skills. Here are some of the graphic novels that get celebrated for all the right reasons and that we recommend, but that we’re also

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not going to codify into educational check-boxes. And if you don’t want to read them we understand. Hillary Chute 32 argues that the medium is particularly suited to the memoir, and we see that in many excellent and award-winning graphic novels, including Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, David Small’s Stitches, John Lewis, Andrew Aydin, and Nate Powell’s March, and certainly Mark Long, Jim Demonakos, and Nate Powell’s The Silence of Our Friends. Howard Cruse’s Stuck Rubber Baby, Shaun Tan’s The Arrival, Cory Doctorow and Jen Wang’s In Real Life, and Noelle Stevenson’s Nimona explore politics and identity in compelling ways, from LBGTQ equity to immigration to global labor and technology. Dave McKean walks readers through complex issues of philosophy and duality in Signal to Noise (with Neil Gaiman) and Arkham Asylum (with Grant Morrison). Scott McCloud’s The Sculptor capitalizes on his advocacy and knowledge, David Mazzucchelli’s Asterios Polyp strikes the reader by what the medium can convey of character psychology and emotion, and where Joanna Rubin Dranger’s Miss Remarkable and Her Career captures the fear, anxiety, and depression in the modern workplace, Ken Dahl’s Monster offers an unapologetically flawed view of modern sex and STDs. This chapter concludes with the reasonable, organic conflict that prompted this book. In order to be the most compassionate and effective teachers, we should know student interests, lives, and communities, and integrate that knowledge with the theory and research driving best practices. Examining students and research shows the many ways any comic efficacy or panacea rhetoric fails. That realization should be liberating. We encourage a greater discussion of the lives of Gen Z students, so educators can effectively work at motivation from the source. NOTES 1. Bradford Wright, Comic Book Nation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003), xiii. 2. Ibid. 3. Katie Monnin, “Aligning Graphic Novels to the Common Core Standards,” Knowledge Quest 41.3 (2013), 50. 4. See the following: Christian W. Chun, “Critical Literacies and Graphic Novels for English-Language Learners: Teaching Maus,” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 53.2 (2009), 144–153. Philip Crawford, “Using Graphic Novels to Attract Reluctant Readers,” Library Media Connection (2004), 27. Karen Gavigan, “More Powerful than a Locomotive: Using Graphic Novels to Motivate Struggling Male Adolescent Readers,” Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults 1.3 (2011), n.p. Jason Ranker, “Using Comic Books as Read-Alouds: Insights on Reading Instruction From an English as a Second Language Classroom.” The Reading Teacher 61.4 (2007), 296–305.

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5. Hiphop, like comics, are considered by fans and insiders as subversive. In one of the most popular eras of hiphop, it’s difficult to imagine Public Enemy or the Beastie Boys being interested in being institutionalized as a gateway to Shakespeare or algebra in eighth-grade classrooms. Add the problems discussed in the literature and popular presses about the racial and socioeconomic demographics contrasting many teachers and students in the United States, and using pop culture like hiphop warrants questioning. See Newby’s chapter for more. 6. Autumn M. Dodge and Paul A. Crutcher, “History in Visual Texts: Challenging Stigma and Addressing Literacy and the CCSS Objectives” (presentation, American Reading Forum, Sanibel, FL, December 2014). 7. Note how we were working to advocate graphic novels for socially just curricula in social studies and ELA similar to what our fellow contributors discuss in their chapters, including Hawkins, Lopez, and Hughes; Dousay and Haynes; and Grunzke. 8. Sarah A. Mathews, “Framing Preservice Teachers’ Interpretations of Graphic Novels in the Social Studies Classroom,” Theory & Research in Social Education 39.3 (2011), 416–446. Much like Autumn and other scholars, Matthews finds preservice teachers who do not want to read graphic novels. 9. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (Basic Books, 1997). Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience (New York: Harper, 2008). 10. Michael Cromer and Penney Clark, “Getting Graphic with the Past: Graphic Novels and the Teaching of History,” Theory & Research in Social Education 35.4 (2007), 574–591. 11. Jon Stewart, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (New York: Comedy Central, March 9, 2015). 12. Hillary Chute, “Comics as Literature? Reading Graphic Narrative,” PMLA 123.2 (2008), 452–453. 13. Ibid., 460. 14. Julie Coiro, “Predicting Reading Comprehension on the Internet Contributions of Offline Reading Skills, Online Reading Skills, and Prior Knowledge,” Journal of Literacy Research 43.4 (2011), 352–392. 15. Sylvia Pantaleo, “Grade 7 Students Reading Graphic Novels: ‘You Need to Do a Lot of Thinking,’” English in Education 45.2 (2011), 113–131. 16. Don Liebold, “Abandon Every Fear, Ye That Enter: The X-Men Journey through Dante’s Inferno,” in Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels: Page by Page, Panel by Panel, ed. James B. Carter (Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 2007). 17. Kurt Andersen, “American Icons: Superman,” PRI and WNYC, 2013, www.wnyc.org/ story/295935-american-icons-superman. 18. Diane Lapp, Thomas D. Wolsey, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey, “Graphic Novels: What Elementary Teachers Think about Their Instructional Value,” Journal of Education 192.1 (2011/2012), 23–35. 19. In order from the text: Elizabeth Birr Moje, “Foregrounding the Disciplines in Secondary Literacy Teaching and Learning: A Call for Change,” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52.2 (2008), 96–107; Timothy Shanahan and Cynthia Shanahan, “What is Disciplinary Literacy and Why Does It Matter?” Topics in Language Disorders 32.1 (2012), 7–18; Stephanie M. McConachie and Anthony R. Petrosky, Content Matters: A Disciplinary Literacy Approach to Improving Student Learning (New York: Wiley, 2009); and Vassiliki Zygouris-Coe, “Disciplinary Literacy and the Common Core State Standards,” Topics in Language Disorders 32.1 (2012), 35–50. 20. William G. Brozo and Melissa Mayville, “Reforming Secondary Disciplinary Instruction with Graphic Novels,” New England Reading Association Journal 48.1 (2012), 11–20. 21. Elizabeth Birr Moje, “Disciplinary Literacy: Navigating Literacy Contexts Across Secondary Schools,” University of Michigan, 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fMncjLc1iQ. 22. Katherine T. Bucher and M. Lee Manning, “Bringing Graphic Novels Into a School’s Curriculum,” The Clearing House 78.2 (2004), 71. 23. When Autumn discusses texts like Understanding Global Warming with Max Axiom, Super Scientist and The Manga Guide to Statistics, Paul rolls his eyes. These are just the sort of

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derivative “teacher books” that flood the market. They also suggest a troubling inversion of norms in learning. Timm’s chapter prompts us to consider this inversion, one we see in the [Pop Culture Thing] and Philosophy sort of books. Batman doesn’t teach philosophy, and Naruto doesn’t teach physics. Smart and studios thinkers have developed and learned philosophy and physics—for hundreds and hundreds of years, without superheroes or ninjas to aid— and its only because of them and down to the same sort of dedication that any of us do the same. We suggest questioning this inversion. 24. William Boerman-Cornell, “Using Historical Graphic Novels in High School History Classes: Potential for Contextualization, Sourcing, and Corroborating,” The History Teacher 48.2 (2015), 209–224. Boerman-Cornell discusses the complexities of using historical graphic novels (HGNs), particularly considering disciplinary literacy, considering the many genres and purposes HGNs embody. 25. Karen Gavigan and Kendra Albright, “Writing from Behind the Fence: Incarcerated Youths and a Graphic Novel on HIV/AIDS,” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 59.1 (2015), 41–50. 26. Fisher, Douglas. “Using Graphic Novels, Anime, and the Internet in an Urban High School,” The English Journal 93.3 (2004), 19–25. 27. Michael Pagliaro, “Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words? Determining the Criteria for Graphic Novels with Literary Merit,” The English Journal 103.4 (2014), 31–45. 28. This car example is analogous to many others we might imagine, from a deep affection for BBQ without any interest in learning how to barbecue to delirious desire to be hot in designer clothes without any sense of or interest in understanding how credit works. 29. The canonization of graphic novels in education, especially related to educational projects on social justice, certainly includes Maus and American Born Chinese. (See related chapters by Mielke and Brandon and Wolterbeck and Bauer.) Yet Maus and other comics and graphic novels are readily understood as being so powerful and compelling because the medium is subversive. Should these texts be integrated for young people into that unloved category of “school books,” relegated to middle and high school classrooms like Lord of the Flies, Things Fall Apart, and Huck Finn? 30. In either case, as I (Paul) discuss further in this section, the central dilemma is if students don’t know the pop reference, and the pop reference is meant to connect them to curricular content, why use the pop? McMahon-Coleman’s chapter raises this sort of question, as my experience suggests that in any group of eight-, twelve-, seventeen-, or twenty-one-year olds today, few (if any) will know or have watched significant quantities of Doc Martin, Big Bang Theory, and/or Bones. Or, really, any particular TV show, especially during original broadcast hours. 31. We write about the probable death of pop culture amidst technology, social media, consumerism, and nostalgia, but in this chapter offer no explicit alternative (to pop culture) for teachers trying to motivate students. Korson and Kusek’s chapter prompts consideration of tech, social media, and consumerism, and might be one way, and Paul has for years been inspired by the Amazon-“customers who bought this”-algorithms-in-education ideas from Dr. Patrick Dickson at MSU. We encourage a greater discussion of the lives of Gen Z students, so educators can effectively work at motivation from the source. 32. Hillary Chute, “Comics Form and Narrating Lives,” Profession 1 (2011), 107–117.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Andersen, Kurt, “American Icons: Superman,” PRI and WNYC, 2013, www.wnyc.org/story/ 295935-american-icons-superman. Boerman-Cornell, William, “Using Historical Graphic Novels in High School History Classes: Potential for Contextualization, Sourcing, and Corroborating,” The History Teacher 48.2 (2015), 209–224. Brozo, William G., and Melissa Mayville, “Reforming Secondary Disciplinary Instruction with Graphic Novels,” New England Reading Association Journal 48.1 (2012), 11–20.

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Bucher, Katherine T., and M. Lee Manning, “Bringing Graphic Novels Into a School’s Curriculum,” The Clearing House 78.2 (2004), 71. Chun, Christian W., “Critical Literacies and Graphic Novels for English-Language Learners: Teaching Maus,” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 53.2 (2009), 144–153. Chute, Hillary, “Comics Form and Narrating Lives,” Profession 1 (2011), 107–117. Chute, Hillary, “Comics as Literature? Reading Graphic Narrative,” PMLA 123.2 (2008), 452–460. Coiro, Julie, “Predicting Reading Comprehension on the Internet Contributions of Offline Reading Skills, Online Reading Skills, and Prior Knowledge,” Journal of Literacy Research 43.4 (2011), 352–392. Crawford, Philip, “Using Graphic Novels to Attract Reluctant Readers,” Library Media Connection (2004), 27. Cromer, Michael, and Penney Clark, “Getting Graphic with the Past: Graphic Novels and the Teaching of History,” Theory & Research in Social Education 35.4 (2007), 574–591. Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life (Basic Books, 1997). Dodge, Autumn M., and Paul A. Crutcher, “History in Visual Texts: Challenging Stigma and Addressing Literacy and the CCSS Objectives” (presentation, American Reading Forum. Sanibel, FL, December 2014). Fisher, Douglas, “Using Graphic Novels, Anime, and the Internet in an Urban High School,” The English Journal 93.3 (2004), 19–25. Gavigan, Karen, “More Powerful than a Locomotive: Using Graphic Novels to Motivate Struggling Male Adolescent Readers,” Journal of Research on Libraries and Young Adults 1.3 (2011), n.p. Gavigan, Karen, and Kendra Albright, “Writing from Behind the Fence: Incarcerated Youths and a Graphic Novel on HIV/AIDS,” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 59.1 (2015), 41–50. Lapp, Diane, Thomas D. Wolsey, Douglas Fisher, and Nancy Frey, “Graphic Novels: What Elementary Teachers Think about Their Instructional Value,” Journal of Education 192.1 (2011/2012), 23–35. Liebold, Don, “Abandon Every Fear, Ye That Enter: The X-Men Journey through Dante’s Inferno,” in Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels: Page by Page, Panel by Panel, ed. James B. Carter (Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English, 2007). Matthews, Sarah A., “Framing Preservice Teachers’ Interpretations of Graphic Novels in the Social Studies Classroom,” Theory & Research in Social Education 39.3 (2011), 416–446. McConachie, Stephanie M., and Anthony R. Petrosky, Content Matters: A Disciplinary Literacy Approach to Improving Student Learning (New York: Wiley, 2009). Moje, Elizabeth Birr, “Foregrounding the Disciplines in Secondary Literacy Teaching and Learning: A Call for Change,” Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 52.2 (2008), 96–107. Moje, Elizabeth Birr, “Disciplinary Literacy: Navigating Literacy Contexts Across Secondary Schools,” University of Michigan, 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fMncjLc1iQ. Monnin, Katie, “Aligning Graphic Novels to the Common Core Standards,” Knowledge Quest 41.3 (2013). Pagliaro, Michael, “Is a Picture Worth a Thousand Words? Determining the Criteria for Graphic Novels with Literary Merit,” The English Journal 103.4 (2014), 31–45. Pantaleo, Sylvia, “Grade 7 Students Reading Graphic Novels: ‘You Need to Do a Lot of Thinking,’” English in Education 45.2 (2011), 113–131. Ranker, Jason, “Using Comic Books as Read-Alouds: Insights on Reading Instruction From an English as a Second Language Classroom.” The Reading Teacher 61.4 (2007), 296–305. Shanahan, Timothy, and Cynthia Shanahan, “What Is Disciplinary Literacy and Why Does It Matter?” Topics in Language Disorders 32.1 (2012), 7–18. Stewart, Jon, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart (New York: Comedy Central, March 9, 2015). Wright, Bradford, Comic Book Nation (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).

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Zygouris-Coe, Vassiliki, “Disciplinary Literacy and the Common Core State Standards,” Topics in Language Disorders 32.1 (2012), 35–50.

Index

1984 (Orwell), 133, 137 2001: A Space Odyssey, xvii, 133 2Pac, 229, 230, 231, 235 Abbott, William “Bud,” 171, 175 Action Comics, 247 Adams, Jeff, 43, 48 Adventures in Graphica (Thompson), 303 Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The (Twain), 311 Adventures of Tintin, The, 5, 6, 70 Aesop’s Fables, 131 Aetna, 80 affirmative action, 25 African Americans, xiv, 9, 13, 21, 23, 25, 108; in comics, 3, 8, 9, 10–11, 12, 23, 69; history of, 22, 35; and jazz, 287, 292; race relations, 21, 24, 198. See also Black Lives Matter Movement; Black Panthers; Black Power movement; civil rights movement; Jim Crow; March: Book One; March: Book Three; March: Book Two Aguilar, Elena, 82 Akira (Otomo), 73 Al-Saati, Maha, xvi, 308 Albright, Kendra, 310 Alderman, Derek, 105 Alexander, Michelle, 198 Allegory of the Cave (Plato), 228, 229, 233 Allen, Woody, 232, 234

Alverman, Donna E., 244, 246 Amazon Video, xii American Born Chinese (ABC), xiii, 4, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13, 14, 23, 317n29 American Council of Learned Societies, 83 American dream, 110, 112, 113, 114, 115 American Educational Research Association (AERA), 302, 310 American Idol, 4 American Reading Forum (ARF), 304, 305, 311 American Revolution, 48, 49, 52–53 Amusing Ourselves to Death (Postman), 136, 137 Angell, Robert Cooley, 288 animated film, xv, 63, 70, 73 Animatrix (Wachowski), 75 Apocalypse Now, 175 Appeal for Human Rights, An, 30 Aquinas, Thomas, 228, 230, 232 Arkham Asylum (McKean and Morrison), 315 Arp, Robert, 72 Arrival, The (Tan), 315 Art of Teaching Writing, The (Calkin), 79 Asian Americans, 4; in comics, 3, 4, 7–12, 13, 16; identity reclamation, 4, 7–13; stereotypes, xiii, 3, 4–6, 7, 8, 9–10, 13, 15, 17, 114. See also Media Action Network for Asian Americans Asperger’s Syndrome, 115, 147, 148 321

322

Index

assessment, 32, 33, 43, 44–48, 52, 53, 54, 56, 77, 134, 145, 202, 221, 226 Association for the Study of Negro Life and History, 35 Asterios Polyp (Mazzucchelli), 315 at-risk student populations, 309 Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), 154 Attwood, Tony, 145, 150, 151 autism spectrum disorder (ASD), xvii, 145, 147; and college/post-secondary students, 146–147, 155; highfunctioning type, 146, 148; metaphorical language challenges, 149–150, 154; mind blindness, 149, 150, 154; theory of mind, 145, 150 Autobiography of Malcolm X, The (Haley), 25 Avengers, 54 Aydin, Andrew, 22, 315 Bacon, Francis, 228, 232, 235 Bailey, Beth, 288, 297n7 Bakis, Maureen, 303 Baron-Cohen, Simon, 150 Barthes, Roland, 129, 133 Batman, 54, 64, 74, 308, 316n23 Batman and Philosophy (White and Arp), 72 Bauer, Pearl Chaozon, xv Beauvoir, Simone de, 228, 231, 232 Bechdel, Alison, 315 Bedingfield, Natasha, 229, 231 Bee, Samantha, 181 Behaviorism, 223 Being in on the Joke: Pedagogy, Race, Humor (Mayo), 164 Benjamin, Walter, 140 Better Life, A, 110, 112–113 Bialik, Mayim, 151 Big Bang Theory, The, xvii, 86, 95, 145–146, 147–152, 153, 154–155, 223 Birth of a Nation, The, 35, 36 Bitz, Michael, 303 Black Hole, 312 Black Lives Matter movement, 21 Black Panthers, 28 Black Power movement, 25, 30 Blackhawk (comic), 5, 6

Blade Runner, 127, 133, 134 Bleach (Kubo), 71 blogs, xi, 168, 272 Bones, xvii, 145, 317n30 Boomer, K. B., 42 Bork, G. Ruth Kukiela, 145, 146 Bourdieu, Pierre, 312 Bradwell, Myra Colby, 255 Brady, Jeanne, 266 Brady, Richard, 84, 85 Brandon, Emily, xiii, 317n29 Brave New World, 133, 137 Brazil, xvi, 127, 133 Breakfast Club, The, 176, 177 Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament (Browne), 118 Briggs, Raymond, 309 Brinkerhoff, Jonathan, 56 Brooks, Danielle, 216 Brown v. Board of Education (1954), 24, 28 Brown, Jane Thierfeld, 145, 146 Brown, Michael, 21 Browne, S. G., 118 Brozo, William, 309 Bubba Ho-Tep, ix Bucher, Katherine, 309 Buckingham, David, xiii Buddhify app, 80, 97, 99 Buddhism, 75, 86 Building Literacy Connections with Graphic Novels (Carter), 303, 308 Bunch, Lonnie G, III, 21 Burrows, Gideon, 276 Calhoun, John C., 22 Calkin, Lucy, 79 Cameron, Claire, 276, 277 Campbell,, 279 Campus: A Study of Contemporary Undergraduate Life in the American University, The (Angell), 288 Caniff, Milton, 5 Canon, Zander, 309 Captain America, 254 Carmichael, Hoagy, 287 Carmichael, Stokely, 26, 30, 33 Carpenter, Marilyn, 244, 246 Carson, Johnny, 180

Index Carter, James Bucky, 303 Carter, Linda, 246 cartoons, 9, 68, 73, 139, 179, 310, 312. See also manga Cary, Stephen, 303 Cash, Johnny, 223 Center for Autism and Related Disorders, 154 Chabon, Michael, 308 Chambers, Melissa, xix Chaney, Michael, 23 Chilcoat, George W., 43 child care, xix, 265, 266–267, 269, 270, 271–272, 274, 275, 276–277, 279, 280 Child Protective Services, 194, 212 Chinese Exclusion Act (1882), 4 Chopra, Deepak, 94 Chow, Keith, 16 Christensen, Lila L., 42 Christianity, 4, 75, 136, 204 Chute, Hillary, 306, 307, 315 civil rights movement, xiv, 22, 24–25, 26, 27, 29, 30–31, 33–35, 304, 306; boycotts, 26, 28; freedom rides, 26, 28; grassroots activism, 23, 26; lunchcounter sit-ins, 26, 28, 30. See also long civil rights movement Civil War, 26, 35 Clan Apis, 42 Clark, Penney, 23 Class, Please Open Your Comics (Miller), 303 classroom alienation, 14, 132 classroom management, 153, 211, 221, 278 Coe, Mandy, 43 Cohn, Neil, 303 Colbert, Stephen, 180, 226, 228 Comic Book Code, 252, 254, 258 Comic Book Nation, 302 Comic Code Authority, 252, 255 Comics and Narration (Groensteen), 303 Comics and Sequential Art (Eisner), 303 comics, ix, 18n25, 18n35, 110, 116, 254, 257–299, 306, 317n29; and assessment, 44, 46–47; classroom usage, ix, xiv, 16, 27, 41, 42, 43–44, 45, 53, 54, 56, 70, 127, 247, 249, 252–253, 257, 301, 302–304, 307, 308–309, 311–312, 314; gender history, xix, 244, 246, 257–258,

323

261; popularity, xii, 313; and race, xiv, 5, 6, 8, 9–10, 14, 17; resistance to, xx, 253, 254, 255, 257, 301, 305, 306, 310; student creations, 46, 47, 48–49, 51, 54, 56, 303. See also DC Comics; graphic novels; Marvel Comics Coming of Age in Mississippi (Moody), 25 Common Core Literacy in History/Social Studies, 29, 31–32, 33, 34 Common Core State Standards (CCSS), 31, 45, 46–47, 49, 303, 304, 310 Common Sense (Paine), 224 Common Sense Media, 42, 49 computer/digital literacy, 250 concentration camps, 15, 67, 68, 69 concept mapping, 51, 52, 53, 54, 232, 233, 235 Confederate flag debate, 22 Confucianism, 4 Cong-Huyen, Anne, 23 Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), 28, 30 Connell, R. W., 273 Considine, David, 252 constructivist classrooms, 45, 128, 142 content area literacy, 32, 309 Copy Shop (Virgil), 140 Costello, Lou, 171, 175 Costello, Sean, 44 Cox, Laverne, 207 Creative Commons, 54 critical pedagogy, xvi, xvii, 105, 106, 108, 122, 163, 164–165, 167, 170, 172, 174, 181, 182, 266 Cromer, Michael, 23 Cross, William O., 291 Cruise, Tom, 148 Crumb, Robert, 303 Cruse, Howard, 315 Crutcher, Paul, xx, 301, 304, 305, 314, 317n30, 317n31 Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, 306 Cuban Missile Crisis, 116 cultural history, 42, 302 Cultural Literacy (Hirsch), 312 cultural studies, 42, 49, 266 Cuoco, Kaley, 152 Curie, Marie, 42–43, 255

324

Index

DC Comics, 6, 74 D’Orso, Michael, 25 Daddy Day Care, xix, 265, 266, 267, 268, 269, 270–271, 272, 274, 275, 277, 278, 279, 280, 281 Dahl, Ken, 315 Daily Show, The, 306 Dante, 308 Dark Knight Returns, The (Miller), 71, 72, 302, 311 Davies, Julie, 41 Davis, Laurel R., 15 Dawson’s Creek, 176 Dead Poet’s Society, 236 Death Note (Obata), 73, 313 Declaration of Independence, 224 deep listening, 85 Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, 213 Demonakos, Jim, 304, 315 Denison University, 289 Denver, John, 229, 230 Derrida, Jacques, 65, 77n4 Descartes, Rene, 228, 232, 233, 235 Descendants of Darkness (Matsushita), 75 Deswar, Abha, 140 Developmentally Appropriate Practice, 266 Dewey, John, 182, 228, 230, 231, 232 Diary of a Wimpy Kid (film), 178 digital immigrants, 252 digital natives, 252 disciplinary literacy, 309 Discipline and Punish (Foucault), 137 Disney, xi Dittmer, Jason, 108 Doc Martin, xvii, 145 Doctorow, Cory, 315 Dodge, Autumn, xx, 301, 304, 305, 311, 314 Dong, Lan, 42, 303 Douglass Developmental Disability Center (Rutgers University), 146 Douglass, Frederick, 25 Dousay, Tonia, xiv, 48, 53 Down Syndrome, 154 Draisma, Kim, 146 Dranger, Joanna Rubin, 315 drinking, xx, 290, 291, 294, 296

Du Bois W. E. B., 27, 293 Duncum, Paul, xii Dunst, Kirsten, 227 Dyson, Anne Haas, 43 early childhood education, 271; courses, 266, 267; male teachers, xix, 265, 266, 268–269, 270–271, 274, 275, 277, 278, 279 Eisner, Will, 5, 8, 9, 15, 17, 43, 302, 303, 311 emancipatory pedagogy, 163, 164, 167, 168, 169, 170, 174, 181–182 Emanuel AME shooting, 21 employee assistance programs, 195 English language learners (ELLs), 23, 175, 303, 309, 311 Ethel and Ernest (Briggs), 309 Ethics of Ambiguity (Beauvoir), 228, 231 Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), 46, 302, 310 Everybody Loves Raymond, 279 Ex Machina, 312 Ex Nihilo, 134 Existentialism, 225, 228, 229, 231, 232, 233, 234 Existentialism Is a Humanism (Sartre), 228, 234 Experience and Education (Dewey), 228 Eyes on the Prize, 27 Facebook, 109 Family Guy, 279 fantasy film, 127, 128, 129, 141 Feiffer, Jules, 308 feminist movement, 74, 255, 258 feminist theory, 251, 260 Ferguson, MO riots, 21 Few Good Men, A, 225 Fifteenth Amendment, 27 Fisher, Douglas, 303, 309 Fisk University, 292, 293 Fitzgerald, Michael, 146 Flintstones, The, 279 Fly, The, 141 folklore, 48, 52–56, 74 Ford, Haley M. G., xviii, 196 Foucault, Michel, xix, 137

Index Foundations of Education courses, 221, 222, 223, 236, 237 Fourteenth Amendment, 27 Frankenstein (Shelley), 312 Freedman, Sarita, 146 Freedom Writers, 236 Freire, Paulo, 163, 164, 165; critical consciousness, 165, 166, 167, 168, 169–170, 171, 172, 181, 182; and humor, 163, 164, 165–166, 167, 168, 175, 176, 182; naïve consciousness, 165, 166, 182; superstitious consciousness, 166, 182 Fresh Off the Boat, 110, 114 Freud, Sigmund, 267 Frey, Nancy, 303, 308 Fun Home (Bechdel), 315 Gaiman, Neil, 71, 72, 315 Game Plan, 280 Gandhi, Mahatma, 26 Gardner, Sarah, 25, 26 Gavigan, Karen, 309 Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN), 208 Gen X, 312 Gen Z, 312, 313, 314 gender history, xix, 244, 245, 261 gender norms, xix, 252, 254, 260, 261, 266, 267, 269, 270, 273, 274, 275–279, 281 General Mills, 80 genocide/ethnic cleansing, 116 Get Some Headspace app, 80 Ghost in the Shell (Masamune), 76 Gibbons, Dave, 71 Giroux, Henry, xii globalization, xvi, 105, 114, 123, 132 Going Graphic (Cary), 303 Gossip Girl, 176 Gramsci, Antonio, 266 Graphic Novel Classroom, The (Bakis), 303 graphic novels, ix, 117, 179, 247; classroom usage, xiii–xv, 23, 27, 28, 29–31, 32–35, 42, 43, 63–65, 66, 68–69, 70–76, 302, 308–309, 313; and race, 4, 7, 8, 12, 14, 17, 22, 23, 24–25, 26, 29, 30, 33, 35; popularity, 247, 248;

325

resistance to, xx, 301, 305, 310 Graphic Storytelling and Visual Narrative (Eisner), 5 Grass, Günter, 43 Great Depression, 68 Great Migration, 25 Greensboro Four, 30 Gregory XIII (Pope), 226 Grey’s Anatomy, xi Griffith, D. W., 35 Groensteen, Thierry, 303 Grunzke, Andrew, xix, 245 Guba, Egon, 268 Guerrero, Maria, 212 Gunnlaugson, Olen, 83, 85 Gunster, Shane, 266 Hadeeth, 136, 143n34 Hagood, Margaret C., 43 Hale, Sarah Josepha, 255 Hall, Jacqueline Dowd, 23, 24, 25, 35 Hall, Stuart, 266 Hamilton, 224 Hamlet (Shakespeare), 311 Hardesty, Jacob, xx Harel, Idit, 45 Harpur, John, 146 Hart, Melissa, 303 Hart, Tobin, 82 Hartsell, Richard, xvii Hawkins, Meghan, xiv, 26, 29, 32, 33, 35 Her, 127, 133 hermeneutics, xvii–xviii, 174, 181 Hewitt, William, 273 Hirsch, E. D., 312 historical television and film, 243, 244, 251, 261 HIV/AIDS, 68, 309 Hochman, David, 80 Hoffman, Dustin, 148 Holiday, Billie, 29 homophobia, 195, 274, 275 Hong, Caroline Kyungah, 23 Horn Book Magazine, 303 Horton, Johnny, 52, 53 Horton, Julie, 252 Hosler, Jay, 42 How to Get Away with Murder, xii Hughes, Richard, xiv

326

Index

Hulk, 308 Hulu, xii humor, 280, 289; as cognitive tool, 170, 171, 174; classroom usage, xvii, 163, 164–172, 175–176, 177–182, 226; in comics, 9, 12, 17; as means of resistance, 164, 165 Hunt-Barron, Sarah, xvii Huxley, Aldous, 133, 137, 139, 140

Joan of Arc, 255 Johnson, David Kyle, 226 Jones, Thomas E., 293 Journal of Negro History, 35 juvenile delinquency, 41, 254

iCarly, 177 Idealism, 225, 228, 229, 232, 233, 234, 235 In Real Life (Doctorow and Wang), 315 Indiana University, 288, 295 Infidel, 136 Influence Central, xi information literacy, 250 Innis, Harold, 140 Insidious Dr. Fu Manchu, The (Rohmer), 6 Instagram, 108, 109, 313 institutional racism, 179, 230 institutional sexism, 179 Interactive Fiction, 134 International Literacy Association (ILA), 302, 310 International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE), 45, 47 Interview with the Vampire, 127, 133 Inuits, 14 Irwin, William, 226 Islam, 4, 115, 116, 129, 130, 135, 136 Iyer, Pico, 92

Kaiser Family foundation, xi Kennedy, John F., 24, 116, 225 Kenway, Jane, 273 Kerman, Piper, 191 Key & Peele, 176 Kidder, Margot, 308 Kim, Elaine, 12 Kimmel, Michael, 273 Kindergarten Cop, 279, 280 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 23, 24, 25, 26, 28, 33 Kingdom Come (Waid and Ross), 74 Kingsley, Karla V., 44, 56 Kinney Center (St. Joseph’s University), 146 Kirby, Jack, 74 Klibanoff, Hank, 30 Knowing, 135 Knowles, Christopher, 74 Kohl, Herbert, 25 Kon, Satoshi, 73 Korean War, 4 Korson, Cadey, xvi, 317n31 Kress, Gunter, 251 Ku Klux Klan, 35 Kusek, Weronika, xvi, 317n31

Jackman, Hugh, 308 Jacobs, Dale, xix, 41 Jacobs, Harriet, 25 Jacobson, Howard, 308 James, William, 232, 235 Japanese Americans, 3, 11, 12 jazz culture, xx, 287, 289, 290, 291–292, 293, 296, 297n4, 297n10; dancing, 288–289, 290, 292, 293, 296; and gender, 294, 295, 297n9; and morality, 291, 294, 295; opposition to, 287–288, 289–291, 292–293, 296, 297n12, 298n26 Jefferson, Thomas, 224 Jewitt, Carey, 251 Jim Crow, 27, 28, 198

Lanier, Vince, xii Lapp, Diane, 308 Lappansky, Emma, 26 Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, 180 Late Show with Stephen Colbert, The, 226 Lawlor, Maria, 146 Laws of Form (Spencer-Brown), 82 Lawson, James, 30 Lawson, Steven J., 26 Lay Bare the Heart: An Autobiography of the Civil Rights Movement (Farmer), 25 Le Meur, Loïc, 80 Leno, Jay, 180 lesbianism, 193, 255, 257 Lesy, Michael, 251 Lewin, Larry, 41

Index Lewis, John, xiv, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 35, 306, 315 Lewis, Tyson Edward, 165, 166, 167, 171 LGBTQ rights, 190, 195–196, 207–208, 315 Lincoln, Abraham, 26 Lincoln, Yvonne, 268 Liss, Miriam, 280 literacy education, 42, 56, 253, 309 Literacy Research Association (LRA), 302, 310 literary sponsorship, xix, 257 Lloyd, David, xv, 63, 66, 68–69 long civil rights movement, 23, 24 Long, Mark, 304, 315 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 52 Look Me in the Eye (Robison), 147 Lopez, Katie, xiv, 26, 27, 29, 33, 35 Lorre, Chuck, 148 Lost, xi Loyola University, 292 Luther College, 290 lynching, 27, 29 Lyotard, Jean-Francois, 129 Mad Men, 279 Maddox, Lester, 168, 169 Malcolm X, 24, 26, 28 Man with a Movie Camera, 135 manga, xv, 63–65, 70–76, 139, 179, 249, 309, 311, 312, 313 Manning, Brenda H., 199 Manning, Lee, 309 Manovich, Lev, 133, 135, 141 March on Washington (1963), 24, 26 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, xiv, 22 March: Book One (Lewis), xiv, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 306, 315 March: Book Three (Lewis), 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 33, 34, 35, 306, 315 March: Book Two (Lewis), 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 306, 315 Married with Children, 279 Marshall, Elizabeth, 108 Marston, William, 255, 257, 258 Martin, Betty, 278 Martin, Rachel, 9

327

Martin, Ricky, 4 Martin, Trayvon, 21 Marvel Studios, xii, 74 Marvels (Busiek, Ross, and McLaurin), 74 Marxism, 163, 251 Masamune, Shirow, 76 masculinity, 272–273, 274, 275, 277 Mass Effect, 131 Mathiesen, Thomas, 138 Matrix Comics, 75 Matrix, The, 232, 233, 235 Matsushita, Yoko, 75 Maus (Speigelman), xv, 23, 63, 65, 67–68, 301, 302, 306, 311, 317n29 May, Jeff, 117 Mayo, Cris, 164 Mayville, Melissa, 309 Mazzucchelli, David, 315 McBride, Brent, 279 McCain, Franklin, 30 McCloud, Scott, 8, 9, 16, 17, 43, 63, 65, 70, 71, 302, 303, 311, 314, 315 McConachie, Stephanie, 309 McDonald, CeCe, 207 McKean, Dave, 315 McKenny, Aaron F., 41 McKenzie, Fayette A., 293 McLaren, Peter, 164, 210 McLaurin, Marcus, 74 McLuhan, Marshall, 131 McMahon-Coleman, Kimberley, xvii, 146, 317n30 Mean Girls, 176, 177 Media Action Network for Asian Americans (MANAA), 3, 15 media literacy, 45, 54, 105, 248, 250, 252 media saturation, xi, 139, 268 media studies, 127, 251, 260 meditation, xv; benefits, 82, 83; body scan, 96, 97, 99; definition, 82; Drishti gaze, 90, 94; Open Mind (OM) Assignments, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93; popularity, 80–81; Tonglen, 96, 97, 99; White Light, 96, 99; and writing process, 79, 80, 81, 84–101 Meditations (Descartes), 228, 233 mental health treatment, 190, 193, 194 metacognition, 101, 152, 199, 221, 222 Metamorphosis (Ovid), 64, 74, 75

328

Index

Mielke, Tammy, xiii Migration Policy Institute, 112 migration, 106, 119, 123; classroom assignments, 118–119, 120–121, 122, 123n4; corridors of, 106, 112; immigrant persona assignment, 106, 107, 122; immigration policy, 108, 109, 113, 114, 115, 122, 213; impact on host/sending countries, 106, 109, 110, 121; impact on migrants, 106, 119, 212; narratives, 105, 106, 110; popular culture portrayals, 106, 107, 108–109, 110, 111, 122; social media portrayals, 106, 107, 108–109, 110, 114, 122; types/definitions, 106, 117; undocumented migrants, 112, 113, 116, 117, 118, 122, 123, 212, 213 Millennials, 109, 312, 313, 314 Miller, Frank, 71, 302 Miller, Matthew, 303 Million Dollar Arm, 110, 113 Mind Fitness Training, 80 Mindful Way through Depression, The (Williams), 97 Mindfulness in Education Network, 85, 87 mindfulness studies, xv Minority Report, 127, 132 Miracle of Mindfulness (Nhat Hanh), 84 Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Rigg), 303, 310 Miss Remarkable and Her Career (Dranger), 315 Mister Rogers Neighborhood, 277 Mitchell, William, 138 Miyazaki, Hayao, 75 modelling, 270, 278 Moje, Elizabeth Birr, 309 Mona Lisa Smile, 227, 228, 234 Monnin, Katie, 303 Monster (Dahl), 315 Monster Calls, A (Ness), 310 Monte-Sano, Chauncey, 25 Montessori training/schools, 267, 269, 272 Montgomery Bus Boycott, 26 Moon, Jennifer S., 43 Moore, Alan, xv, 63, 66, 68–69, 71, 76, 302, 303 Moorman, Gary, 252 Morrison, Grant, 315

Morrison, Timothy G., 43 Moseley, Bill, 280 Moss, Peter, 270 Mr. Mom, 265, 280 Mr. Nobody, 135 multimedia texts, 244, 248, 249, 252 multimodal literacy, xix, 23, 244–245, 247, 249, 250, 253, 257, 258, 261, 302, 304 multimodal texts, xix, 244, 245, 249, 251, 253, 255, 257, 260–261 Multiplicity, 141 Mumford & Sons, 229, 230 Murphy, Eddie, 265 Murray, Janet, 135 My Name Is Khan, 110, 115 My Pedagogic Creed (Dewey), 228, 230–231 Mythologies (Barthes), 129 mythology, xv, 64, 70, 73, 76, 308 Nagel, Joanne, 13 Naropa University, 83, 84 Naruto (Kishimoto), 70 Nash, Diane, 33 Nash, Roderick, 296 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 35 National Civil Rights Museum, 21 National Council for Teachers of English (NCTE), 302, 308, 310 National Council for the Social Studies, 49, 51 National Council of Teachers of English, 41 National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), 21, 22, 35 Native Americans, 10, 11, 15 Nazism, 67, 68, 69 Netflix, xii, 191, 313 Newman, Randy, 168–169, 170, 171, 174, 175 Nhat Hanh, Thich, 84, 85 Nicholson, Jack, 225 Nike, 80 Nimona (Stevenson), 315 No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB), 46, 179 Noah, Trevor, 181

Index Noddings, Nel, 202 non-violent crime, 189, 190, 213 Norton, Bonnie, 247 Not Another Teen Movie, 177 Notre Dame de Namur University (NDNU), 63, 70, 76 Notre Dame University, 292 Novak, Ryan, 303 novice teachers, 201; advocating for students, 198, 199, 200, 210–211, 214, 215; authenticity, 196; as compassionate role model, 202, 204; self-reflection, 192, 194; stress, 194 Novum Organum (Bacon), 228 O’Connor, John, 243, 244, 251, 261 O’Hara, David, 172, 174 O’Reilly, Mary Rose, 85 Obama, Barack, 21, 24, 30 Obata, Takeshi, 73 Ogborn, Jon, 251 Okey, James R., 45 Oliver, John, 181 One Tree Hill, 176 oral history, 23, 118–119, 122 Orange Is the New Black (show), xviii, 189–190, 191, 193, 194, 195–196, 197–198, 201–202, 203, 204–206, 207–208, 210, 212, 213–214 Orange Is the New Black: My Year in a Women’s Prison (Kerman), 191 Organization of American Historians, 24 Orwell, George, 133, 137 Otomo, Katsuhiro, 73 Our Gods Wear Spandex (Knowles), 74 Owen, Charlie, 273, 280 Pagliaro, Michael, 311 Paine, Thomas, 224 Palmer, Amanda, 139 Palmer, Ann, 146 Panchatantra, 131 Pandit, Kavita, 105 Pandora, 313 Papert, Seymour, 45 Paprika (Kon), 73 Parks, Rosa, 24, 25, 26, 34 Patterson, James, 314 Paulo Freire’s Last Laugh (Lewis), 165

329

Pedagogy of the Oppressed (Freire), 236 pedophilia, 272, 273, 274, 275, 277 Peeters, Jan, 276 Pelton, Leslee Francis, 43 Pelton, Timothy, 43 Pennsylvania State University, 294 Pérez, George, 76 Perks of Being a Wallflower, The, 177 Persepolis (Satrapi), 23, 302, 311 personal philosophy of education, xviii, 221, 223–224, 228, 236 Petrosky, Anthony, 309 Pew Research Center, xi PFLAG, 208 Philosophy of Watchmen, The (White), 72 Photoshop, 138 plagiarism, 80 Planetary (Ellis and Cassaday), 71 Plato, 228, 232, 233, 234, 235 Play it Again Sam, 232, 234 Pokémon Go, 80 Pollack, Jackson, 234 poorly performing schools, 46 Popular Culture Association (PCA), 311 Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association, ix popular culture, 80, 106, 189, 266, 273, 287–288, 290, 293, 295, 302, 311, 312; classroom usage, ix, x, xii, xiii–xx, xxi, 48–49, 72, 105–106, 108, 123, 127, 128, 129, 132, 141, 190, 223, 226, 237, 244, 245–246, 257, 266, 304; consumption of, xii, xiii; definition, ix, 312; humor, xvii, 12, 168, 170; philosophical concepts, xviii, 221, 229; political importance, xii, xiii, 168; and race, 7, 14, 21, 23, 26, 35, 110; and social media, 105, 106, 107, 122 Port Arthur massacre, 147 portfolio assignments, 45, 46, 48 Postman, Neil, 136 Powell, Nate, 22, 304, 315 Prady, Bill, 147, 148 Pragmatism, 225, 228, 229, 230, 231, 232, 233, 235 pre-service teachers, 145, 175, 182, 275; challenges, xviii, 172–173, 180; humor pedagogy, xvii, 167, 168, 174, 316n8 Princeton University, 22

330

Index

Private Practice, xii Public Enemy, 316n5 Putnam, Nancy Wilcox, 289 Quality Comics, 6 queer theory, 251 Race Beat, The: The Press, the Civil Rights Struggle, and the Awakening of a Nation (Roberts and Klibanoff), 30 race. See African Americans; Asian Americans; comics: and race; graphic novels: and race; popular culture: and race; racial justice racial justice, 24, 26 Rain Man, 148 Randolph-Seng, Brandon, 41 Ranker, Jason, 41 Rauch, Melissa, 152 Ravenstein, E. G., 112, 114, 115 Raw, Laurence, xxi Realism, 225, 228, 229, 230, 232, 233, 235 Reconstruction, 35 Reddit, 313 Reeves, Thomas C., 45 reflective practice, 86, 199, 221, 222, 223, 224, 229, 236, 237 Reinventing Comics (McCloud), 8, 303 Revere, Paul, 52 Rhimes, Shonda, xii Richards, Ellen Swallow, 255 Rigg, Ransom, 303 River Runs through It, A, 232, 235 Roberts, Gene, 30 Roberts, Julia, 227 Roberts, Paul, 280 Robison, John Elder, 147 Rogers, Fred, 277 Rohmer, Sax, 6 role-playing, 128, 134, 139, 199 Roots, 244 Rose, Michael, 80 Rosie the Riveter, 258 Ross, Alex, 74 Ross, Betsy, 52 Roswell, Jennifer, 41 Royal, Derek Parker, 14, 23 Run Lola Run, 135

Sacagawea, 255 Safe Zone Ally training, 208 Saga, 312 Saldin, Jennifer A., 266 Sandman (Gaiman), 71, 72 Sandweiss, Martha A., 22 Sandy Hook school massacre, 147 Sartre, Jean Paul, 228, 232, 234 Saudi Arabia, 130, 131, 137, 139, 141 Saussure, Ferdinand de, 65, 77n2, 77n3, 77n6 scaffolding, 43, 248, 278, 309, 310 Scandal, xii Schiffrin, Holly Holloman, 280 school accountability, 46, 180 school funding, 46, 180 School of Rock, 236 school-to-prison pipeline, 190, 198 Schooling as a Ritual Performance (McLaren), 164 Schultz, Mark, 309 Schwartz, Robert, 294 sci-fi films, xvi, 127, 129, 132–133, 141 Scott, Ridley, 133 Sculptor, The (McCloud), 315 Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institutes, 81 Secret Asian Man (Toyoshima), xiii, 3, 7, 8, 10–13, 15, 19n55 Seduction of the Innocent (Wertham), 255 segregation, 22, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29 Selma, 27, 30 Selma, Alabama march, 26, 30 semiotics, 64, 65, 131, 251 Sensation Comics, 246 Sensoy, Özlem, 108 Sepinwell, Alan, 148 serial fiction, 245, 254 sexual abuse, 206 Shanahan, Cynthia, 309 Shanahan, Timothy, 309 sharecropping, 27 Sharikzadeh, N., 45 Shattered: The Asian American Comics Anthology (Chow), 17 Shelley, Mary, 312 Shintoism, 75 Shoemaker, Betty Jean, 41 Shor, Ira, 214

Index Signal to Noise (McKean and Gaiman), 315 Silence of Our Friends, The (Long, Demonakos, and Powell), xx, 304, 305–306, 307, 315 Simpsons, The, 96, 171, 179, 180, 279 Singer, Bryan, 308 Sixteen Candles, 4 slavery, 22, 244 Small, David, 315 Smith, Tyson, 273 social class, xviii, 23, 24, 26, 29, 114, 172, 189, 214, 245, 252, 253, 269, 288 social media, xvi, 21, 49, 105, 106, 107, 108–109, 110, 114, 122, 127, 129, 130, 132, 138, 139, 181, 221, 246, 247, 273, 274, 313, 317n31 Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States (MELUS), 14 Socrates, 223, 229 Soutine, Chaim, 227 Spencer-Brown, George, 82 Spiderman, 54, 308 Spiegelman, Art, xv, 23, 63, 67, 68, 308 Spirited Away (Miyazaki), 64, 75 St. Catherine’s University, 292 standardized testing, 46, 147, 179, 180, 181, 302 Stanulis, Randi Nevins, 199 Stevenson, Noelle, 315 Stewart, George Craig, 291 Stewart, Jon, 181, 306 Stitches (Small), 315 Storey, John, ix storyboarding, 51, 53, 54 storytelling, xiv, 35, 48, 49 Strategic Education for Students with Autism program (University of Connecticut), 146 Stuck Rubber Baby (Cruse), 315 student engagement, 35, 77, 170, 244, 247, 249 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), 22, 24, 28, 30, 33 Stuff of Life, The: A Graphic Guide to Genetics and DNA (Schultz and Canon), 309 Sugrue, Thomas, 25

331

Suhor, Charles, 41 Summa Theologica (Aquinas), 228, 230 Sumsion, Jennifer, 273, 274 Super Sad True Love Story (Shteyngart), 312 Superbad, 177 Superman, 54, 64, 74, 247, 308 Swamp Thing (Moore), 76 System of Comics, The (Groensteen), 303 Tabachnick, Stephen, 303 Tales of Times Now Past (Ovid), 64, 74, 75 Tan, Chade-Meng, 81 Tan, Shaun, 315 Taoism, 4 Target, 80 Tatalovic, Mico, 42 Taylor, Harvey, 41 teacher pay, 270, 271 Teaching Comics and Graphic Narratives (Dong), 303 Teaching Graphic Novels (Monnin), 303 Teaching the Graphic Novel (Tabacknick), 303 Teaching Visual Literacy (Frey and Fisher), 303 Terry and the Pirates (comic), 5 Thatcher, Margaret, 68 Thirteenth Amendment, 27 This Book Contains Graphic Language (Versaci), 303 Thompson, Josh, xix, 266, 267, 269, 271, 272, 275, 278, 279 Thompson, Terry, 41, 303 Three Men and a Baby, 265, 279, 280 Till, Emmett, 29, 30 Time Machine, The (Wells), 70 Timm, Chad William, xviii Title I schools, 312 Tolson, Meredith, xviii, 199, 206 Toy Story, 179 Toyoshima, Tak, xiii, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 19n55 Transformers, 4 Trump, Donald, 19n68 Truth, Sojourner, 255 Tubman, Harriet, 25 Tumblr, 313 Twitter, 109, 302

332

Index

Tzu, Chung, 84 Understanding Comics (McCloud), 63, 70, 71, 303 United States History: Reconstruction to the Present (2008), 26 University of Chicago, 291, 295 University of Illinois, 291, 293, 294, 296, 298n21 University of Michigan, 288 University of Wisconsin, 288 University of Wollongong, 145 Using Graphic Novels in the Classroom, 303 V for Vendetta (Moore and Lloyd), xv, 63, 66–67, 68–69 Versaci, Rocco, 303 Vertical Limit, 232 Vietnam War, 5 Virgil, Widrich, 140 Visual Language of Comics, The (Cohn), 304 visual literacy, xiv, xx, 41, 43, 245, 247–249, 250, 253, 260, 310 vlogs, 130 Waid, Mark, 74 Walking Dead, The, 110, 117 Walking with the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement (Lewis and D’Orso), 25, 31 Wang, Jen, 315 War on Poverty, 25 Wardle, Francis, 280 Washington, Booker T., 27 Washington, George, 52 Watchmen (Moore and Gibbons), 71–72, 73, 302, 311 Watson, Katherine, 227 Welling, Tina, 89 Wenburg, Jillian L., xv Wertham, Frederic, 255, 258 West Virginia Autism Training Center (Marshall University), 146 What Pragmatism Means, 235 Wheelwright, Sally, 150 When Commas Meet Kryptonite (Bitz), 303 White, Mark, 72 Whites, 10, 11, 15

Wiggins, Grant P., 45 Williams, Rachel Marie-Crane, 41 Williams, Rhonda Y., 23 Wilson, Woodrow, 22 Wineburg, Sam, 25 Winters, Lynn, 45 Wissman, Kelly K., 44 Wolf, Lorraine, 145, 146 Wolff, Kenya, xix Wolsey, Thomas, 308 Wolterbeek, Marc, xv women’s and gender studies, 42 women’s rights movement, 26 Wonder Woman, xix, 6, 64, 74, 75, 254, 255 Wonder Woman comics, 244, 245, 246, 253, 254–255, 257, 258, 260 Wonder Woman: Gods and Mortals (Pérez), 76 “Wonder Women of History,” 255, 257, 258 Wood, Amy, 35 Woodson, Carter, 35 World Trade Center bombing, 225 World War II, 68, 309 World War Z, 110, 116–117 Wright, Bradford, 302 Wright, Rodman Redman, 266 writer’s block, xv, 79, 80, 92, 93 writing process, xv, 51, 65, 79, 88, 101, 154; and anxiety, xv, 79, 80, 92, 93, 94, 97; brainstorming, 79, 92; peer review, x, 54, 79, 85, 89, 90; reflection, 79, 81. See also meditation: and the writing process written literacy, 247, 248, 249, 253 Wrong Planet, 148 Wyoming Social Studies Content and Performance Standards, 49–51 X-Men, 54, 110, 116, 308 X-Men Days of Future Past, 116 xenophobia, 110, 115, 116 Xu, Shelley Hong, 244, 246 Yale University, 22 Yamani, Mai, 130 Yang, Gene Luen, xiii, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17

Index yoga, 81, 82, 88, 90, 94, 95, 96, 98, 100–101 YouTube, xii, 109, 119, 181

Zelinksy, Wilbur, 114 Zorbaugh, Harvey, 41 Zygouris-Coe, Vassiliki, 309

333

About the Contributors

EDITORS Associate Professor Dr. Edward Janak is chair of the Department of Educational Foundations and Leadership, Judith Herb College of Education, University of Toledo. He earned his BA (English, ’92) from SUNY Fredonia (Go Blue Devils!) and his MEd (Secondary Education, ’96) and PhD (Foundations of Education, ’03) from the University of South Carolina (Go Gamecocks!). Primarily a scholar in the fields of historical foundations of education and educational life writing, he is the co-editor of The Pedagogy of Pop, and his work on teaching with popular culture has appeared in the edited collection How Television Shapes Our Worldview: Media Representations of Social Trends and Change as well as The Journal of Popular Culture. He also serves as national chair of the “Education, Teaching, History and Popular Culture” area of the Popular Culture Association. He recently published Politics, Disability, and Education Reform in the South: The Work of John Eldred Swearingen. A native of France, Dr. Ludovic A. Sourdot is an associate professor of curriculum and instruction in the Department of Teacher Education at Texas Woman’s University in Denton, Texas. He holds degrees in history (Maîtrise d’Histoire-Université Jean-Monnet, Saint-Etienne, France), broadcast journalism (BS, Arkansas State University), secondary education (MEd, Texas State University—San Marcos), and curriculum and instruction (PhD, Texas A&M University-College Station). Dr. Sourdot’s current research focuses on the pedagogical possibilities television programming offer for teacher education; his work in the area has been published in a variety of edited collections and educational journals such as The Pedagogy of Pop, The Handbook of 335

336

About the Contributors

Public Pedagogy, and Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Science. His honors and awards include the Texas Woman’s University Distinction in Service Award and the award for outstanding service as a mentor and advisor from the College of Professional Education. Dr. Sourdot currently serves as the vice president of the Northeast Region of the Texas Council of Faculty Senates. CONTRIBUTORS Assistant Professor Dr. Maha Al-Saati is chair of the Department of Graphic Design and Multimedia, University of Dammam, Saudi Arabia. She earned her bachelor of interior design (2003) and master of architecture (2006) from King Faisal University, Saudi Arabia, and her PhD in interactive arts and technology (2013) from Simon Fraser University, Canada. Her research covers the portrayal of architectural spaces in moving images, and the influence of culture and religion on popular media forms in Saudi Arabia. Dr. Pearl Chaozon Bauer is an assistant professor of English at Notre Dame de Namur University, in Belmont, California. She earned an MA in English from Pennsylvania State University and a PhD in English literature with a designated emphasis in critical theory from the University of California at Davis. Much of her current scholarship examines engagement of twentyfirst-century students in the literary classroom, and her article “Freeing to Do Their Best: Examining Writing in First-Year Seminars,” co-authored with Chris Thaiss and Kara Moloney, is included in the fall 2016 volume of Across the Disciplines. Born in Okinawa, Japan, Emily L. Brandon (adjunct instructor, Ashford University) earned her BA (English, ’08) from the Hayworth School at Queens University of Charlotte and her MA (English, ’11) from the University of North Carolina Charlotte. Her studies focus on children’s literature, graphic novels, multicultural literature, and creative writing. Dr. Melissa Chapman is a lecturer at Murray State University in Murray, Kentucky. She earned her BS (elementary education, ’01) from Western Kentucky University, MEd (curriculum design and instruction, ’05) from Olivet Nazarene University, and her PhD (education–educational leadership, ’12) from Walden University. Her specialization is reading and she is currently working on research examining the “opt-out movement” and homeschooling as resistance to the standardization movement.

About the Contributors

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Dr. Paul A. Crutcher is an assistant professor of English and the director of English Education at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. He teaches and researches empathy in culture, language, and literacy (including TESOL), pop culture (especially games, movies, and comics), children’s and YA literature, religious/secular ethics (including East Asian philosophy), and educational policy and theory (particularly related to gender, sexuality, and LBGTQ issues). Dr. Autumn M. Dodge is an assistant professor of education specialties at St. John’s University in Queens, NY. She earned her BA in English from Albion College, MA in TESOL from the Monterey Institute of International Studies, and PhD in educational psychology with a specialization in language and literacy from Michigan State University. As a former US Peace Corps Volunteer she taught English in China for two years. She teaches masters’ courses on disciplinary literacy and doctoral courses in literacy research methods. Her research focuses on issues of social justice including critical whiteness studies and LGBTQ inclusion. Dr. Tonia A. Dousay, an assistant professor at the University of Wyoming, holds degrees in agricultural science and education (BS and MS, Texas A&M University) and learning, design, and technology (PhD, University of Georgia). Her teaching and research focus on design-based learning activities and the knowledge and skills acquired and reinforced through these opportunities. Her publications include co-authoring the fifth edition of The Survey of Instructional Design Models, “Learner Assessment in Blended and Online Settings” in M. D. Avgerino and S. Gialamas (eds.), Revolutionizing K-12 Blended Learning through the i2Flex Classroom Model, “Implementing Augmented Reality in the Classroom” in TechTrends, and “Fostering Technology-Rich Service Learning Experiences between School Librarians and Teacher Education Programs” in Knowledge Quest. She also authored “Reinforcing Content through Design Activities” in D. Baylen and A. D’Alba (eds.), Visualizing Learning: Essentials of Teaching and Integrating Visual and Media Literacy. Dr. Dousay is the 2016 recipient of the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) Award for Advocacy. Haley M. G. Ford is a graduate and instructional assistant at the University of Houston. She is also a full time PhD candidate focused on researching urban education, critical pedagogy, and teacher education. She obtained her BA in History from Baylor University (2010) and her master of education (curriculum and instruction, 2012). Ms. Ford has presented at state, national, and international conferences on education. She has also been published in a state journal (summer 2016). This will be her first chapter publication.

338

About the Contributors

Dr. Andrew Grunzke is associate professor of education at Mercer University. In addition to his MA in English and MAT in mathematics, he also holds a PhD in foundations of education from the University of Florida. His research focuses on the history of the pedagogical function of children’s media and representations of the school in popular culture. He is the author of the book Educational Institutions in Horror Film: The History of Mad Professors, Student Bodies and Final Exams. His work has also appeared in the edited volume American Education in Popular Media: From the Blackboard to the Silver Screen. Dr. Jacob Hardesty is an assistant professor of education at Rockford University, where he teaches foundations courses in educational history, philosophy, and research methods. He completed his PhD in 2013 at Indiana University in educational history. Dr. Hardesty also has a BM in music education from Ithaca College and an MA in ethnomusicology from the University of Limerick, Ireland. His work has appeared in the journals History of Education Quarterly, American Educational History Journal, High Ability Studies, and the edited volume Learning the Left: Popular Culture, Liberal Politics, and Informal Education from 1900 to the Present. Before coming to Rockford University, he taught music for four years in public and Catholic schools, as well as education courses at DePauw University and Indiana University. Dr. Hardesty’s primary research interests involve the historical connections and tensions between popular culture and public education, particularly when involving the arts. Dr. Richard Hartsell is an associate professor of educational foundations at the University of South Carolina Upstate. He received his PhD in cultural foundations of education from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and previously taught writing and communication for twenty years in the North Carolina Community College System. His research interests focus on the relationship between cultures and their educational institutions and on the moral dimensions of education. Meghan Hawkins is a high school social studies teacher. She holds degrees in political science and history (BA, University of Notre Dame, 2006), arts in teaching (MAT, Duke University, 2007), and history (MA, Illinois State University, 2016). Meghan currently teaches courses in economics, AP comparative government, and US history at Normal Community High School in Normal, Illinois. Her work in history has been published on the US Intellectual History Blog and in Illinois State University’s Recounting the Past. Dr. Richard Hughes is associate professor of history at Illinois State University where he is the director of the History and Social Science Education

About the Contributors

339

Program and teaches courses in US history and history education. He earned his BA (political science, ’88) from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill before teaching high school history in Durham, North Carolina. He earned his MA (history, ’95) from Wake Forest University and his PhD from the University of Kansas in 2001. He serves as the assistant editor and book review editor for Teaching History: A Journal of Methods and his work has appeared in numerous journals focusing on history and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Dr. Sarah Hunt-Barron is an assistant professor of literacy education at the University of South Carolina Upstate in Spartanburg, SC. She is a graduate of Boston College (BA, English), Furman University (MA, secondary english education), and Clemson University (PhD, curriculum and instruction). She is the co-editor of Reading Matters, the journal of the South Carolina Affiliate of the International Literacy Association and her work has appeared in a variety of journals, including the Journal of Literacy Research, The Teacher Educator, and the Journal of Research in Rural Education. Her research interests include preparation of pre-service teachers, integrating digital technologies in writing and literacy, and the development of teachers of writing. She is also actively involved with the Upstate Writing Project, a site of the National Writing Project. Dr. Cadey Korson is a post-doctoral researcher with the Relational and Territorial Politics of Bordering, Identities, and Transnationalism Center of Excellence at the University of Oulu in Finland. She holds degrees in geography (PhD, Kent State University; MA, University of Missouri-Columbia; BA Aquinas College) and international studies and French (BA, Aquinas College). She is the co-author of The Comparison of a Thematic vs. Regional Approach to Teaching a World Geography Course. Dr. Korson’s research focuses on geography education, political geography and indigenous rights, and popular media. Dr. Weronika Kusek is an assistant professor of human geography at Earth, Environmental, and Geographical Sciences Department at Northern Michigan University. Dr. Kusek is interested in migration, globalization, ethnic geography, and geography education. She has conducted research projects in the United States, Poland, and the United Kingdom. Katie Lopez teaches social studies at Normal Community High School in Normal, Illinois. She earned a bachelor of arts in 2011 from Illinois State University where she is also completing her master’s degree in history. Katie teaches US history and AP psychology.

340

About the Contributors

Dr. Kimberley McMahon-Coleman is a recovering secondary teacher who teaches in learning development at the School of Education at the University of Wollongong, Australia. She holds a BA (Hons), GradDipEd, and PhD from the University of Wollongong, as well as an MEd (leadership) from Charles Sturt University. She is currently completing a master of special education at the University of New South Wales. Kimberley’s research on popular culture and the scholarship of teaching and learning have been published in a number of journals and books. Most recently, she has written Teaching University Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Guide to Developing Academic Capacity and Proficiency (2016) with Dr. Kim Draisma. She is chair of the Disability stream for the Popular Culture Association of Australia and New Zealand (PopCAANZ). Kimberley can be found in cyberspace at http://shapshiftersinpopoularculture.wordpress.com and https:/ /wordpress.com/design/autismspectrumdisorderinhighereducation. wordpress.com. Dr. Tammy L. Mielke specializes in children’s and young adult literature. She earned her BS (education, ’91) from Martin Luther College, her MA (English, children’s literature, ’02) from Eastern Michigan, and her PhD in “Literary Constructions of African American Childhood in the 1930s in American Children’s Literature” from Coventry University, UK (2007). She has published articles concerning African American dialect, Little Black Sambo, author Erick Berry, the way contemporary young adult literature discusses religion, and how Steampunk is theorized. She recently published on co-teaching young adult literature through the theory of flow. Dr. Josh Thompson plays well with others. His life with children and teachers focuses on fun because in joy we best learn. His Oak Cliff, Texas, class of three- to six-year-old children also included many plants and animals, experiments, and models. Now he teaches teachers at Texas A&M UniversityCommerce, and wonders, “How do kids get it, the rules of language use [pragmatic competence]?” Dr. Chad William Timm is an associate professor of education at Simpson College in Indianola, Iowa. After earning his BA (history, ’95) from Simpson College, he taught social studies at the high school level for fifteen years. He has an MA (history, ’03) and a PhD (education, ’08) from Iowa State University, and currently teaches courses in foundations of education. He has authored numerous chapters on pop culture and philosophy for the Blackwell Pop Culture and Philosophy Series and the Open Court Popular Culture and Philosophy Series. His work has also appeared in Radical Teacher and the International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education.

About the Contributors

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Meredith J. Tolson is a doctoral student at the University of Houston and a middle school teacher. Her research focus is urban education, social justice, and critical pedagogy. She earned her BS in interdisciplinary studies from Texas A&M University (2007) and her master of education in curriculum and instruction (2014). She has presented at a wide variety of conferences, and has published an additional book chapter (2007). Dr. Jillian L. Wenburg is a lecturer for the Fort Lewis College Writing Program in Durango, Colorado. She earned her BA (English, ’05) from the University of Nebraska at Kearney, MA (English, ’06) from the University of Nebraska Kearney, and her PhD (interdisciplinary: primary discipline English; secondary discipline history, ’15) from the University of Missouri at Kansas City. Her research work focuses on author Mari Sandoz and the way in which she shaped her West in Nebraska during the twentieth century. More recently, her research has centered on her work in the composition classroom, exploring grading techniques as well as the implementation of contemplative education practices. She was recently published in a collection exploring Composition classroom studies, Beyond the Frontier: Innovations in First Year Composition. Dr. Kenya Wolff (assistant professor, University of Mississippi) grew up in East Africa. She holds degrees in secondary education (BA, Chaminade Univerisity, Honolulu, Hawaii), early childhood education (MEd, Texas Woman’s University), and curriculum and instruction (PhD, University of North Texas). Dr. Wolff’s current research focuses on the commercialization of childhood and has appeared in a variety of educational journals including the International Review of Qualitative Research and Global Studies of Childhood. Dr. Marc Wolterbeek, a professor of English at Notre Dame de Namur University, in Belmont, California, received his PhD in comparative literature and medieval studies at UC Berkeley and teaches a variety of writing and literature courses, including Shakespeare, British Literature, Graphic Novels and Manga, and Mythology: Heroes and Superheroes. He has published a book, Comic Tales of the Middle Ages, as well as articles about medieval literature and sequential art.