Teaching with Graphic Novels & Beyond!

​Intersections among the disciplines, the arts and tech!

​You may have seen my post, Serendipity in Curriculum Design.  You never know what kind of fantastic ideas or possibilities will reveal themselves to you!  This past week, starting with two reminders of upcoming holidays, National Arts in Education Week and International Dot Day, found me with my mind tuned to the arts.  
​
In my usual way of thinking in interdisciplinary and integrated curriculum design, I immediately thought of connections to reading, writing, media literacy, visual literacy,aural literacy, social/emotional literacy, and a project could be easily extended to include financial literacy, ecoliteracy, creativity & the arts as literacies, physical fitness and health as literacies, global competencies . . . You can find articles with learning activities for many of these literacies on this page at  21st Century Schools.
 
The various activities below also include opportunities to ensure that students develop the 21st century skills (7 Survival Skills of the 21st Century by Tony Wagner) illustrated in my 3 compasses.  

It seems serendipitous to me that today I happened upon other excellent resources connected to the arts.

Teaching with Graphic Novels

​
​An excellent article, Teaching With Graphic Novels, by George Jones on Edudemic,provides ideas and resources, as well as research, related to the benefits and the "how to" of using graphic novels in teaching.  
​
The image in the heading above is from a site called Avatar Generation.  Here is their article, Ten Exciting Resources for Teaching With Graphic Novels. 
​

​The CDC, Center for Disease Control, created a project called Zombie Apocalypse! It is actually a program for disaster preparedness, and it includes a graphic novella entitled, Preparedness 101: Zombie Pandemic.

What types of disaster preparedness could your students learn about and then prepare informational web sites and PSAs (public service announcements) for your community?  Is your area prone to tornadoes, hurricanes, blizzards, floods, thunderstorms, ice storms, heat waves . . . ?  ​

This is a great way to tie in a study of climatology, meteorology, environmental studies, etc.!  I actually worked with a school in Mobile, Alabama one year, during the summer. The kindergarten teachers decided to have their students create hurricane preparedness PSAs. Then their area was hit by a hurricane just as school started!  Even little ones can do something on this topic, and it is a great service learning project!

See 21st Century School's curriculum resources page devoted to Zombies, where you will find links to the graphic novella, CDC educators' resources and more zombie resources! Not a bad way to integrate Halloween or Day of the Dead into the curriculum.
​

Extensions of zombies into other art forms:
Further integration of the arts could include celebrating Thrill Day, which is on October 29 of this year.  Their page has a complete Manager's Event Guide for making this a community-wide celebration.  This is a global event!  The resources on our Zombies page include complete directions for costumes, makeup and dance steps.  There are links to videos from York University, Fine Arts Faculty, Dance Department to teach you the dance.  And of course, the video, Thriller by Michael Jackson.

Teaching Grammar Through Art

Another connection - grammar and art! - also compliments my last two posts:International Dot Day and National Arts in Education Week. This image is from grammarmindmaps.com, recommended by Kristen Hicks in her post on Edudemic - 15 Tips and Tools for Teaching Grammar.  
​

Digital Storytelling

We are our stories.  We compress years of experience, thought, and emotion into a few compact narratives that we convey to others and tell to ourselves.  Daniel Pink

​This digital story, Galveston, Hurricanes and Oz, created by Amy Ahlbrand Robinson in 2015, is an excellent example of the integration of research, art, history and more! 
​

Find more examples, as well as resources for teachers, at this page on the Digital Storytelling web site at the University of Houston by Bernard Robin, Ph.D.
University of Houston, College of Education.  brobin@uh.edu

Here is our "beginner's toolkit" to get your students started with digital storytelling. I would extend the concept of using computers to create digital stories to the realm of multimedia production such as filmmaking, videography, and television and radio production!

Finally, here are some lesson ideas from Leah Levy in her article, A Teacher's Guide to Digital Storytelling, at Edudemic.

Photography, Creative Writing and Helping Students Find Their Must

​Here is an excellent post by Megan Oteri, Creativity First, which she introduces with the beautiful image above and a quote from Einstein.  In this very inspiring and highly informative post, Megan explains her process of teaching creative writing - helping students find their muse - and photography!  You will see connections to all the literacies mentioned in the introduction to this post.  This activity is appropriate, or can be modified, for any age group, from PK through adult!

Megan shares with us in her article, "Students then choose one photograph to write about and can write in any genre they choose. They decide which photograph tells a story. They are encouraged and directed to listen to what the photo is telling them. Some students write Science Fiction, Historical Fiction, Narrative Nonfiction, Poetry, Graphic Novels, and even Advertisement Copy."

For high school and college level students . . . art and anatomy through history

Vanessa Ruiz takes us on an illustrated journey of human anatomical art over the centuries, sharing captivating images that bring this visual science — and the contemporary artists inspired by it — to life. "Anatomical art has the power to reach far beyond the pages of a medical textbook," she says, "connecting our innermost selves with our bodies through art."

---

As you can see, the possibilities are virtually infinite when it comes to designing curriculum that is rigorous, real world and relevant!  There is so much we can offer our students in rich experiences by stepping outside the narrow confines of textbooks, lists of standards and curriculum pacing guides.  I call them "Marching Orders", and next to a factory model approach to organization of the school and the daily bell schedule, they are the biggest obstacle to designing and implementing quality curriculum that project-based, interdisciplinary and integrated.  The "marching orders" are ensuring that students will not become 21st century thinkers.  That is for a separate post.

Professional Development Activity

*  Read and discuss the topics above.  Watch and discuss the videos.

*  With one or more colleagues, select one of the suggestions above or choose a theme/topic from our Curriculum Resources page.

*  Brainstorm connections to all the disciplines, especially focusing on the arts.  Painting, sculpture (clay, stone, wood, metal), collages, mosaics, sand painting, drama, singing, dance, photography, video and filmmaking, radio and television.

*  Now articulate the connections to, or determine experiences for, development of the multiple literacies and the 21st century skills.  See our page, 21st Century Education.

*  Identify the specific content standards that can be taught through this project for your course and/or grad level.

*  Identify the CCSS (if applicable to your district) that can be taught through this project.

*  Identify other standards.  Here you will find links to:  CCSS,  Social Studies, Science and Core Arts standards.

​Please share what your teams created either in the Comments below or via email.

---

If you have any questions on how to design and implement such a curriculum, PBL21, please contact Anne Shaw at Director@21stCenturySchools.com

​If you found this post valuable please share it!  

Please visit and “like” us on Facebook and Twitter.