A workshop I gave at the "Comics and the Multimodal World" Conference at Douglas College.

1. Multimodality in
Comics Teaching and Scholarship
Roger T. Whitson
Washington State University
http://www.rogerwhitson.net
@rogerwhitson

2. Purpose
• Discuss the creation, not simply the study,
of comics.
• Examine comics within literature, writing,
and multimodal composition classrooms.
• Explore the value of comics for multimodal
research and argumentation in
scholarship.

3. Comics are NOT Literature!!!

4. The fundamental purpose of education ―is to ensure that all students benefit from learning
in ways that allow them to participate fully in public, community, and economic life. […]
Literacy pedagogy has traditionally meant teaching and learning to read in page-bound,
official, standard forms of the national language. Literacy pedagogy, in other words, has
been a carefully restricted project—restricted to formalized, monolingual, and rule governed
forms of language.‖ –New London Group, ―A Pedagogy of Multiliteracies: Designing Social
Futures.‖

5. Script from Brian Wood for Northlanders #11: ―The Cross + The Hammer,‖ p. 2

6. Panels from Ryan Kelly for Northlanders #11: ―The Cross + The Hammer,‖ p. 2

7. Questions:
1. How do these panels appeal to
Northlanders readership?
2. Why does Ryan Kelly insert three Mercs
instead of two? (Wood says 2 or 3).
3. How does Kelly induce a sense of
openness in the panels, which Wood
asks for in the script?

8. Comics teach multimodal literacy
• Students learn literacy best with *guided, deliberate
practice.
• Multimodal communication teaches students to be
deliberate with choices concerning *audience,
purpose, and appeals better than monomodal
writing or reading does.
• The multimodal character of sequential art is a
powerful tool for teaching students to thoughtfully
use modalities in tandem with one another, as well
as learn their affordances and switch between them.
*Kellogg and Whiteford. “Training Advanced Writing Skills: The Case for Deliberate
Practice.” Educational Psychologist. 44.4 (2009): 250-66.
*Hart-Davidson. “Changing Modes to Focus on the Moves: Multimodal Writing &
Outcomes-Based Evaluation of Communication Learning Goals.” Washington State
University, Pullman, 8 May 2013.

9. Students make awesome comics!

13. Drawing Ability?
Lynda Barry. ―Two Questions.‖ McSweeney’s 13 (2004): 60-5.

14. http://bit.ly/QYLZhW

15. Outcomes/Issues
• Time to complete a comic book
• Issues with collaboration
• Fitting a comics assignment into a writing-
centered curriculum
• Relation between teaching the method of
creating comics and teaching the cultural
critique of comics
• Rubric
• Breaking Up the Assignment

16. Brainstorm / Plan (15 minutes)
• Look up your own program’s outcomes
statement for the introductory class in your
discipline. (2 minutes)
• Share with a partner. Discuss strategies for
incorporating a comics assignment into your
intro class. (3 minutes)
• Draft a basic rubric with general fields of
assessment for your assignment. (5 minutes)
• Share with us! (5 minutes)

17. http://bit.ly/RZatWr

18. Why Compose Scholarship as Comics?
“I find that my thoughts when I’m out running achieve a certain sort of
clarity that when I sit down to compose on a lined sheet of paper or
keyboard never quite takes shape. Even my straight text writing, emerges
from organizing thoughts spatially on a sheet of paper. So partly, I just
think that's how we think, or at least I do. […] Together though, I often
find I can say more than I can with text alone, and often say it with less.
Comics force you to leave out a lot and preserve empty spaces; for me at
least, it’s like having a built in editor!”
--Nick Sousanis, Interview w/ Cathy Davidson
http://bit.ly/A44KTQ

19. • Engages Your Whole Mind
• Creates a Visual Map
• Helps Your Concentration
• Taps Your Visual Language
• Relaxing
• Dynamic and Fun!
--Mike Rhode, Contents
Mike Rhode. The Sketchnote
Handbook. San Francisco:
Peachpit, 2013.

20. Liz Losh, John Alexander, Kevin Cannon, and Zander Cannon. Understanding
Rhetoric: A Graphic Guide to Writing. New York: Bedford/St. Martin, 2013.

21. Robert Berry and Gene Kannenberg. ―Digital Collaborative Scholarship Through
Comics.‖ Unpublished.

22. Aaron Kashtan, “Materiality Comics #1.” Unpublished.

23. Franny Howes. ―Comic Books Unbound.‖ Unpublished.

24. Nick Sousanis ―Annotations to Comics Dissertation.‖ Unpublished.

25. Aaron Humphrey, ―Lecture and Authority in Educational Comics:
Introduction Foucault and Derrida for Beginners.‖ Unpublished.

26. Comic Book ―Speed Dating‖ (15 minutes)
• Find someone who is different from you,
someone you don’t know. (2 minutes)
• Share your current and recent non-comics
related study/research projects. (3 minutes)
• Devise a collaborative research project that
would 1) integrate both of your research
interests; and 2) work well in the medium of
sequential art. (5 minutes)
• Share it with us! (5 minutes)
Taken and Modified from Leeann
Hunter’s “Academic Speed Dating.”

27. Thanks!
http://www.rogerwhitson.net
@rogerwhitson