The document discusses using graphic novels and comics to teach history in the classroom. It outlines how the author found that students were plagiarizing from nonfiction texts and that creating their own graphic novels about historical events and figures would be more engaging. The author worked with the school librarian to expand the graphic novel collection and saw increased circulation of graphic novels over traditional fiction books. The document also discusses various techniques used in comics, such as panel layout, dialogue, and closure, that help students understand both the form and how to create their own graphic novels about historical topics.

1. Using Comics to Teach History Corinne Hatcher UIWP, 2011

2. Why? Cooperating teacher found nonfiction graphic novels in our collection

3. Students were finding in too easy to plagiarize Making graphic novels is fun

4. Librarian Support Mentioning-s of Librarians “ Library Media Specialists have been on the forefront advocating graphic novels” (Schwarz, 2006).

5. “ Graphic novels are the perfect meeting place of words and pictures [. . .] Teacher-librarians picked up on this a long time ago and have been adding graphic novels to their collection in ever increasing numbers (Crilley, 2009) Graphic Novel Collection @ Central High School Collection: 283 books (2009) – 605 books (2011)

6. Circulation: Sept. 2010 – 552(gn) vs. 361(f)

7. Contention 1 Scott McCloud Reinventing Comics , 2000 Scott McCloud Understanding Comics , 1993

8. Contention 2 Both traditional, alphabetic literacy and literacies such as information, visual, and media literacy can be well served by classroom engagement with the graphic novel (Schwarz, 2006)

9. Graphic novel compositions highlight composition processes, and a natural outcome of reading graphic novels is composing them. When students are given the opportunity to marry words with images, they create new knowledge for themselves. Writers with few skills experience a level of success they may not have ever had before, and advanced writers refine their skills in writing for precision. Graphic novels and prose texts do not replace one another—they foster deeper understanding of both. (Frey and Fisher, 2010)

10. Contention 3 [Mentor texts are] invaluable models of outstanding writing. They can be used for writing instruction ( Ehmann and Gayer, 2009)

11. Mentor texts serve to show, not just tell, students how to write well ( Dorfman and Cappelli, 2007)

13. Pixton

14. What the project looked like this year? Introduce the project Look @ picture books Find 3 anecdotes Find information from another source Sketch out at least 9 panels Work with Pixton 1 1 2 3 1 6+

17. What the project looks like after UIWP ? Introduce the project Look @ picture books Find 3 anecdotes Find information from another source Sketch out at least 9 panels Work with Pixton Lesson on Pixton Tools Look at a Nonfiction G. N. Structures of a GN: Text to Panel 1 1 2 3 1 6+ 2 1 1

18. Discuss with a partner. . . Is there evidence that the author did research to create the book?

19. Be specific about what you notice about how the drawings help or hurt the story.