MYP G6 English: Graphic Novels

Reading Graphic Novels (stories that include text, images, word balloons, sound effects, panels) =

• Critical thinking about all kinds of storytelling

• Recognizing character arcs and Hero's Journey cycles

• Experiencing reading in multiple genres and world literatures in translation (Manga!)

• Gaining fluency in reading both fiction and nonfiction texts

• Supporting reading comprehension and confidence

• Teaching students to read text and images to decode meaning and foreshadowing
   

Image featuring favorite #ISAReads character Sunny in her Dungeons and Dragons costume from the fabulous Historical Fiction series Sunny by by Jennifer L. Holm (Author), Matthew Holm (Illustrations), Lark Pien (Colorist), screen capture form Scholastic's "Teach Graphix Week" Middle School Teacher Guide: https://www.scholastic.com/content/dam/scholastic/educators/teach-graphix/teach-graphix-guides-2020-middle.pdf

"The Research Behind Graphic Novels and Young Learners" from the Center for Talent Development (CTD) at Northwestern University argues that Graphic Novels are "excellent resources for advanced learners" (Morrison)!

• students use text and images to make inferences and synthesize information

• students learn how to craft their own stories through these reading skills which contribute to students’ understanding of their worlds

• students must analyze the images, looking for signs of character development, for example, or clues that help build plot (Morrison).

Many of the texts we encounter in daily life are in fact multimodal ensembles. These texts combine written language, elements of graphic design, and visual images. Comics, picture books, and graphic novels all incorporate these elements.

Graphic novels lend themselves to being used: 

• to launch a genre study

• as mentor texts for author’s craft 

• as writing prompts

• to introduce complex themes and issues

• as a prompt for expository writing

• for engaging students in critical literacy

• to encourage authentic discussions in literature circles or inquiry groups ("Reading Graphic Novels", Literacy Today)

Our students grow up in a visual culture, so they're used to taking in information that way. But unlike other visual narratives, like film or television or animation or video, comics are what I call permanent. In a comic, past, present and future all sit side by side on the same page. This means that the rate of information flow is firmly in the hands of the reader. When my students didn't understand something in my comics lecture, they could just reread that passage as quickly or as slowly as they needed. It was like I was giving them a remote control over the information. The same was not true of my video lectures, and it wasn't even true of my in-person lectures. When I speak, I deliver the information as quickly or slowly as I want. So for certain students and certain kinds of information, these two aspects of the comics medium, its visual nature and its permanence, make it an incredibly powerful educational tool. (Yang).