The five young adult "Honor List" books of 2023 are all visual texts. These award-winning books offer tremendous stories in both pictures and words in the genres of realistic fiction, memoir, and historical nonfiction.

Today, as a teacher, educator, and researcher, the call for diverse and inclusive books, especially those with thoughtful, intelligent, and genuine representations of disability, is even more important to me. Readers must engage in conversations around depictions of disability, challenging stereotypes or misunderstandings they have about people…

In this article, Michelle Ann Abate examines the typographical features of the comics and graphic novels frequently finding their way into English Language Arts (ELA) classrooms and challenges the viewpoint that they are secondary to prose-only texts, arguing instead that many comics can be seen as requiring more advanced levels of literacy…

The author pushes two desks together in the front of the class and pile supplies on them: markers, drawing paper, rulers, and pencils. As the students enter a combined English language arts (ELA) and English as a New Language (ENL) tenth-grade classroom, they select what they need and settle in to their work. As an ELA educator who is also a…

Overland Park, Kansas, may seem like an unlikely setting for using the "New Yorker." While it is not the "Wizard of Oz" Kansas -- more suburban sprawl than expansive wheat fields -- the ethos is far from the cosmopolitan aesthetic of New York City. The "New Yorker" covers can raise questions that may lead to relevant…

In an era of "colorblind racism," in which race and racism are often suppressed as topics of discussion in classrooms, this article explores how students used comics to invent workarounds for "colormuteness" in their school. Knowing comics are not generally taken seriously, students employed the medium to subversive ends.

Texts that challenge the narrative status quo -- from introducing new ways of authoring to showcasing historically overlooked experiences - have garnered increasing notoriety, specifically through literary prizing. Altogether, these books not only diversified the form of the awards' histories but also the characters, content, and authors. As…

Located in the suburbs of a large midwestern city, Trail Middle School serves a predominantly middle-class population. The data the authors feature in this article include group discussions and interviews with students, as well as recordings of in-class lessons, student work, and fieldnotes. The authors focus on the theme of gender as it emerged…

In this article, the authors argue that the format and content of graphic novels that depict LGBTQ experiences are a unique and effective pedagogical tool to engage students in critical discussions about gender and sexuality. Through analysis of two exemplar texts, teachers are offered a vocabulary and method for engaging in these conversations by…

The United States is an increasingly culturally and linguistically diverse nation. English teachers play an important role in prompting students to engage in democratic dialogue about equity in response to visual messages that circulate historic and present- day racism and other derogatory messages about class, gender, sexual orientation, and…

The article describes how one student in a summer enrichment English class used fictional elements and images in comic form to represent her identity and the emotional truth of difficult experiences. The course was taught at an annual summer academy that encouraged academically minded 15-year-old and 16-year-old students to spend three weeks…

Graphic novels are an important literary mode with a complex history and practice, and provide struggling readers of all kinds with a visual (but equally rigorous) reading experience. English teachers must determine the criteria for quality examples of this mode to provide the highest quality texts possible to every student. This article uses…

As proponents of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) publish lists of "Exemplar Texts" that are said to represent the degree of textual complexity appropriate for the different grade levels, and that are overwhelmingly canonical, those who value young adult literature and recognize a place for it in the high school literature…

In her book "Why Do We Care about Literary Characters?" Blakely Vermeule addresses the tendency of the academic establishment to dismiss affection for literary characters in favor of objective analysis, describing teachers with "the furrowed brow, the worried expression: responsible teachers [who] wean their students off their passion for literary…

Of its millions of readers worldwide, why individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) in particular love manga--and its animated cousin, anime--remains mostly unexplored. Therefore, it is critical for English teachers to ask two questions: (1) What does the preference for manga reveal about the way adolescents with ASD view and process the…