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S.T.E.M. Comics

By | December 2nd, 2014|Categories: Gene's Blog|Tags: , , |

Folks are sometimes surprised when I tell them that I'm both a cartoonist and a high school computer science teacher, and I think it's because our society puts up a wall between activities it deems "left brain" and those it deems "right brain." Math and science inhabit one world, art and story (and comics) another. But [...]

Boxers & Saints in the Classroom Part 4

By | May 29th, 2014|Categories: Gene's Blog|Tags: , |

Comics educator Joan Hilty (who also happens to be one of my editors for the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics) included Boxers & Saints on her syllabus for a class titled "Violence in the Pursuit of Justice" at John Jay CUNY! Thank you, Joan!  You're the best! Here are some projects created by her students!

Boxers & Saints in the Classroom Part 3

By | May 28th, 2014|Categories: Gene's Blog|Tags: , |

  Teachers Robby Griffin and Darcy Caldwell continue to share about their experience teaching Boxers & Saints at The Peck School in Morristown, New Jersey!  Check out Part 1 and Part 2. BLOG NOTES ON BOXERS & SAINTS LESSON #3 by Darcy Caldwell, The Peck School Today a fellow teacher and I concluded our study of [...]

Boxers & Saints in the Classroom Part 2

By | May 27th, 2014|Categories: Gene's Blog|Tags: , |

Teachers Robby Griffin and Darcy Caldwell continue to share about their experience teaching Boxers & Saints at The Peck School in Morristown, New Jersey!  Check out their first blog post here. BLOG NOTES ON BOXERS & SAINTS LESSON #2 by Robby Griffin, The Peck School For our third day on Boxers, the students have finished reading the [...]

Boxers & Saints in the Classroom Part 1

By | May 26th, 2014|Categories: Gene's Blog|Tags: , |

Teachers Robby Griffin and Darcy Caldwell are using Boxers & Saints at The Peck School in Morristown, New Jersey! Thank you so much, Robby and Darcy! I asked them to write about their experience, and here's what they had to say: BLOG NOTES ON BOXERS & SAINTS LESSON #1 by Robby Griffin, The Peck School My [...]

Christine Wang Rocks

By | June 24th, 2013|Categories: Gene's Blog|Tags: , |

Eighth-grader Christine Wang just won a Library of Congress contest by writing a letter about American Born Chinese!  From The Connection Newspapers article: A Rocky Run Middle eighth-grader, Christine Wang, has won first place (for grades six through eight) in the Letters about Literature contest sponsored by the Library of Congress. She wrote her award-winning letter [...]

Comics in Education: Graphic Novels Help Immigrants

By | March 13th, 2012|Categories: Gene's Blog|Tags: |

Lillian Mongeau reports on using graphic novels to teach in immigrant communities for NPR's California Report.  She interviews Thi Bui who is both a teacher at Oakland International and a cartoonist.  She also interviews me.  Listen to the whole thing here.

Comics in Education: Diversity Comics in Korea

By | March 8th, 2012|Categories: Gene's Blog|Tags: , , |

Korea Herald reports on comics' role in the increasingly diverse nation of South Korea: The book titled “Hello! Global Citizens” aims to teach children about peace, human rights and sustainable development. UNESCO Asia-Pacific Centre of Education for International Understanding created the educational comic aimed to help elementary and high school students overcome cultural differences. Full article [...]

Comics in Education: My Trip to Gainesville

By | February 1st, 2012|Categories: Gene's Blog|Tags: |

Reporter Jackie Alexander writes about one of my school visits in Gainesville for The Gainesville Sun: Having an idea for a comic book is one thing, said illustrator and author Gene Luen Yang. Putting it on paper and making money are entirely different. “A lot of people have great ideas,” he said, “but if you go [...]

Comics in Education: Strategies for Comics in the Classroom

By | January 18th, 2012|Categories: Gene's Blog|Tags: |

In an article for Edutopia, Andrew Miller lists five great strategies for teaching effectively with comics: I know, we love books and tools, but just like with technology, sometimes we get wrapped up in the tool instead of first thinking about the purpose. Here are some specific strategies to ponder as you select a graphic novel [...]