New Resource

This fall, the Institute for Educational Advancement’s Academy program will be offering a wide variety of classes, including “Marvel Comics: The Hero’s Journey.” For students ages 6 through 9, this class uses the popular Marvel Comics superheroes to exercise a child’s creative writing ability. To learn more, we spoke to instructor Cynthia Perez.

This seems like it would be an attractive class for kids. Other than learning a history of these characters, what kinds of lessons are you hoping to convey? How do you use their enthusiasm and turn it toward something academic?

Students are intrigued by superpowers and can talk endlessly about which character has or doesn’t have a certain capabilities. The focus of the class is taking that outstanding history that Marvel is known for and guide a student’s enthusiasm to create a comic of his/her own with their own unique character, by designing and drawing that character and teaching them how and write actual panels for a comic using their thoughtful creativity and plotting a story and series.