‘I never thought history could be told this way’: exploring teachers’ use of comics in history education

Making history accessible: comics as a bridge for diverse literacy levels

As previous research has demonstrated, comics can enhance accessibility to historical topics for students who struggle with traditional textbook-based instruction. However, as we emphasised, comics are not solely beneficial for readers who are struggling, and they can also pose challenges, as many students lack the visual literacy skills necessary to interpret the interplay between text and imagery. But despite these intricacies, numerous teachers report that, on a broader level, comics can lower barriers to historical learning, making engagement more inclusive.

Both Annie and Beth highlight how graphic narratives offer a means of breaking down complex historical and literary texts into more accessible components. Annie notes that when introducing her students to the US Declaration of Independence, she utilises a comic that depicts its drafting and the role of the Founding Fathers. This approach, she explains, significantly aids student comprehension:

A lot of them mentioned that it helped them understand it a little bit better because … there were pictures, because it was broken down into, umm, smaller chunks of information, so it just made a lot more sense to them.

Beth echoes similar sentiments, asserting that even at the college level, comics provide an effective entry point into dense material.

Another crucial benefit of graphic narratives, as noted by both educators, is their ability to support language acquisition and accommodate diverse learning needs. Annie, who works with students from various linguistic backgrounds, points out that visual elements play a crucial role in language development:

If I have the graphic novel also available to them, they’ll follow along because they like being able not just to visualise the characters but match the words of what’s happening with what’s happening in the picture. If there are words that they don’t know, it helps them put it in context.

She also emphasises how illustrations assist students in interpreting tone and emotions, thus enhancing their overall reading comprehension. Annie further observes a noticeable difference in how students responded to comics:

I definitely see a big difference when they are presented with a comic book versus when they’re presented with other primary sources that are dense and text heavy. Particularly because of the language, whether it’s because of their age, because you know they’re only 11 or 12 or because their English language learners, or even because they’re students with disabilities, I find that the comic is friendlier. It’s more accessible.

Beth similarly stresses that the visual format creates an easier starting point for students who might otherwise struggle with conventional academic texts:

So, we get some pretty vibrant discussions … in ways that more, you know, other kinds of secondary sources don’t work as well because they tend to be denser and it’s harder for students to actually unpack and see the argument there.

This distinction suggests that the medium itself – its combination of sequential art and textual elements – plays a crucial role in making historical and literary material more approachable.

While the participants – perhaps unsurprisingly – express a positive attitude towards the use of comics in history education, few acknowledge the tension between their view of comics as an accessible medium and the challenges involved in teaching with them, as further explored in the section ‘Challenges’. Denise, for example, stresses that

it’s convenient, especially because it’s quick to read comics and hopefully everyone can read a comic, unlike when you give them a text … It’s also quite a fast way to summarise things that are also in the textbook, but which become even more compressed or visual, especially for students who might find it more difficult to grasp regular text.

Other participants, such as Erik, portray the use of comics in history education as a means to an end – specifically, as a stepping stone towards engaging with ‘real’ literature – rather than as a medium with intrinsic value:

In the best-case scenario, it serves as a bridge that gets them to read more … they still can’t read older literary texts because there are just too many words they don’t understand … And if we use comics as an entry point into reading … well, that’s a great way to get them started. To get them reading more, to help them develop reading habits. But of course, I wish they already had those habits when they came to us.

The use of comics in classrooms primarily as a means to ‘get students started’ implies that their value is often assessed in comparison with more established formats, particularly literary or academic texts, a view that is also reflected by Henrik:

As an introduction, I think this type of material is very useful for people who wouldn’t initially sit down with a book filled with dense text … Instead, the aim is to use … comics, to spark interest.’ Ivan similarly claims that it is easier to start with comics as they represent ‘a lower threshold for students to at least begin to engage [with history].

In other words, even in this case, comics are associated with higher accessibility and perceived as ‘easier’ due to their use of visual elements.

Disrupting traditional historical narratives

Another key theme that emerges from the focus groups was how comics and graphic narratives challenge conventional historical narratives, an aspect also highlighted in previous research, including studies by Frey and Noys (2002) and Cromer and Clark (2007). In this context, participants reflected on the interpretive power of comics and their potential to expose the nature of history as a constructed, multi-voiced narrative rather than a fixed chronicle of facts. According to Beth, one of the most useful aspects of comics is how ‘they help to, sort of reveal the process of historical interpretation’. Her examples, such as Wake (Hall and Martínez, 2021) and Abina and the important men (Getz and Clarke, 2016), illustrate how some graphic narratives deliberately insert the historian into the plot. According to her, this is particularly important in contexts where students arrive with preconceived notions of history as fixed and fact-based, shaped by years of test-driven instruction that prioritises memorisation. She observed that many students express surprise, saying things like: ‘I never thought that you could tell history this way! … This is not how I’ve learned history in the past.’ For Beth, comics offer ‘a different kind of genre’ that is ‘more engaging’ and often more effective than traditional materials in helping students grasp that ‘history is not just a single narrative, but … a multiplicity of perspectives’. This strategy, she explained, ‘adds layers that enable students to get at questions of debate and interpretation’ more effectively than traditional methods. Beth further noted that these formats could help students move beyond memorisation, disrupting the perception of history as ‘just chronology’ and instead presenting it as ‘a way of producing knowledge about the world’.

Ceren built on Beth’s insights and affirmed them by drawing from her experience teaching controversial aspects of the Turkish Republic. She used comics portraying propaganda from the world wars to encourage students to reflect on differing viewpoints. Comics helped her show students that ‘there are different opinions’ and that history is never about a single story.

As the discussion evolved, participants built on each other’s observations. Annie responded to Beth’s emphasis on multiplicity by underscoring the importance of representation and empathy. She argued that graphic narratives allow students to encounter ‘someone whose point of view, perhaps we have not seen before’, in contrast to textbooks that aim for broad generalisations. This aligns with Beth’s argument that the best graphic histories ‘unmask and make transparent the work of the historian’, especially when they embed the historian as a character or represent conflicting interpretations within the narrative.

Echoing these voices, Ivan shared that his students were asked to read a textbook from the early 2010s, but one immediately remarked: ‘Ah, it feels like it’s 100 years old.’ Though the text was only about 14 years old, it felt outdated to students used to more dynamic media. Ivan saw comics as a way to present history differently – one that offers alternatives to both long-form texts and film. He contrasted comics with film, where students

get everything … they’re just fed, sitting there with open mouths or open eyes and ears … With a comic, they’re still forced to do some kind of analysis of what they see … If it’s satire, then you have to do quite a bit of analysis. If it’s Maus, well, then you also have to think an extra round.

By emphasising ambiguity, conflicting voices and the constructed nature of historical accounts, comics challenge the idea of history as a single, neutral narrative. This interpretive and disruptive potential underscores what comics scholars have long argued: that the medium’s structure, its use of panels and gutters, carries significant epistemological implications. They invite students to question, reinterpret and see themselves as part of an ongoing dialogue with the past. It is precisely this connection – to characters, to lived experiences and to underrepresented voices – that leads us to the next theme: how comics foster historical empathy, deepen student engagement and cultivate action competence in relation to social justice.

Historical empathy, student engagement and social justice

A recurring theme was the way comics serve as powerful tools for fostering historical empathy and, by extension, encouraging greater student engagement and even action competence in relation to social justice issues. Drawing on Lee and Ashby’s (2001) distinction between emotional identification and historically grounded perspective taking, teachers’ accounts suggest that comics not only invite affective responses but also support students in reconstructing past actors’ beliefs, reasons and constraints within their specific historical contexts. In this sense, comics can function as scaffolds for what Lee and Ashby term rational historical understanding, helping students move beyond present-day assumptions towards more contextually informed interpretations of the past. Many of the participating teachers emphasised that comics allow students to come closer to individual historical experiences, often through a bottom-up perspective or by offering representations that resonate with students’ own identities and backgrounds.

One prominent example frequently mentioned was Tintin, which several teachers – Johan, Erik and Fredrik – used as a springboard for critical reflection on historical perspectives. These teachers employed Tintin to open discussions about colonialism and racism. Johan reflected on the ‘inverted’ potential of Tintin, arguing that comics such as Tintin in the Congo (Hergé et al., 2005) could instead serve to expose and discuss ‘the worldview of that time’, including Japanese imperialism in China during the 1930s in The blue lotus (Hergé, 2013). Erik and Fredrik echoed this, noting how Tintin in the Congo is ‘very useful for sparking student engagement’ and examining racial stereotypes. Such examples underscore how comics can be employed to connect past and present, allowing students to explore enduring patterns of discrimination and social justice.

Several participants extended this critical lens to other forms of structural injustice. Gunilla emphasised that comics such as Maus offer insights into not only antisemitism and intergenerational trauma but also broader dynamics of racism and marginalisation today. Henrik pointed to Swedish comics such as those by Liv Strömquist as rich resources for exploring gender critique and societal norms. Denise provided several compelling examples from her teaching, including the use of Satrapi’s Persepolis, which she finds particularly effective when working with students from Iran: ‘It is harder for me to explain the Iranian revolution … but giving interpretive authority to a comic creator makes it accessible for all students.’ She also highlighted her use of Maia Kobabe’s Gender queer (Kobabe, 2019), a comic memoir about growing up non-binary, arguing that comics can serve as emotional case studies: ‘You can step into the character and think – what would you have done? What would you have felt?’ In her view, such narratives are not only emotionally powerful but also pedagogically effective in fostering discussions on social justice, especially towards marginalised groups. Doing history from below was also reflected in Henrik’s comments on using The comic book or Serieboken (Sonnergaard and Wejp-Olsen, 1970), a publication that was widely distributed and commonly read in study circles and classrooms across Sweden during the 1970s. He explained that it was ‘part of a wave that aimed to spark interest in history from a … bottom-up perspective. It was in the spirit of the times.’

Erik offered a natural bridge between discussions about social justice and broader pedagogical reflections on student engagement. He elaborated on how Maus helped students connect emotionally to historical suffering: ‘It’s about getting students to feel something – and that creates deeper understanding.’ He noted that the emotional engagement offered by comics can sometimes be more efficient than traditional teaching methods: ‘If I can achieve that emotional gain in one lesson instead of two, then I have more time for other things.’

This affective connection also appeared to enhance peer dialogue and reflection. Annie noted that students reacted differently depending on how represented they felt in the comics. She compared two comics – one featuring exclusively black people, and another focused on early US history where such representation was absent – and found that ‘students had much more to say and ask about’ when they recognised themselves in the material. ‘The lesson itself seemed a little bit more vibrant’, she added, ‘because the students could relate to it so much more.’

This connection deepened when the comics addressed broader social justice issues. Annie emphasised how one of the comics she uses follows an activist figure across time, illustrating that ‘at first they fail and they had to keep trying’, which helped students understand that social change is a long-term process. By following a consistent narrator who introduced these issues, students were able to engage with complex topics such as poverty and immigration through both historical and contemporary lenses. This structure, she noted, allowed students to reflect on injustices they might observe ‘within our classroom, within our schools or within our neighbourhood’ while also prompting discussions about ‘what we can do at this time’ and how activism can evolve as they grow older.

Similarly, Ceren highlighted the value of comics for engaging students in sensitive or complex topics: ‘Sometimes we have difficult issues that my students don’t like to get into, and in that [case] I just use a comic.’ For her, comics function as ‘a tool to get them engaged’ and as a bridge to deeper emotional and cognitive connections. She also noted a parallel with her drama classes, where emotional identification with characters is central: ‘Some of the comics … try to get the empathy with the character … and sometimes they can affect historical thinking skills, of course.’

Ivan echoed these insights with a more recent example, describing how he used the comic Episodes from Auschwitz (Gałek and Nowakowski, 2009). Like Henrik’s approach, Ivan’s use of comics aimed to make history personal and relatable: ‘We see the human being – not just the war, for example – we see that there are people in this situation. It’s not just numbers; it’s people like you and me.’ One student’s reflection, as quoted by Ivan, captured the emotional impact of this approach: ‘I’ve never thought of the war as something people went through – people like you and me – but it only really became real when you see it like this.’ For both teachers, comics thus serve as a bridge between historical events and students’ own capacity for empathy, helping them see the past not as distant or impersonal, but as human and immediate.

Gunilla agreed that this kind of history, which brings protagonists closer to the reader – as in Maus – consistently helps students engage with the past on a deeper level. Though they are familiar with the history of the Holocaust, encountering the topic through a comic offers a new perspective. ‘They’ve always read about it in history, heard about it, but never seen – in a comic book – what it was really like to experience [the Holocaust].’ Students often express surprise at how powerful the format is: ‘My students usually say that even though it’s a comic book, and even though the characters appear as animals, it creates a different reality – it somehow makes the war more real.’

Together, these responses paint a cohesive picture of comics as pedagogical tools that go beyond entertainment or simplified storytelling. Instead, they create opportunities for identification, emotional investment and critical reflection – enabling students not only to better understand the past but also to engage with ongoing social issues in meaningful ways.

Visual ways of understanding and learning

Given that comics and graphic narratives are inherently visual in their expression, it is natural that this theme becomes both broad and somewhat fragmented. Still, we find three more clearly defined subcategories within the theme.

The first of these involves using comics as didactic tools to visualise, simplify and clarify subject matter, while also making teaching more fun and engaging for students. At the same time, the visual element can support improved perception and memory retention. The second cluster within the theme explores how comics can be used to address more specific subject-didactic phenomena in history education – such as historical consciousness, uses of history and historiography. The term historiebruk (‘uses of history’) originated in Swedish history didactics in the late twentieth century, particularly influenced by scholars such as Klas-Göran Karlsson. It was developed to analyse how history is used in various societal contexts – political, moral, ideological or commercial. The concept became a formal part of the Swedish national curriculum for history education in 1994, emphasising critical reflection on how history is employed outside academia. Comparable terms in English include public history or history culture, all highlighting the interaction between historical narratives and contemporary identity, politics and memory (Karlsson, 2010). The third subcategory focuses more on source interpretation in history and social studies, as well as from a linguistic perspective.

Starting with historical consciousness, understood in line with Rüsen (2004) as a narrative form through which students connect past interpretations to present situations and use them to orient their thinking about future possibilities, this dimension highlights how history functions as a framework for temporal and moral orientation rather than as the accumulation of factual knowledge alone. Denise gives an example from her teaching in philosophy and sociology. In these subjects, there are many ‘old men’ (theorists/philosophers) for students to keep track of, for example, ‘Who was Plato?’, ‘Who was Socrates?’, ‘Who was Durkheim?’ This can be difficult for students, but using a short comic for each philosopher – a small, concise visual summary – makes it more manageable. Denise describes it as functioning like a visual ‘cheat sheet’. She says: ‘It’s almost like they feel we’re cheating a bit. That usually leads to good learning … when they think like … ‘we’re probably not really allowed to do this, but we’re doing it anyway”, they actually learn more … so it’s hard to tell what’s what.’ Denise goes on to say that she sometimes uses Bamse magazine in her teaching for upper secondary students, even though Bamse is targeted at younger children. She gives an example from her criminology teaching, where she uses a Bamse story about a wolf who has gone down the wrong path in life. The story highlights the wolf’s difficult upbringing as a way to explain his behaviour.

Erik interjects, noting that he too has occasionally used Bamse in his high school teaching. His example is a story where the character Skalman explains what taxes are. Erik contrasts this with the explanation provided by a larger reference work, the Swedish National Encyclopedia (Nationalencyklopedin). The two offer completely different explanations of what tax is, and he uses this contrast to spark a discussion with his students.

Several participants note that images can sometimes be more effective than written text, as they have the potential to carry a great amount of information. For example, both Johan and Gunilla reference the saying ‘a picture is worth a thousand words’. In addition, some participants highlight that many students are in fact visual learners – a point Beth underscores when she says:

I get a lot of students when I teach with comics and graphic narratives, who will say things like, ‘Well, this is great because I’m a visual learner’ … Having the images helps them approach the material and then provides them with an entry point into a deeper examination of the issues and questions.

Several participants – Erik, Fredrik and Johan – discuss at length how they use comics to address history-didactic concepts and phenomena such as historical consciousness, uses of history, perspectives on history and historiography. An example brought up by Fredrik for working with the uses of history is political cartoons, where students are given the opportunity to discuss how the cartoonist uses history in different ways to convey their message.

When it comes to working with historical perspectives and historiography, Erik, Henrik and Johan all mention Tintin as an example they use. Johan offers a more detailed explanation of this:

And of course, Tintin is in a way … it captures the entire world through a kind of 1930s, ’40s, ’50s colonial worldview. And when you read about international politics during that time period, there’s always a Tintin album or Tintin pages that can be used as an entry point for students. And then you can move the conversation forward from there, which I think is very useful … That kind of comic is often so rich in their stories that they can become an exciting way in for students in teaching, I think.

Finally, within this theme, several participants devote significant attention to using comics for source interpretation. This is especially true for Johan in the context of history education, but Ivan and Henrik also contribute to the discussion. Gunilla focuses on this as well, though in the context of language subjects, particularly English.

As mentioned, Johan is the participant who most clearly emphasises working with source interpretation through comics – particularly political cartoons. He explains that, after more than 20 years of teaching history at an IB (International Baccalaureate) programme, where the curriculum explicitly requires students to interpret and evaluate political cartoons, he has found the method a valuable didactic experience, having seen how effective and engaging this approach has been from the students’ perspective. He has since incorporated similar exercises into his teaching in the Swedish history courses, focusing on source interpretation and uses of history. Johan explains his experience of the phenomenon:

You can also see how incredibly much further students get with their source analysis when they have a certain contextual understanding … then they can deconstruct a cartoon, draw conclusions and identify the hidden messages … and they often find it fun to work with cartoons; it becomes a different kind of entry point into history teaching when you work with images in this way, and they’re often surprised by how sharp these cartoons can be … You can always find something when you search for good cartoons to use either for illustration or for having students interpret in connection to a certain topic.

Johan goes on to say that, as a teacher, his role is to help students develop their ability to interpret the wide range of messages and messengers they encounter in society. Many of these are not written texts, but instead oral or visual. He wants students to learn to ask questions such as: ‘What is the sender saying? What is the agenda here?’ Comics are well suited for this purpose, as they can be both powerful and engaging.

Both Ivan and Henrik join in, saying they too have used political cartoons in their history teaching, as well as in civics. Ivan takes advantage of his geographical proximity to the museum dedicated to the famous Swedish cartoonist EWK (Ewert Karlsson), while Henrik has used a range of Swedish political satire in his folk high school teaching over the years, with Historieboken (Elmqvist, 2009) and Jan Lööf’s Skrotnisse as key examples.

Finally, Gunilla says she wishes more teachers – regardless of subject – would make greater use of comics in their teaching, as it involves interpreting and decoding texts, but in a format students are less accustomed to. She explains that in her own teacher training in English, she worked on a project about literary theory based on Art Spiegelman’s Maus, which made a big impression on her due to its unconventional narrative about the Holocaust. She now assigns a similar project to her own students, adapted to a high school-level audience. She says she convinced her school to purchase copies of Maus but notes that students also borrow the comic privately and even recommend it to friends who are not taking her English course.

She goes on to say that after all their years in school, her students are accustomed to working with fiction and other types of written texts, but that this is usually not the case when it comes to graphic narratives. She notes that her students often show a completely different kind of interest in the assignment when they learn they will be working with a comic book, and that they immediately begin trying to find strategies for decoding the images – just as they are used to doing when analysing a written text. But as Gunilla points out, it becomes something else when they engage with a text that combines with images; they are not used to this and need to learn how to decode it. She continues:

There’s a lot of foreshadowing. A lot of symbolism. For example … there’s an image where the main character is walking on a road shaped like a swastika … and you have to think … ‘OK, what does Art Spiegelman, the illustrator of this comic, mean by showing the character walking on a path shaped like that symbol?’ … It’s something they’re not used to, and finally, they’re exposed to it and get to work with it. And like I said, it’s always appreciated – because it’s a different form of learning.

Her reflection – that ‘it’s a different form of learning’ – captures the pedagogical potential of comics and offers a fitting conclusion to the theme.

Challenges

All 10 participants, as we have seen, are generally positive towards using comics in their teaching, but they also acknowledge several challenges. Participants in the Swedish-speaking sessions point out that one lies in the generational gap: students today have not read the same comics their teachers grew up with. While it is easy to assume a shared frame of reference, this is often not the case. They note that their own generation – growing up in the 1970s and 1980s – had a different relationship to comics, reading them far more frequently than today’s youth typically do. And when students have read comics, they are often entirely different titles than those familiar to the participants. As Erik puts it: ‘It’s not like I can assume that my students have read Tintin … I can’t assume that my students and I share a common context that I can refer to – that’s my experience.’ The participants mention that they themselves read, for example, Tintin, Asterix and Obelix, Calvin and Hobbes and Bamse, but as Denise and Erik point out, anime and manga might be what is popular today, at least within certain subcultures.

They mention that there is so much else competing for students’ attention today, such as social media, including TikTok. Consequently, the place of comics within contemporary youth culture cannot be taken for granted but must be understood in relation to a broader and rapidly changing media ecology. In this context, today’s media environment tends to privilege sound, images, rapid cuts and constant movement to capture and sustain students’ attention – or, as Henrik puts it: ‘In today’s media society, it’s a bit different. I mean, young people are bombarded with visual content, and the amount of text is decreasing in comparison to that.’ He goes on to say that many of the comics he has used in his teaching over the years once felt relevant, but to a younger generation, they now feel dated – in terms of both content and visual language – almost ‘museum-like’, as he puts it.

The most clearly stated challenge across all participants is that young people today are generally unfamiliar with the comic format. This applies across the entire age spectrum – from Annie’s sixth-grade students, through the high school students of Erik, Fredrik, Denise and Johan, to Beth’s and Ceren’s university students. The participants strongly agree that they must begin by teaching students how to actually read a comic. This ranges from, as Denise puts it: ‘I agree that students today haven’t read comics. I’ve gotten the question a few times on how to read them … like, not knowing you start from the top left, or how to follow the panels’, to several pointing out that students lack the ability to see the context, interpret, decode and analyse, and to identify arguments and perspectives within the comics. Teaching them this is time-consuming, according to Ceren, since students lack sufficient prior knowledge. Beth expresses this with regard to her university students as follows: ‘Some students just read the text without really looking at the images, so teaching them how to think about image and text and how they work together can sometimes be a challenge.’ As she puts it, it’s about ‘teaching them to read from a point of view and a perspective rather than just following the plot, right? To reach a deeper level of what the author is trying to accomplish.’ Annie is completely in agreement, but in her case, it applies to her sixth-grade students:

It’s more about the different ways that they approach it. I have students who will first rush and look at all the pictures from beginning to end and then need to be prompted back to look at the words. Then I have students who might be on a page or two for a really long time because they’re just looking at the picture and analysing that for a long while. Then, if we’re writing about it, they might have some trouble being able to transfer what they’re seeing in the comic book into their writing, even though they can have discussions about it … So it’s not about feeling negative about it so much as I think maybe teaching them how these skills can transfer from being used in a comic book the same way that we would any other text.

The idea that teachers need to teach students how to ‘read’ comics, and that comics can be a way to engage even weaker readers, is something a couple of teachers feel somewhat ambivalent about. Denise and Fredrik, in particular, want to emphasise that – even though, as Denise points out, there is research supporting the idea that comics can be an effective didactic tool for reading comprehension and vocabulary – students should already be proficient in reading longer texts by the time they enter upper secondary school. It should not be the responsibility of upper secondary education to try to spark reading interest and build reading habits by using comics as a gateway, Fredrik adds. Denise also notes that, although the view may be outdated, comics are still perceived by some as having lower status compared with fiction and non-fiction books. She admits it can feel like taking a shortcut as a teacher when choosing comics for the classroom.

Another recurring challenge raised by many participants is the time-consuming process of finding suitable comics that both fit the subject content and are age appropriate. Many also express uncertainty about where to find good comics for educational use – this high threshold may deter teachers from incorporating comics into their teaching. As Fredrik puts it, it can take many hours just to find a single three-panel comic strip that fits the intended lesson – time that is rarely available. Denise, for instance, wishes there were some kind of digital library of suitable comic strips that teachers could access, but she admits she is not aware of any such resource.

Others also describe challenges related to this. Annie, for example, with her sixth-grade students, needs to find material that is appropriately levelled – and sometimes individually adapted. Beth, meanwhile, who teaches college students, struggles with the opposite issue: narrowing down her selection because she finds there is an overwhelming amount of material that could be relevant for her teaching.

Another issue raised by Ceren is that both she and her students must spend a lot of time addressing the many stereotypes and historical inaccuracies often present in comics. She specifically mentions her courses on the Ottoman Empire. Some students are critical of how comics handle such topics, and for Ceren, this means she must devote considerable time to ensuring that students have the necessary background knowledge before she can effectively use comics in her teaching.

One more challenge mentioned by several participants is that some of the university teachers’ students – Ceren’s and Beth’s – feel uncomfortable about serious topics such as the Holocaust or the Ottoman Empire being addressed through comics, which they perceive as too light-hearted or even humorous. Some students feel that this is not an appropriate approach.

Some of Beth’s students also raise concerns that comics may lack the complexity needed to make history understandable or to allow for nuanced interpretation and representation. But, as she points out, she actually sees it as a strength that her students are able to critically examine and analyse the strengths and limitations of the comic format.

Finally, regarding challenges, both Johan and Henrik raise a point specifically related to Sweden. They argue that – while there are some exceptions – there simply is not a strong tradition of political cartooning in Sweden as there is in countries such as the UK, Belgium and France, where it is considered a respected art form, especially in major national newspapers. It is much more difficult to find good material that suits a Swedish context.

Teaching by creating one’s own comics

The final theme we find in the empirical material from the focus groups is also the least represented one – namely, teaching by creating one’s own comics. The participant who stands out the most within this theme is Denise. She both draws her own comics, which she uses in her teaching, and allows her upper secondary school students in social studies and sociology to create their own after she has prepared them during a few lessons beforehand. She also ensures that the activity remains simple – it should be fun and not too demanding, more like a form of ‘crafting’ for the students. She sees the potential and says:

I’ve also made comics with the students. I can recommend that … they each get a [sociological] theory, for example, and they’re supposed to try and draw a comic about it. And then we have a kind of exhibition … and cross-presentations … it’s a lot of fun. They usually get quite creative. I usually do it at the end … like before the Christmas break when there’s a bit of a holiday vibe – drawing comics … so it’s not something that’s graded … I’ve done this at three different schools, with slightly different student groups, but it has been very well received.

The second participant who works with student-created comics in teaching is Ceren, who lets her students – not she herself – produce them. This took place during a 14-week research project in which she and her history students participated, where the students created digital comics about the history of the Turkish Republic. She says this about the project: ‘The comics that we use in my classes is, of course … a very interactive way for learning … For me it was also very good experience … Creating comics it’s a very interesting way to learn for me.‘ Among the other participants, there are two who say they would like to let their students create their own comics as part of their teaching in the future. These are Annie, who works with sixth-grade students, and Beth, who teaches college students. However, the different age groups provide the two participants with slightly different bases for how they envision implementing this idea going forward.

In Annie’s case, she hopes to try letting her students draw comics later this year. Although she has used comics in her teaching and has allowed students to analyse them, she has not yet tried having the students create comics themselves. She says that many students at the age she teaches often feel they are not good enough at drawing and may feel awkward and shy about it, while other students have no issues with it at all. She is thinking of solving this problem by letting the students use technological tools, various websites and different digital resources so they can focus on the narrative itself and how they present it. She continues:

I thought there could be a way to have students create their own comics based on what we’re learning. Social studies that would be a lot more fun for them, and then by using technology, those students who don’t feel they’re so great with art can still use it and not feel intimidated by it.

For Beth and her more advanced-level students, she reflects on the fact that, in the future, she will need to experiment to find what works best and in what combination. This could involve different types of graphics, various comic genres and different graphic narratives, and a mix of graphic stories, graphic memoirs and graphic novels – fiction, non-fiction and autobiography. Her students would then create their own comics based on this, perhaps even as part of one of their larger projects, where more complex interpretive processes would be required:

So, to think about how I might develop that assignment so that I’m really making sure that they are both thinking about representation and interpretation. As that goes forward and trying to think about how that works then with all the other things you’re trying to do in a class as well.