Hot on the heels of that AP story about colleges offering comics courses comes this New York Times editorial extolling the virtues of comics in the classroom:
Teachers are finding it easier to teach writing, grammar and punctuation with material that students are fully invested in. And it turns out that comic books have other built-in advantages. The pairing of visual and written plotlines that they rely on appear to be especially helpful to struggling readers. No one is suggesting that comic books should substitute for traditional books or for standard reading and composition lessons. Teachers who would once have dismissed comics out of hand are learning to exploit a genre that clearly has a powerful hold on young minds. They are using what works.
I wish the writer hadn’t used the word “genre,” but otherwise, OK.
January 4th, 2008 at 9:45 am
Man, I’ll say it one more time:
Comics4Halloween
http://www.comicspace.com/comics4halloween/
January 4th, 2008 at 1:00 pm
That’s actually one of the proper formal uses of the word- in college English courses I’d frequently see “genre” used to refer to the short story, the poem, etc. It’s not a common use and one I prefer to avoid but it’s still a valid one.