The Ethics of Superheroes
I designed and taught a first year-composition course called The Ethics of Superheroes with Jane Coulter for UCSD's Warren College Writing Program in 2015. This course encouraged students to explore the social and political contexts of superhero media using graphic novels such as Batwoman: Elegy and Marvel's Civil War, as well as the Agent Carter and Daredevil TV series, and a selection of films including Watchmen and Birdman.
Dr. Coulter and I wrote a comprehensive chapter on the course, its learning outcomes, and its student impact, which was published in Comic Connections: Building Character and Theme (Rowman & Littlefield, Jan 2019).
In our second year, I partnered with fellow instructor Kiik Araki-Kawaguchi to put on an end-of-quarter showcase of our student work. Check out the video to learn more, and browse through a photo gallery below. (video by Jonathan Chen)
ComiCraft
I taught ComiCraft, a course on comics and composition, through the UCSD CAT Program for several years. ComiCraft won a UCIRA Open Classroom Challenge Grant in 2012.
I wrote a detailed chapter on the design of the course for Lessons Drawn: Essays on the Pedagogy of Comics and Graphic Novels
(McFarland, May 2019)
by Ian Gilmore
with Christie Yi
with Rae Kumnertsena
