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The educational portion of BangPop! will introduce educators to a number of titles that represent the various genres within the graphic novel medium.
We'll also focus on providing educators at all grade levels with hands-on strategies and lesson plans that you will be able to use in your classrooms. Sample lesson and unit plans with accompanying student work samples will show teachers that graphic novels can be used as "real literature," and that there's as much going on from panel to panel in a graphic novel as there is in even the most classic prose novel. Furthermore, teachers will learn about the promise of the medium with regard to developing their students' visual literacy. 
Modern students and readers must learn to read and interpret signs, images, and icons in order to be successful consumers and citizens in the 21st century. Due to the complexity of the structure of the graphic novel and the way pictures and text are intertwined, Lavin (1998) suggests that reading graphic novels may actually require more complex cognitive skills than the reading of text alone. A guided reading of graphic novels can direct students' attentions to the use of color, line, facial expression, shading and texture. This not only connects educators and students through a popular and appropriate medium, but it also teaches a valuable skill needed in the twenty-first century: how to analyze the media-driven messages that surround us all. 
Using texts like The Plain Janes, Pride of Baghdad, Beowulf, The Book of Ballads, Maus, and others, fellow literature teachers Ian Carlson of Brewer High School and Stephanie LaPlante of Bangor High School will provide educators with the tools necessary to implement these strategies, texts, and ideas in their own classrooms.
Current full-time educators and librarians will receive free admission to BangPop! with current school ID. Educator programming will begin at 9:00 AM and consist of two distinct one-hour sessions.
September 13, 2008
9 a.m. — 5 p.m.
Spectacular Event Center
395 Griffin Road
Bangor, Maine