This is Not Your Forefather's Thor: Using Comics to Make Mythology Meaningful

Abstract

This article documents one teacher's attempts to use Contact Zone pedagogy and contemporary comics to improve his instruction of classical mythology in a high school Language Arts classroom.  He found that students were much more interested in and able to critically discuss myths from other  cultures when they first had "model" conversations about myths from their own current society.  The author makes the case for comic books as the most viable source of contemporary American mythology, reviews three specific graphic novels [The Dark Knight Returns, Marvels, and Ultimate Spider-Man] that work well in a mythology unit, discusses specific lessons and assignments he added to his unit when implementing comics, and includes samples of student work.