@CRHS Media Center
Week of February 6-10, 2017
New Graphic Novels Have Arrived!
Why Use Graphic Novels in the Classroom?
(from Sewickley Academy blog, accessed Feb 12, 2017)
READING SKILLS
While it may seem counter-intuitive to credit graphic novels for reading improvement, research says otherwise (read more here). It also supports all the reading strategies that effective readers use, such as: inferencing, visualization of the text, self-monitoring, and prediction. While many effective readers do this naturally, for most it takes practice. The graphic novel does not “do the work” for them, as I have heard some critics say. Rather, it enhances the narrative while simultaneously adding a whole other layer of nuance. Students are left to make inferences from the text but, while they may have glossed over small details without a sketch, now they are drawn (pun intended) to look more closely at the subtleties of the language.
TIME
There is only so much content that can be fit. I find that adding a graphic novel actually allows me to teach more content, rather than less because it can cover so much, in so few pages. In only a two or three nights, students read stories about the modern history of Iran ("Persepolis"), Egypt ("Rise"), or Japan ("Barefoot Gen."), while we discuss the context and additional historic events to enhance the topics framed in the book. In the end, I almost always find that the students have learned more in those few days from a combination of direct classroom instruction plus the graphic novel than by reading a packet or textbook passage about the region.
Above information from: http://blog.sewickley.org/5-reasons-i-use-graphic-novels-to-teach-history
Other Graphic Novel Support Articles
School Library Journal: Teaching with Graphic Novels
The Guardian Teacher Network: How to Teach Graphic Novels
Society for History Education: Comics, Cartoons, and Graphic Novels in the History Classroom
Teaching History: Comic Books in the History Classroom
Erin Bradley, MLIS and New Book Nerd
Email: erin.bradley@orange.k12.nc.us
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