Graphic Novel Week: ADVENTURES IN GRAPHICA by Terry Thompson

I just received my copy of ADVENTURES IN GRAPHICA: USING COMICS AND GRAPHIC NOVELS TO TEACH COMPREHENSION, 2-6 by Terry Thompson. I mentioned it a while back--looking forward to its release.

This is a much needed book--one I have been waiting for for a while.

One of my favorite lines in this new book is, "So, it all started with a struggling reader and a comic book, and I've been hooked ever since." Terry Thompson realized long before many of us, how to use graphic novels and comic books to meet the needs of all of his readers, especially those who struggle.

There is so much to love about this book. First of all, it is VERY comprehensive. Thompson includes everything from definitions of the types of graphica to classroom examples. This is by far, the most comprehensive book I have seen for teachers of reading on the topic. He has found ways to use graphica to teach so many important reading skills. He fits graphica into all components of the literacy block--guided reading, lit circles, shared reading and read aloud. He talks about the actual teaching and also gives ideas for making comics accessible to students and for helping keep them from getting wrinkled, ruined, etc.

Much of this book will help teachers use graphica with all of their students. But he does have specific tips and thoughts for working with boys, girls, and English Language Learners.

One of the things that I find the most powerful is the way that Thompson talks about comprehension with comics and graphic novels. He shares great ideas and strategies for using these to help students with higher level comprehension skills. Then he talks pretty specifically about how to use what they learn in this medium to transfer to other formats of text. He understands the draw of comics and how to use those well, but then to expand the learning to other types of text.

Another thing that makes this book so amazing is the resources that he helps us with. As an elementary teacher, and a non-graphica reader, it is hard for me to determine which books are appropriate for my elementary students. Thompson gives us many resources--websites, titles and publishers--that are appropriate for readers in grades 2-6. He also provides a selection guide to help teachers think through specific characteristics of this medium when selecting text for students.

Like I said earlier, this book is very comprehensive and I am thrilled to have it. This is an area that I have wanted to think more about lately. Before ADVENTURES IN GRAPHICA, I'd find a bit of info here and a bit more there, but I had trouble pulling it all together and figuring out how to best us these in my teaching. This book pulls it all together for me plus gives me so much more.

On a side note, rumor has it that this book is SOOO popular that it was seen on at least one runner at this year's Boston Marathon. See below:

Graphic Novel Week: Jeff Smith and Scott McCloud

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon in May, Mershon Auditorium was predictably only about 2/3 full. The mix in the audience was a little heavy on the 20-50 year-old "cartoonhead" men (Smith's term, not mine), with some kids aged 8-12 (mostly boys, parents in tow) mixed in, and a sprinkling of other
assorted artsy/librariany/teachery/
dragged-along-for-company types.

Scott McCloud tried valiantly to stick to his list of questions, but luckily the conversation was mostly free-flowing.

On Jeff's early years: Jeff Smith moved to the Columbus area in kindergarten, and lived in Worthington growing up. He never really wanted to make comics as a youngster, because that seemed as exotic as wanting to be a movie star.

When did he realize there was an artist behind the comics he read: He knew it all along, at least theoretically, because Walt Disney himself introduced The Wonderful World of Disney every Sunday and we all knew that Disney himself was responsible for all the drawing of every Disney character in comic books and film...

How he got started drawing comics as a kid: "I tried to make up characters," as he believes all kids do. (I did. Mine were an ant and a snail.)

Jeff "really did roll up comics and stick them in my back pocket."

His first hero was Pogo.

His first drawing of the Bone cousins was when he was about 6. He drew a character that looked like a phone receiver (some folks in the audience could remember those). The name Phone Bone came later, borrowed from Mad Magazine's Don Martin, whose generic character name was always "Mr. Phone Bone." Smith has met Don Martin, who was pleased with the hidden tribute to his work in Phone Bone's name.

Interesting tidbits for writing teachers: Because the early Bone comics went back to print so frequently, he had (and took) the opportunity to change things he didn't like. By the time all of the Bone comics were collected in the 1300 page black and white book, he had done a ton of revision!

The inspiration for his characters can be found in his life: Thorn's gestures and mannerisms are those of Vijaya, his life partner, and the Bone cousins are all manifestations of different facets of Smith's own personality.

The serialization of Bone in the early years meant that Smith got lots of feedback from readers as he went. He saw that interaction with his readers as vital to the development of the plot.

How have things changed for him since Scholastic came into the picture: "Look -- there are women and kids in this audience." Smith talked at length about the acceptance of comics in mainstream culture in the last five years.

Insider trivia: Check for similarities between Smith's dragon and Doonesbury's Zonker.

What does he read besides comics? The Odyssey, Moby Dick, Huck Finn, Arthurian legends, classical fairy tales...stories that start off seeming like kids' books but that turn dark and complex. All of that reading took place pre-Bone, however. He doesn't read fiction now because he wouldn't be able to enjoy it. Now that he writes extended fiction stories, he feels he would spend all his energy figuring out how the author had constructed the story.

Who was his intended audience for Bone? None. There were no intentions. He wrote Bone "For myself. For adults. For grownup 'cartoonheads.' " BUT...it's the book he would have wanted to be able to read when he was 9 -- a "big story in comics." He's thrilled that parents and kids around the globe have claimed Bone for a new generation. And the reason Scholastic got the color version deal is that they really "got it." They knew it needed to be a book on the shelf. (Oh, btw -- book 8 will be out in July!)

The pivot question: Desert island. One collected works: Walt Kelly, Charles Schultz, or Carl Barks? After a bit of hemming and hawing -- Walt Kelly.

***
Boneville website
Jeff Smith on Wikipedia
Scott McCloud here and here

Graphic Novel Week

Elsewhere in the Kidlitosphere it's all about Vampires this month, in honor of FirstSecond's Vampire Month.  

Here at A Year of Reading, we are going to veer off on our own tangent by celebrating Graphic Novel Week, with or without the vampires.  

Here's the line-up:

Saturday, May 10 -- Jeff Smith and Scott McCloud will give a talk at Mershon Auditorium as the opener to Smith's exhibit "Before Bone" at the OSU Cartoon Research Library.

Sunday, May 11 -- Mary Lee will report on Saturday's event.

Monday, May 12 -- Franki will review Terry Thompson's new book Adventures in Graphica: Using Comics and Graphic Novels to Teach Comprehension, 2-6.

Tuesday, May 13 -- Franki's interview with Terry Thompson.

Wednesday and Thursday, May 14-15 -- Mary Lee reviews several new graphic novels and ponders how graphic novels have impacted the reading of her students this year.

Friday, May 16 -- Will Graphic Novel Week and Poetry Friday converge?  Stay tuned to find out!

Poetry Friday -- Pick My Chin Up Off The Floor

Flabbergasted

I have witnesses.
Eight teachers from Tennessee
spent the day observing
in my classroom.

They heard her say it.

They heard the fourth grader say
"Hypothetically speaking..."
as we discussed
the characters
in
Greetings From Nowhere.

I'm still dumbfounded.

But I have witnesses.
It really happened.




The roundup is by writer2b at Findings.

The Fish Who Cried Wolf

The Fish Who Cried Wolf
by Julia Donaldson
illustrated by Axel Scheffler
Arthur A. Levine, 2008
review copy compliments of the publisher


Awhile back we read a bunch of "cry wolf" variations, so I had high hopes for this book.

This is the story of Tiddler, a plain little fish who tells very colorful tall tales. He's late for school almost every day, but he has a great excuse each time. One day, he's so distracted thinking of his new story that he fails to notice the fish net that scoops him up. The fishermen throw him back because he's just a "tiddler." Tiddler is lost in the ocean, but he follows the trail of his stories to get back home again. Not quite a "cry wolf" story, but thought I'd withhold judgment and see what the kids thought.

They couldn't get over how similar the book is to the movie "Finding Nemo." The characters, the plot line, everything. I don't know the movie, so I asked, "Coincidence-similar, or plagiarism-similar?" Similar enough to feel like plagiarism was the verdict of the 10 year-olds on the jury.

And then someone said, "And there isn't even a wolf in it!" *sigh* We had to have yet another discussion about idioms and figures of speech. After we cleared that up, they went on to express their dissatisfaction that the story bills itself as a "cry wolf" story with the title, but it doesn't really follow the formula. (Whew! It wasn't just me!) Then we started brainstorming better titles. The winners were: Tiddler's Tall Tales, The Tale of Tiddler, and (although it was suggested rather sarcastically I think it does reflect their irritation with the apparent extravagant borrowing from "Finding Nemo") Lying Nemo.

So here's a book with great potential that was a bit disappointing, but still sparked a lively conversation!

What To Do About Alice?

What To Do About Alice? How Alice Roosevelt broke the rules, charmed the world and drove her father Teddy crazy!
by Barbara Kerley
illustrated by Edward Fotheringham
Scholastic Press, 2008
review copy compliments of the publisher



Barbara Kerley's website
Classroom activities for What To Do About Alice

***
Check out reviews at:
Big A little a
Becky's Book Reviews
Wild Rose Reader
the excelsior file
7-Imp

***
The topic of my minilesson in reading workshop was "Pay Attention to the Way the Character in Your Book Changes." I led off with Crash, by Jerry Spinelli, and my already-familiar story of staying with that book only because I knew Jerry Spinelli HAD to make Crash, one of the most despicable characters (my opinion) in children's literature, change by the end of the book, and I wanted to be there to see it.

Then I showed them the way Pam Muñoz Ryan clues the reader in to her main character's changes in Paint the Wind by making each section of the book a faster and faster gait of a horse, beginning with walk and ending with gallop. I told them that both of the main children characters in Ryan's book are not very nice to begin with, but that the author shows you their family situations and you understand why they are like that. And they both do change.

Next, I shared The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart, which I was in the midst of listening to at the time. I told them about the annoying character Constance Contraire, whose very name even means "always irritating," and how the characters in the book are in the same place as the reader in wondering why she's that way and when she's going to change. (She never does change, and for myself and all the other readers like me who didn't put together the numerous clues we were given, the author explains why at the end of the book. Clever author!)

I ended the minilesson by sharing the story of an amazing, strong-willed, unusual character who doesn't change: Alice Roosevelt, in What To Do About Alice, by Barbara Kerley. We wondered at this remarkable woman's life-long resistance of the status quo, and were amazed by how fully she lived her life from childhood through old age -- always on her own terms.

Then I sent them off to read and to pay attention to the ways their characters did and didn't change.

Later that day, during read aloud (Greetings from Nowhere by Barbara O'Connor), the topic of characters who change and don't change came up again. But that's another story for another post. Stay tuned.

Cardboard Genius

Star Jumper: Journal of a Cardboard Genius
Gravity Buster: Journal #2 of a Cardboard Genius
Time Twister: Journal #3 of a Cardboard Genius
all by Frank Asch
all from Kids Can Press
(2006, 2007, and 2008 respectively)
all copies compliments of the publisher

Alex is a genius inventor whose journals will someday be worth billions, or so he says. His inventions are all made of cardboard and silver duct tape and stuff he collects "from the street on garbage day" and keeps in plastic bins under his bed. Best of all, most of his designs require only the amount of energy in two AA batteries.

The most amazing thing about this series is that you completely believe in Alex and his inventions. How could you not? He throws around science facts about string theory, creates complicated equations, draws detailed diagrams of amazing inventions like a space ship, a duplicating machine, an oxygen generator, and an Atom Slider (so his cardboard spaceship can pass through the spaces between atoms).

It's almost as much fun to believe in two kids from Frogcreek, PA who have a Magic Tree House as it is to believe in Alex and his inventions. It's MORE fun to believe in Alex and his inventions than it is to believe in Harry Potter -- what's the big deal about a character who can learn spells and swing around a wand? That's pure magic. All fantasy. Alex is a character from our world who has a pesky little brother, a little bit of a crush on Zoe Breen, and, oh, yeah, the most incredible scientific mind in the history of the human race.

In the three books of the series so far, Alex has created Star Jumper, a spaceship; a new, improved version of the Star Jumper which includes a Gravity Buster anti-gravity device so it won't get sucked into black holes; and a Time Twister to take care of the space-time warp that Einstein explained in his Theory of Relativity.

What's next for Alex? Well, when we leave him at the end of book three, Jonathan and the castle he made have been Micro-Blasted and are sealed in a mayonnaise jar that has holes punched in the lid (and it appears that Jonathan was not making up an imaginary playmate named Merlin!). Alex has defeated the Time Cops of the future by using a time paradox to his own benefit, and Alex and Zoe (and Jonathan in his jar) have been in outer space for 9 days looking for a suitable planet on which to land the Star Jumper.

These books would be perfect for 3rd-6th graders who are doodlers and inventors and superhuman geniuses in the disguise of a normal kid. There are about 144 pages in each book, with words like "prototype" and "parallel universe" and "genius of my caliber," and small but important illustrations every few pages.

A Year of Reading in the UK

2008 is The National Year of Reading in the UK. Everything Starts With Reading.

Good ol' Google Alerts.

Poetry Friday -- Work

THE TUFT OF FLOWERS
by Robert Frost

I went to turn the grass once after one
Who mowed it in the dew before the sun.

The dew was gone that made his blade so keen
Before I came to view the leveled scene.

I looked for him behind an isle of trees;
I listened for his whetstone on the breeze.

But he had gone his way, the grass all mown,
And I must be, as he had been—alone,

"As all must be," I said within my heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."

But as I said it, swift there passed me by
On noiseless wing a bewildered butterfly,

Seeking with memories grown dim o’er night
Some resting flower of yesterday’s delight.

And once I marked his flight go round and round,
As where some flower lay withering on the ground.

And then he flew as far as eye could see,
And then on tremulous wing came back to me.

I thought of questions that have no reply,
And would have turned to toss the grass to dry;

But he turned first, and led my eye to look
At a tall tuft of flowers beside a brook,

A leaping tongue of bloom the scythe had spared
Beside a reedy brook the scythe had bared.

The mower in the dew had loved them thus,
By leaving them to flourish, not for us,

Nor yet to draw one thought of ours to him.
But from sheer morning gladness at the brim.

The butterfly and I had lit upon,
Nevertheless, a message from the dawn,

That made me hear the wakening birds around,
And hear his long scythe whispering to the ground,

And feel a spirit kindred to my own;
So that henceforth I worked no more alone;

But glad with him, I worked as with his aid,
And weary, sought at noon with him the shade;

And dreaming, as it were, held brotherly speech
With one whose thought I had not hoped to reach.

"Men work together," I told him from the heart,
"Whether they work together or apart."


It's the season of change in our corner of the public school world: retirement parties, grade level changes, voluntary and involuntary transfers, next year's class lists. We've worked together; now we'll work apart.

After 8 years of looping from 4th to 5th grade, spending two years with each group of children, I have come to rest in 4th grade. I'm not quite sure yet how I feel about that: I'm not a sprinter; I do better with long distances and a slower steady pace. As "the looper," I've had an extraordinary amount of autonomy. I've always worked at the edge of my grade level. Together, but slightly apart. This year we tested a couple of models of instruction that required exceptional collaboration and cooperation. Intensely together. (And amazing results.) It was good to come in from the edge.

It's also the season of achievement testing. I can't seem to step far enough back from the testing to see whether the tests are helping us to work together or driving us further apart. I'm not even sure I know who the "us" is -- building? district? state? nation?

But most of all, it's Friday. And no matter what kind of chaos in my life has prevented me from blogging all week, I find that, increasingly, I always have time for a Poetry Friday post. Bloggers work so very far apart, and that, I think, makes the work we do together all the more invaluable. I am SO looking forward to the "tall tuft of flowers" your "scythe" will spare!

The round up this week is at Big A little a.

GREETINGS FROM NOWHERE: Read Aloud Discussion

You know those days when you wish there was a video camera in the room because the kids are SOOOOO SMART? Well, today was one of those days. We finished reading GREETINGS FROM NOWHERE by Barbara O'Connor yesterday. (If you have not read it, run out and buy it today!) After we finish a read aloud like this, we often spend a few days lingering. Today, we started out brainstorming the questions we'd like to linger with and then got into groups and pondered these things. This was a list of questions that we had some ideas about but that we knew we could think more about. I bopped around from group to group and the conversations were amazing. The depth of their thinking and the understanding they had of the relationships in the book was amazing. Here are the questions they are discussing:

Why did Clyde Dover change his mind about Aggie staying?
Why is he title Greetings From Nowhere?
What is the theme?
What did they mean about the parade (Dorothy's mother in the wrong parade, it's been a great parade, Harold)?
Who is the main character?
Why did Kirby keep the poodle pin and then give it back?
Why did Loretta decide not to visit the other places?
What did Kirby feel when he left?
What is Willow and Aggie's relationship?

This book has really been a powerful read for our class. The kids really connected with Aggie and Kirby. They could have talked for hours today. And we'll talk more tomorrow.

One of my students came in today and said, "I googled that book trailer that you showed us about GREETINGS FROM NOWHERE and showed my mom. Now she wants to read it!"