Superpowered History and Theory
Superpowered
History and Theory
Tasked with designing and development a course I might want to teach in the future, I decided to create one around comic books.
Course Description
For decades superheroes have played a wide role in American culture, with comics having denoted, inspired, and chronicled important cultural concepts and historical events through storytelling. This course explores how comics reflect and influence American society as it intersects with racism, sexuality, representation, science, and technology.
Instructional Strategies
The course uses several instructional strategies to increase student performance and motivation. Students will experience cooperative learning and roleplaying through synchronous sessions, defend conclusions they have come to through debate and discussion, record their feeling with response journals, and complete alternative assessments.
Course Goals
Upon completion of ‘Superpowered History and Theory’, students will be able to explain the relevance of comic books to American society and culture. (Understanding)
Learning Outcomes
According to Stanford and the IDEO, design thinking is described as a mindset that is human-centered, collaborative, optimistic, and experimental. To understand how design thinking is different let’s take a look at other design models:
- Differentiate the various types of storytelling used in comic books. (Analyzing)
- Identify the ways comic books have impacted American pop culture. (Remembering)
- Interpret the issues in the context of the American civil rights movement and how comic books were involved. (Understanding)
- Differentiate how the LGBTQ+ community is represented in comic book storytelling vs the past. (Analyzing)
- Explain the relationship between religion, myths, and comic book characters and stories. (Understanding)
- Formulate what possible discoveries could be made based on comic book inventions. (Creating)
Course Projects/Activities
- Introductory Video – Learners will create and post an introductory video about themselves, why they choose this course, and what they hope to learn.
- Discussion Boards – Learners will need to post and then respond to 6 discussion boards throughout the course.
- Role-playing Sessions – Learns will participate in two virtual role-playing sessions in which they create and act out superheroes and relate them to American society
- Final Paper – Learners will develop a paper on the impact comics have had on and the influences it has taken from American society and culture.
Module Samples in Canvas
Sample Canvas Module Overview
