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This Ted Talk by George Takei will pair nicely with his graphic novel "They Called Us Enemy." It provides another multimodal learning opportunity. Visual learners will get to read and see images in the novel. Auditory learners will get to hear him tell his story in his own words. This auditory experience adds depth to the graphic memoir, making historical events more tangible and emotionally resonant.

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Why I love a country that once betrayed me | George Takei

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When I have students start to make their own panels for their own graphic novels, this is an online tool that students can use to make their own digital panels or comics. This provides a digital way to make their own panels and is especially helpful for students who do not feel strong or confident in their own handwritten, artistic abilities.

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The Comic Creator invites students to compose their own comic strips for a variety of contexts (prewriting, pre- and postreading activities, response to literature, and so on). The organizers focus on the key elements of comic strips by allowing students to choose backgrounds, characters, and props, as well as to compose related dialogue (shown at left). This versatile tool can be used by students from kindergarten through high school, for purposes ranging from learning to write dialogue to an in-depth study of a formerly neglected genre. The tool is easy to use, made even easier with the Comic Strip Planning Sheet, a printable PDF that comic creators can use to draft and revise their work before creating and printing their final comics. After completing their comic, students have the ability to print out and illustrate their final versions for feedback and assessment.

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The Comic Creator invites students to compose their own comic strips for a variety of contexts (prewriting, pre- and postreading activities, response to literature, and so on). The organizers focus on the key elements of comic strips by allowing students to choose backgrounds, characters, and props, as well as to compose related dialogue (shown at left).

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This is another online tool for students to make their own graphic novel panels or comics. Similar to ReadWriteThink, this allows students to make a digital comic or panels rather than have to do it handwritten. It provides another option for students who may struggle with handwritten artistry.

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Create Your Own Comic Strips Online with MakeBeliefsComix

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Create Comics Online, it’s Fun & Free at MakeBeliefsComix!

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Create comics online at MakeBeliefsComix. A fun way educators & parents can empower students to express ideas and stories in comix!

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I would play the first minute or so of this video explaining the layout of a comic or graphic novel to introduce the concept of a gutter. I'm anticipating that students may struggle with the concept of the gutter. This video helps the students to hear of the concept from an artist. Multimodal learning opportunities provides more chances for students to understand the features of a graphic novel.

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I really liked two lesson ideas from this article. The first that I would like to do is "Telling a story without words. To demonstrate how narrative operates in its most stripped-down form, have each student illustrate the following story: A man (or woman) is hurrying to catch a train. He runs. He runs faster. He runs faster still. He either boards the train or misses it. He reacts to his success or failure." The second I would like to do is "1. Have each student draw five different depictions of “sad.” They can use facial expressions, body language, words, color, or metaphor (i.e., a wilted flower), but each image must be limited to a single panel." We would then debrief the various ways images can express action and emotions. These activities (and sharing them with each other) will teach students to be on the lookout for for different plot points and character traits and emotions.

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Perhaps we're past the point of having to explain that graphic novels, with their knack for attracting reluctant readers and hitting developmental sweet spots, have a legitimate place on library shelves. Perhaps. But what about the idea that graphic novels encompass such a wide range of themes and create such layered experiences through word and art that they actually belong in classrooms? Because contemporary students have a much wider visual vocabulary than we did growing up, I contend that the format offers great opportunities to teach as well as to entertain.

My own experiences as a teacher and a librarian bear out the medium's potential. It will come as little surprise to anyone who works with children and young adults that graphic novels disappear from library shelves faster than anything else (except, maybe, vampire novels) and are the topic of eager discussion whenever they find their way into classrooms. This interest isn't solely among kids looking for a fun, colorful story. Equally interested are the graduate students in my class at Pratt Institute, as well as many educators at LREI, the independent school in Manhattan where I work. Fascination with the history and language of the form as a vehicle for education is clear.

Funny books and American culture

Comic books have long had a reputation for being disconnected from legitimate educational concerns. They were supposedly fluffy things, good for a laugh at best, agents of desensitization and proponents of violence at worst. Thanks to the graphic novel, educators and librarians are gradually finding that not to be the case. Professionals I have spoken with are astonished and delighted to discover that the history of the comic book is the history of American culture (and not just popular culture); that the medium's development reflects our own cultural growing pains over the last century; and that it defines certain aspects of the American psyche more trenchantly than any other art form around.

The superhero, comicdom's most famous (and infamous) invention, is a prime example of a potent cultural symbol long overlooked for what it has to say about the evolution of America's view of itself. Created as we came out of the Great Depression and World War II was on the horizon, the superhero character so potently reflected the American can-do spirit and penchant towards confidence and arrogance (then and now) that entire curricula could be developed around it.

Many colleges and universities already recognize the production end of the medium as a valid form to pursue in education and as a livelihood. The Savannah (Ga.) College of Art and Design offers one of the top education programs in graphic novels in the country, but far from the only one. The Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art in Dover, New Jersey, has been devoted exclusively to the study of the form since 1976.

The point of all this is that sequential art (the form of expression that fills graphic novels) is a form with something to teach us. The graphic novel is no longer just a format suitable to learn about. It is also starting to be used as a tool to educate. Beyond simply learning about the production and history of the format, the content and the way it is conveyed are becoming part of curricular infrastructure. Art Spiegelman's MAUS and Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis are frequently drafted as supplements to history and social studies curricula. They are great books, to be sure, but the format is teeming with other, wholly unexplored possibilities. Let's have a look at a newer, very different kind of graphic novel and how it can be used in a library or classroom discussion.

A sample lesson: The Arrival

The Arrival, by Shaun Tan (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2007), tells the archetypal story of a man who travels to a strange land. Using wordless narrative to exemplify the isolation of his protagonist and visual metaphor to lend universal power to the journeys of other immigrants in the story, Tan gives the tale a deeply emotional tone. At the same time, he relates experiences by means of a physical object, which, through deft use of color, texture, and page composition, resembles an old photo album, suggesting that we are looking back through the years at an actual life.

Immigration is a common and relevant area of curricular concentration, and textbooks and classics cover much information on the topic. But a graphic novel like The Arrival, with a narrative deepened through visual art, creates a layered experience that affords the opportunity to expand the emotional understanding of the subject and inspire empathy-something most history texts don't-or can't-do. Using a graphic novel to begin discussion of a subject may be unusual, but studying a subject through narrative content certainly isn't. Try reading The Arrival with 6th- through 8th-graders and opening discussion with questions such as these:

Why aren't words used in The Arrival? What effect does this have on the reader?

Is The Arrival a colorful book? In what way? When and why does the color change? What effect does the use of color have on the overall reading experience?

The city the immigrant arrives in isn't real, but what sort of a city is it? Is it meant to suggest a contemporary or a historical place? In what way does it suggest that place?

How is visual metaphor used? Are the immigrants who tell their stories really running from giants with vacuums or through vast mazes? What are these things meant to represent? Why do you think the main character left his own homeland?

How sequential art communicates

What if we expand our purview a bit? Instead of the narrative content, why not focus on the manner in which the art communicates?

Sequential art combines words, which appeal to the intellect, and pictures, which appeal to the emotions, in a way no other art form does. Unlike picture books, the words and illustrations in sequential art coexist in one conceptual space (the panel) and are joined into a single piece, most commonly by word balloons. Television and movies demand the use of two senses, our eyes and our ears. But to process sequential art (comics and graphic novels), we use only our eyes and we absorb the material at our own speed, not the pace dictated by the filmmaker. The following ideas give a sense of how graphic novels work. They can be adapted for students in grades 1-7 for use in the classroom or in the library.

Telling a story without words. To demonstrate how narrative operates in its most stripped-down form, have each student illustrate the following story: A man (or woman) is hurrying to catch a train. He runs. He runs faster. He runs faster still. He either boards the train or misses it. He reacts to his success or failure.

Students must tell the story in six panels (no more and no less). They can use body language, facial expressions, color, and symbols such as speed lines, but they cannot use words. When everyone is finished, compare the ways the completed stories show the character's various actions and final reaction.

Depicting emotion and action. The following two activities give students an understanding of the various ways emotion and action can be portrayed. When the drawings are completed, ask the group to discuss the artists' chosen perspective and style.

1. Have each student draw five different depictions of "sad." They can use facial expressions, body language, words, color, or metaphor (i.e., a wilted flower), but each image must be limited to a single panel.

2. Have each student draw three different depictions of a character jumping. The jumps can be small or large, up, down, or from one surface to another (one roof to the next over a sprawling cityscape). The students can use words, color, symbols, etc., but each depiction must be limited to two panels (for instance, the beginning of the jump and the end of it).

Translating a scene. This activity explores the choices inherent in the construction of a narrative.

Choose a passage from a book that is familiar to the students. The passage should be no more than a few paragraphs and depict a limited number of specific actions. It may contain (but should not be limited to) a brief conversation.

Ask the students to translate the passage from prose into sequential art, using words and other devices mentioned above. This time, however, ask them to make extensive use of the gutter, the space between the panels. The combination of the moments the artist puts on paper and those he or she purposely leaves to the reader's imagination (in the gutter) is what determines a visual narrative's success. Compare the completed stories in terms of their perspective, how the characters looked and felt, how actions were carried out, and what specific actions were left unseen between the panels.

Years ago, when I began experimenting with graphic novels in classrooms, I used an exercise similar to the one I've described above with a 3rd-grade class. In an effort to show the children how passage of time was conveyed in sequential art, I asked them to create, on the spot, a two-panel narrative within the space of about three minutes. Many students I've worked with don't want to share their personal work, especially impromptu creations like the ones these students were directed to produce. But when I asked for volunteers to show their panels, every single hand in this class went up. Every single hand.

I get similar results again and again when I talk about sequential art and use graphic novels with students. The form reaches young people in a way no other can, and thanks to graphic novels, I've seen students' imaginations (and interests) soar. Take advantage of the incredible potential these books offer. Use your students' enthusiasm to help them make a powerful investment in their own education. Why leave any resource untapped?

JESSE KARP is a librarian at LREI (Little Red School House and Elisabeth Irwin High School) in Manhattan and can be contacted at jkarp[at]lrei.org. He is also the author of the YA novel Those That Wake. This article captures some of the ideas in his forthcoming ALA Editions book, Graphic Novels in Your School Library, which will be published this fall.

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The Case for Graphic Novels in Education | American Libraries Magazine

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Perhaps we're past the point of having to explain that graphic novels, with their knack for attracting reluctant readers and hitting developmental sweet spots, have a legitimate place on library shelves. Perhaps. But what about the idea that graphic novels encompass such a wide range of themes and create such layered experiences through word and ...

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This article has two great images that I could post or print and use as an anchor chart to teach the vocabulary and elements of a graphic novel. This will provide students with an ongoing support as they read our graphic novel.

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I have spent a lot of time teaching kids how to write graphic novels, teaching educators about graphic novels and comic books, and countless hours reading comics myself. Based on my expertise in this area, I have developed a list of the top three things to avoid when teaching kids how to write graphic novels.

1. Don't assume every child is familiar with the comic book medium.

Sales of comics and graphic novels rose more than 60% in 2021, according to Milton Griepp, CEO of the website ICv2 which provides news and information for geek culture retailers. Griepp also shares that graphic novels make up more than 70% of the comics market.

Even with this massive growth in the comics market, there are still kids in your class who have never read a graphic novel before. This is why my co-author, Hareem Atif Khan, and I launch our unit with an inquiry into the graphic novel medium.

To prepare for the inquiry, gather a few baskets of graphic novels. If you don't have a lot in your own personal classroom library, perhaps you could work with your grade level colleagues to create bins of graphic novels that could rotate around the various classrooms launching this unit. If your school has a librarian, I'm sure they would also be happy to help! As a last resort, you could also copy a few pages from the graphic novels you do have. The idea is that each table or group of writers might have a basket of graphic novels to study, perhaps even rotating to different bins depending on your timeframe.

You will want to push your young graphic novelists to do more than just name what they see. One way to do this is to set your inquiry chart up, as you see below, with two columns, "Feature" and "So what?" The question "So what?" is a shortened version of "So what does this feature do?" or "So what effect does this feature have on the reader?"
This inquiry will also be beneficial to the graphic novel aficionados in your classroom. Even kids who read a lot of graphic novels don't always have a firm grasp on the vocabulary of the form.

To get you started, I've collected some important vocabulary for graphic novel readers and creators in the chart below.

Here's another chart in which the elements of a page are labeled.
By not assuming that all of your writers are already experts of the graphic novel medium, you "level the playing field" and set up all of your writers for success.

2. Don't limit the narrative genre that kids write within.

Graphic Novels: Writing in Pictures and Words is innovative for a writing unit of study, because it focuses on a medium rather than a genre. In all other TCRWP Writing Units of Study, the lessons teach kids how to write realistic fiction, literary essays, or research reports. This is important, because the writing genre is the nucleus around which the lessons rotate.

In this Unit of Study, however, our nucleus is a medium. The comic book medium, or format, in inclusive of multiple genres. Smile by Raina Telgemeier is a memoir, Amulet by Kazu Kibuishi is a fantasy story, and

Leon The Extraordinary by Jamar Nicholas is a superhero story-but ALL of these stories are told in the graphic novel MEDIUM.

There are even non-fiction graphic novels. Hareem and I decided to zoom-in on narrative writing so as to be able to unify the teaching within the lessons more clearly. It would be exciting to think about the ways in which the graphic novel form could be extended into writing about science or social studies concepts after this unit.

During this unit, you might have young writers creating true stories, realistic stories or even fantasy stories.

Here are a few strengths of the new unit:

It allows for more student choice than other units. They get to choose their own genre. The more choice a student has, the more engaged they will be.

It provides an opportunity for writers to revisit a favorite genre from earlier in the year. Our scope and sequences are usually bursting at the seams. Very rarely do we have a chance to allow kids to write another fantasy story, if they love writing fantasy. This unit provides the time to do just that!

It creates the chance for kids to collaborate. Group the kids writing within the same genre together into a publishing house! Publishing houses could support each other as they work on their stories. At the end of the unit, your publishing houses could combine their pieces to create sci-fi or memoir anthologies.

I think it would be a mistake to tell all of your writers to write, for example, realistic fiction stories. By doing this, you remove a facet of this Unit of Study that makes it unique and even more engaging.

3. Don't limit kids by using pre-printed comic book pages.

I am all for graphic organizers when they are a scaffold and not a limit. When they provide access to a skill that otherwise would be off the table for a writer. The goal is to eventually remove the scaffold, because scaffolding is not meant to be permanent. The wall is meant to eventually stand on its own.

You may feel the desire to give your students pre-designed comic pages. Please restrain this desire. So much of the craft of comics is connected to creating the page. The size, shape, and number of panels on a page contribute to the pacing and emotional impact of the story.

By providing a pre-designed page, you are preventing your writers from making important choices.

Should I start with a large panel to establish the setting or begin on a close-up on the character's eyes and then zoom out in a series of panels? Should I make this panel lean forward to mimic the action happening with the panel to create some momentum? Should I break the panel here to really show how hard the batter hit the ball?

These are the kinds of questions I want your creators to wrestle with. By asking these questions, they will learn so much about what works (and what doesn't!) in visual storytelling.

Embrace the imperfection of student-drawn panels. When Hareem and I met with Art Spiegelman, he described a graphic novel as being an artifact in a way that a prose book isn't, because the creator crafts every part of a graphic novel. It's much more personal in that way than most prose.

You can provide some support to help your students. You might cut panel templates out of cardstock for writers to trace around. Rulers will also be a big help. Some teachers also used graph paper for their graphic novelists to create their pages. The rows and columns aid them in being neater. If a student has a need, as determined by an IEP or needs OT support, then you should provide whatever will allow access to writing graphic novels.

For most of your students, I recommend that you allow them to fully experience the work of crafting their pages by hand.

Graphic Novels, Grades 4-6, with Trade Pack byHareem A Khan and Eric Hand

➡️ Watch the introductory webinar here. Download a sample here.

is a former staff developer at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project who has taken all his expertise back into the classroom. He has a master's degree in literacy education and has taught in a variety of classroom settings. While at TCRWP, Eric joined Hareem, Mary Ehrenworth, and others in spearheading efforts to incorporate graphic novels and comic books into Units of Study in Writing. The institute that he and Hareem co-led helped to generate enthusiasm for this important work. Currently, Eric is putting all he knows into action-and he's learning from his students every day. He regularly posts his learning on his blog, Eric Hand Written by Hand. If you are looking for Eric, check your local comic book shop.

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Top 3 DON'Ts: Teaching Kids to Write Graphic Novels

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I have spent a lot of time teaching kids how to write graphic novels, teaching educators about graphic novels and comic books, and countless hours reading comics myself. Based on my expertise in this area, I have developed a list of the top three things to avoid when teaching kids how to write graphic novels.

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Anchor Charts / Elements of a Graphic Novel

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Anchor Charts / Elements of a Graphic Novel

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I would like this image to use to teach how to read a graphic novel. While I could use it as an anchor chart, I'm also thinking of printing it or posting it on Schoology to review with the students. This will continue to offer support as we read graphic novels.

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At Middleweb: Comics Across the Curriculum

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My latest post at my blog over at Middleweb is a look at a wonderful collection of graphic stories, with connections across science, history, media and more. The collection is called Reading with Pictures and is curated for classrooms. Peace (in the share), Kevin

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This website has some excellent lesson plan ideas and activities for teaching White Bird by R.J. Palacio. Some lessons and activities can be adapted for other graphic novels. This is support for planning my new graphic novel unit.

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White Bird by R.J. Palacio | Summary & Free Activities

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Discover the connection between White Bird and Wonder at StoryboardThat & discuss events of the Holocaust. Explore summary & free activities in our lesson plan.

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Canva is another resource for students when making their own panels of graphic novels. I can have students make them digitally on Canva, or I can print them to make the panels by hand.

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This webpage explains how visual storytelling elements, such as facial expressions, body language, and panel composition convey character traits and emotions. The images are helpful to teach students this concept. I like how this is broken down and "kid-friendly." This resource demonstrates the unique aspects of visual narrative. Overall, it will help me teach visual literacy and critical thinking skills in the context of graphic literature. This is important because we refer back to characterization many times throughout the school year.

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Visual Narrative in Graphic Novels: Characters - Kids Comics Unite

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What is visual narrative? Visual narrative in comics is how we communicate and engage an audience through visual storytelling. It can convey information at a glance, guide the eye, evoke […]