Comics Stress Literacy While Providing Artistic Outlet | Teachers College Columbia University

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Comics Stress Literacy While Providing Artistic Outlet

Dr. Michael Bitz, founder of The Comic Book Project, takes an innovative view on how art and literacy can be linked to encourage student achievement.
Dr. Michael Bitz, founder of The Comic Book Project, takes an innovative view on how art and literacy can be linked to encourage student achievement.  "There's nowhere else in the area of literacy where words and art are so naturally wedded as in a comic book," he said.  Bitz started his first comic book club in 2001, and it has since been adopted by 45 additional New York schools as well as by schools across the country.

"It's something they want to do because it's their media," explained Bitz, who created the Project when studying the role of the arts in education. "The arts content and the academic content had to be clearly tied together," he said.  While he pointed out that research has yet to prove a correlation between the arts and academic achievement, he believes that art and academics can complement each other just as comic books combine words and pictures.

The article, entitled "Wham! Zoom! Comic Book Project Improves Literacy in New York Schools," appeared in the January 7 edition of Voice of America News.

Published Wednesday, Jan. 19, 2005

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