"Comic Books and Graphic Novels:" Preview William Kuskin's massive open online course

This week's cover story, "Professor X," profiles CU-Boulder English Professor William Kuskin and his online course, "Comic Books and Graphic Novels," which at last count had roughly 35,000 students. The class is part of CU's foray into massive open online courses, or MOOCs, a new form of online teaching some...

By Joel Warner

October 23, 2013

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This week's cover story, "Professor X," profiles CU-Boulder English Professor William Kuskin and his online course, "Comic Books and Graphic Novels," which at last count had roughly 35,000 students. The class is part of CU's foray into massive open online courses, or MOOCs, a new form of online teaching some say could transform higher education and save struggling humanities departments like English. So what's Kuskin's class actually like? Here are some videos and images from the course.

The seven-week course is taught through video lectures and slide shows posted online, all of which Kuskin attempts to enliven with colorful performances and nuanced discussions. Here's one video example:

As the course progresses, students also get new pages of an online comic book designed to accompany their lessons. The comic features Kuskin himself as the hero, attempting to save higher education. Here are some of the pages, drawn by Minneapolis-based artist and illustrator Timothy Foss:

Like what you see? Feel free to sign up for the course. It's free to enroll, and while there's only a few weeks left until it all wraps up, there's no pressure to finish it. You can just go along for the ride.

Learn more in Joel Warner's feature article "CU's William Kuskin takes comics seriously."

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Joel Warner is a former staff writer for Westword and International Business Times. He's also written for WIRED, Men's Journal, Men's Health, Bloomberg Businessweek, Popular Science, Slate, Grantland and many other publications. He's co-author of the 2014 book The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny, published by Simon & Schuster.

Contact: Joel Warner