ABSTRACT
Comics have been part of classrooms for at least a century. This chapter surveys efforts—some systematic, others more idiosyncratic—to infuse comics into teaching and learning. It emphasizes cartooning in all of its forms, unlike McCloud's Understanding Comics, which excludes single-panel editorial and gag cartoons from comics' sphere. The chapter focuses on efforts to integrate comics in primary and secondary-level teaching and learning in the United States during roughly the first half of the 20th century. Rather than focus exclusively on schools, the chapter includes libraries, museums, and similar sites of informal learning for young people. It provides the examples of educating with comics to indicate that using comics in classrooms is not a recent development, as the comics medium has long been part of work in schools. Comics could become one of the most effective non-school educational agencies. Classroom innovators with comics would benefit from well-placed champions for the medium.
