New Graphic Novels Available

Calling all Ohio social studies teachers—the Ohio Supreme Court is providing Ohio educators with a series of graphic novels, “Justice Case Files,” that may be used in civic education. The series includes six novels that may be used individually or as a set:
 

·        Case File 1:  The Case of Internet Piracy

·        Case File 2: The Case of Stolen Identity

·        Case File 3:  The Case of Jury Duty

·        Case File 4:  The Case of the Broken Controller

·        Case File 5:  The Case of the Cyberbully and

·        Case File 6:  The Case of No Pets Allowed

 

These illustrated stories take up cases involving young adults, and teach students about the role of the courts, the protections of the U.S. Constitution, and the importance of the rule of law.   For example, Case File 3 follows a new high school graduate’s experience as a juror, Case File 5 describes a young girl’s action in juvenile court for cyber-bullying, and Case File 6 presents the landlord-tenant problem of an immigrant family.   Created through the National Center for State Courts, the short graphic novels present issues vividly for students. 

As Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor says in the introduction:

By reading these graphic novels, you are learning some of the most important things that any American learns: how your government works, how you can protect your rights, and how important it is that you become an active and engaged citizen.

 

The Supreme Court of Ohio will make these novels available to all educators who request them.  The Court is developing lesson plans to show how the novels align with Ohio’s curriculum standards.  The novels and lesson plans are provided to educators free of charge.   We are also seeking volunteers from the bench and bar to visit in classrooms using the materials.

 

To receive copies, or more information, please contact Pierce Reed at ncscciviced@sc.ohio.gov or in Chief Justice O’Connor’s chambers at pierce.reed@sc.ohio.gov.

Poetry, Literature, and Justice for All

Poetry, literature, and law may not seem like they go hand-in-hand, but printed words can actually help ease judges’ stress from their day jobs as well as improve their work/life balance.

Last year I taught a webcast for the National Judicial College called “Poetry as Judicial Medicine.” Poetry can provide a source of inspiration and comfort to the day-to-day routines we have on the bench. It may also involve judges being more empathetic and better serve those who come before them in court.

One of my favorite poems is from Billy Collins, about a teacher talking about students:

********

Introduction to Poetry

I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide

or press an ear against its hive.

I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,

or walk inside the poem's room
and feel the walls for a light switch.

I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author's name on the shore.

But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.

They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.

********

 

What poetry “really means” may be something I discuss with my judges next week, when, for the seventh time at the NJC in Ashland, Oregon, I’ll be presenting “Law and Ethics: A Novel Approach.”

This program is an innovative method of considering judicial ethics by using a variety of literary forms. The curriculum is designed to allow judges to discuss and analyze their own life experiences with respect to that of works of literature. While in Ashland, we will be attending several plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and discussing ethical dilemmas posed within the plays and relate them to the judiciary.

As a former English teacher, I’ve always had a love of reading and writing, but I wasn’t too sure about poetry. But poetry is much more than rhyme, rhythm, meter, and metaphor. The feelings that I had before that “poetry makes no sense,” “it has no value,” “I don’t have time to read it,” have changed.

Judges are legal readers and writers; words are their stock-in-trade. They must interpret ambiguous statutes and contracts filled with tedious legal clichés.

It’s too easy to be so finely focused on legal issues that the world is seen only through the limited abstract lens of the law. If nuance, the messy irresolution of life and all of its feelings are forgotten, judges may give up too much and forget how to be human.

My work as a judge for more than 31 years now gives me a different perspective. Poetry is fresh and opens up the mind to experiences in a new way, leading judges to become more empathetic and better able to serve others.

And I see all aspects of literature as an intellectual way to show how the judicial system and the written word can join to bring comfort to those who sit on the bench, while also encouraging the highest ethical behavior.