Frontiers of Language and Teaching …...…………………………………………….… Volume 3 (2012) 174 Introducing Comics in the Classroom: a Trojan horse to Literary, Linguistic Performance and Creative Writing Evangelia Moula Executive in school activities in Greek secondary education, Greece Email: moula@rhodes.aegean.gr Abstract Although our society is dominated by images, the common practices in education ignore images and persist in an one-dimensional concept of literacy, due to an ideological (and subsequently naturalized) preference for print literacy. Literacy equates to the continuous and creative processing of a “text” and its goal is to produce something with meaning, taking into account the conventions of the context in which the literacy skills are activated. In the age of visual turn, when the very meaning of “text” has changed towards a broader and more inclusive definition, students are denied a balanced literacy repertoire and the possibility of learning to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from images. In this essay we challenge common practices and we assert that comics is a medium through which both print (linguistic- literary) and cultural literacy can be taught and even more creativity can be released. We are going to propose ways to integrate comics in the classroom in order to engage students in a creative process and enhance not only their cultural and critical literacy, but also their literary competence and linguistic performance. Keywords: comics, cultural, literary and linguistic literacy, creativity Introduction Although our society is dominated by images (Kress, 2003: 1), the common practices in education ignore images and persist in an one-dimensional concept of literacy, due to an ideological (and subsequently naturalized) preference for print literacy (Gee, 1996: 36/ 54). Perceptual psychologist and art theorist Rudolf Arnheim (2004: 232) argued that over time, society has come to overvalue cognition, which is accomplished through reading texts at the expense of perception, which is accomplished through images or other sensory stimulant. Nevertheless, verbal language and visual imagery are complementary and provide what the other lacks. Nowadays, when the very meaning of “text” has acquired a broader and more inclusive definition (Moula, 2011), students are denied a balanced literacy repertoire (Paurcels, 2008) and consecutively the possibility of learning to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from images. In this essay we challenge common educational practices and our objective is to show that comics is a medium through which print (linguistic- literary) and cultural literacy can be taught and furthermore creativity can be stimulated and released. Literature review- the added value of the proposal There is a long history of scholarship which considers comics as a useful step to other literacy developments by students and even more, as well suited for a variety of instructional settings, including language (Sones, 1944/ Marsh, 1978/ Schwarz, 2006). There is also a growing move to identify the value of comics for many educational