Synopses & Reviews
Comic books and graphic novels, known collectively as graphica, have long been popular with teenagers and adults. Recently graphica has grown in popularity with younger readers as well, motivating and engaging some of our most reluctant readers who often shun traditional texts. While some teachers have become curious about graphica's potential, many are confused by the overwhelming number of new titles and series, in both fiction and nonfiction, and are unsure of its suitability and function in their classrooms.
Drawing on his own success using graphica with elementary students, literacy coach Terry Thompson introduces reading teachers to this popular medium and suggests sources of appropriate graphica for the classroom and for particular students. Taking cues from research that supports the use of graphica with students, Terry shows how this exciting medium fits into the literacy framework and correlates with best practices in comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency instruction. Adventures in Graphica contains numerous, easy-to-replicate, instructional strategies, including examples of how graphic texts can be used to create a bridge as students transfer abstract comprehension strategies learned through comics and graphic novels to traditional texts.
Adventures in Graphica provides a roadmap for teachers to the medium that the New York Times recently hailed as possibly the next new literary form.
Synopsis
Two challenging classroom goals--to teach fluency and to motivate readers--can be reached through graphica--which includes graphic novels and comic books. Literacy specialist Terry Thompson presents a classroom environment where struggling and reluctant readers are eager to read, learn, and engage--and reach fluency. He explains how this exciting medium can be worked into literary frameworks for second through sixth grades. Thompson includes real-life classroom examples and touches on all potential uses, including how ESL students are aided in understanding idiomatic expressions through analyzing the illustration to text correlations. The appendix has several resources including comic book element templates, graphic organizers, blackline masters, and a summary of graphica history.
Synopsis
Graphica is a medium of literature that integrates pictures and words and arranges them to tell a story or convey information, usually presented in a comic strip, periodical, or book form - AKA "comics". It's no surprise comics have long been popular with kids and adults; some of our greatest heroes were introduced to us in comic form. Drawing on his own success using graphica with elementary students, literacy coach Terry Thompson introduces reading teachers to this popular medium in Adventures in Graphica: Using Comics and Graphic Novels to Teach Comprehension, Grades 2-6.
In his book, Thompson explains how graphica can be an engaging and motivating tool for reluctant readers who often shun traditional texts. He suggests sources of appropriate graphica for the classroom and demonstrates how to fit this medium into the literacy framework and correlates with best practices in comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency instruction.
Adventures in Graphica contains numerous, easy-to-replicate, instructional strategies, including examples of how graphic texts can be used to create a bridge and students transfer abstract comprehension strategies learned through comics and graphic novels to traditional texts. It is an excellent roadmap for teachers looking to add graphica to their classrooms.