In this humorous talk, former teacher and graphic novelist Gene Yang shares some unexpected insights and urges educators to bring comic books into the classroom.

A 2016 MacArthur fellow, Gene Luen Yang began drawing comics in the fifth grade. “American Born Chinese”, Yang’s first graphic novel, put him on the map. A finalist for the National Book Award, the book caused a controversy over whether graphic novels were

Currently, Gene is writing the middle-grade, computer programming series Secret Coders, illustrated by Mike Holmes. Gene is a strong proponent of using comics in education, and of representing diversity through the comics medium, which he does in all of his comics work. After speaking out against the lack of diversity in the casting of the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie, Yang was asked to write the Avatar: The Last Airbender comics, which he does to this day, as well as co-writing Superman for DC Comics. Yang is also a founding member of the Bay Area’s Art Night Crew, a local group of cartoonists.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx