Comics as Literary Compasses and Kaleidoscopes

A Pedagogical Essay in Fragments

Authors

  • David E. Low California State University, Fresno
  • Francisco L. Torres Kent State University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2376-5275.2022.5.2.138-174

Keywords:

teaching graphic novels, comics analysis, representation, multimodal texts, critical visual literacy, social justice, Rudine Sims Bishop

Abstract

Through an analysis of published graphic novels and comics created by schoolchildren, and building upon Rudine Sims Bishop’s literary metaphors, we discuss how comics serve as compasses and kaleidoscopes that allow readers/composers/educators to center justice in the storying process. We argue that the comics medium provides readers and authors specific affordances (interiority, multiperspectivity, fragmentation, ambiguity, juxtaposition, and focalization) for bending reality and framing stories of the unseen, unheard, and hidden in the margins. We address teachers directly in exploring what’s possible when texts are read kaleidoscopically to engage the multiperspectival/multiversal/liminal nature of a robustly multimodal medium.

Author Biographies

David E. Low, California State University, Fresno

DAVID E. LOW is an Associate Professor of Literacy Education at California State University,Fresno. His research explores how children and youth critically theorize race, gender, power, and identity through the comics medium and other multimodal texts. Some of David’s favorite comics of late include Princeless, Dragon Hoops, and the Dawn of X relaunch.

Francisco L. Torres, Kent State University

FRANCISCO L. TORRES is a Puerto Rican Assistant Professor in the School of Teaching, Learning and Curriculum Studies at Kent State University. His research focuses on how children, especially Latinx children, take up and complicate the connections among social justice, popular culture, and current events that matter to them. Some of Francisco’s favorite comics of late include Green Lantern: Legacy, One Piece, and They Called Us Enemy.

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Published

2022-07-01