Designing Educational Comics with Sequential Potential

Anyone who is in education knows the challenge that exists when we are trying to deliver content that connects with students. It can be hard to remember that the material that exists us might not be that exciting for the students. Although, I do find it hard to imagine that sociological theory isn’t fascinating for everyone. At the same time, there is plenty of academic and scholarly material that I find completely indecipherable. When you read this material, you can see how it is confusing, lengthy, and perhaps even boring. Academics write for other academics, and when dealing with students who are not academic, the question becomes how do you get them excited, interested, and keep their engagement. 

The answer in many ways is pretty simple. As with any population, you have to speak their language. Or if not be fluent in their language, at least communicate in a way that they understand. In other words, you have to be learner-centric in your approach.

Today’s guests on Experience by Design have a strategy that might just help in this area. Emily Ritter knows the challenge of connecting with students.  As a PhD in political science that explores human rights, domestic conflicts, and international relations, her work is relevant to the major issues of our time. But even that can get lost on students who can’t wade through text books and journal articles. And imagine that compounded when trying to share complex ideas with policy makers and the broader public. To solve this problem, her and her graphic artist husband Darick combined their super powers and started Sequential Potential, a company that takes educational content and turns it into comic books and graphic novels. The results are a stunning depiction and portrayal of academic concepts and content in a way that is accessible to readers of all ages. 

Emily is joined by doctoral candidate in history Travis Hill, who also is a comic book creator and Sequential Potential employee. Together, we explore the challenge of creating academic content that connects with audiences. Their mission is to help all people understand the processes and evidence of rigorous research and connect those findings to their own lives. In an era of “did my research,” we definitely need more voices that can bring rigorous research into the public sphere in an accessible way. And Sequential Potential shows us one way of doing it.

It was a fascinating and frankly inspirational talk about how to bring academic material to the mainstream through the universal language of comics.