This document discusses using graphic novels to engage students in language learning activities. It begins by having attendees introduce themselves and share details about their students and classes. It then defines terms like "graphic novel" and "manga" and discusses why graphic novels are useful teaching tools as they are age-appropriate, popular, visually rich, and feature conversational language. The document provides many examples of how graphic novels can be used for reading, writing, speaking, listening, and discussion activities at different stages. It also discusses how graphic novels are non-linear and can be modified, with attendees asked to brainstorm their own ideas for using graphic novels.

1. Engaging Students
with Graphic Novels
Dr. Deborah Healey
American English Institute/Linguistics
University of Oregon

3. Who’s here?
Introduce yourself to 2 or 3 people around you
• Student age/level/type
• Number of students in your class
• How motivated are your students?

4. What’s another term (or two) for
graphic novel?

5. What’s in a name?
• Graphic novel
• Comic book
• Manga
Related concepts
• Comic strip
• Sequential art

6. Now to teaching…
• Why bother?
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/12917962@N00/2817161488

7. Age-appropriate
Popular
51,482
paperbacks

8. Conversational
language
• Too bad we
didn’t catch
Rachel.
• Sounds like a
plan.
• Let’s keep our
eye out for
neckties.

9. Often not a lot
of text

10. Visually rich

11. So what can I do with it?
Reading
– Intensive and extensive
– Pre-reading (activate schema)
– During reading (form or fluency)
– Post-reading (remembering, analyzing, evaluating)
– Colloquial vocabulary and grammar
– Colloquial spelling
– Onomatopoeia

12. Writing
– Describe the
background and the
characters in detail
– Write the story in
paragraphs
– Add the motivation of
the characters

13. Speaking/Listening
• Role-play
– Add intonation and expression
– Audience: Has the content changed?
– Are the characters “right”?
• Pronunciation practice
– Wanna, gonna, other conversational forms
– Fluency rather than form

14. Discussion
• Surface level
– Enjoyment, story ideas
• Critical thinking
– What was surprising?
– What more do you “see”?
– How is it different from reading text?
– What happens with the order?

15. Why is the picture
slanted?
Why is the top
picture so small?

16. Non-linear text

17. Tweaking the text
–
–
–
–
Bubbles without text
Text without bubbles
Selective deletion
Strips to reassemble

18. Creating…
– Add your own text to images
– Add your own images to text
– Create a local version of the
story
– Personalize the story
– Build a story from scratch
Template: http://donnayoung.org/f13/artf/comic/2013-2-3-3-t.pdf

19. What can YOU do with graphic novels?
• Work in groups of 3-4
• When and how would you use a
graphic novel with YOUR students?
• What pre-, during- and post-activities?
• 10 minutes, then share with another
group – choose the best idea to share

20. 2-minute freewrite
What was the most useful information I got
from this session?
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/46646401@N06/7205089854

21. Thanks!
Deborah Healey
dhealey@uoregon.edu
https://sites.google.com/site/eltwithgraphicnovels/