San Diego Comic-Con 2011

I just got back from my first San Diego Comic Con and all I can say is WOW!!!

Wow - to the 140,000 + people there daily... to all the exhibits and panels...to all the freebies and cool promotions...and to the absolutely glorious weather!

I still wonder...How did I get to do something so cool? About ten months ago I was sitting in  my kitchen with my kids talking about blogging and literacy. Two of my three kids were preparing to go to the New York City Comic Con and I commented that as a literacy advocate and educator, I probably should give comics a second look - that maybe I should consider them a legitimate source of literacy and entertainment.

My kids' reactions:  "DUH!!!!!!: (Articulate, huh)

My son gave me Joe Kelly's I Kill Giants (for grades 5+ see previous posts for details) and I was blown away!!!!  I was amazed at the depth of the story, Kelly's creative use of metaphor, and the use of art to involve the reader.  My daughter hooked me into The Unwritten (a young adult book that weaves classic literature into a complicated mystery as the main characters fight to save the free-thinking world) and I attended the New York City Comic Con with them this past October.  In 2012 my book, "Teaching Content Area Graphic Novels" will be published by Maupin House Publishers.

So now, I have just returned home after sitting on a panel at the San Diego Comic Con 2011 where I had an awesome time talking to teachers and librarians on how to integrate comics and graphic novels into school libraries and curriculum. I am pumped to finish my book and am ready to start promoting my second book (more on that later).

The Bottom Line in a Nut Shell: Graphic novels are powerful educational tools promoting verbal literacy, visual literacy, social literacy and critical thinking.

• Their promoting literacy is obvious - they provide engaging entertainment as readers decode visual and verbal text. 
• Graphic novels promote social awareness as readers have to "read" facial expressions and body language as well as the text to 'get' the story.  This heightens their awareness of social cues.
• Finally, comics and graphic novels promote critical thinking as the readers have to construct motives, emotions, and events that occur between panels.  Furthermore, many graphic novels, like Kelly's I Kill Giants are rife with metaphor which further stimulates critical (and creative) thinking. 

So in Comic Con vain, I thought I would share three AWESOME graphic novels I got from the Comic Con:

Rust: Visitor in the Field (Archaia 2011) by Royden Lepp is set in the prairie lands of a unknown time and place, in a world that has survived a devastating war where robots were eventually built to fight instead of men.  Roman Taylor, the oldest son of the Taylor family is set with the responsibility of running a struggling farm in his father's absence. Jet Jones, being chased by a giant decommissioned war robot lands on the Taylor farm and Roman thinks Jet Jones and the decommissioned robot might be the answers to his struggle.  This is a beautifully illustrated story (in colors reflecting the Dust Bowl era of the 1930's) told through dialogue, flashbacks and letters to Roman's dad. This book can be used in social studies classrooms to discuss issues faced by farmers in the Dust Bowl era; the mechanics of war and fighting machines;  and the art of letter writing.  It is suitable for grades 4+. 20th Century Fox has picked up this novel and hired Aline Brosh McKenna (whose scripts include The Devil Wears Prada, 27 Dresses and  I Don't Know How She Does It) to adapt it for the screen.  Fox-based Simon Kinberg and Archaia's Stephen Christy and PJ Bickett will be the executive producers.



The Saga of Rex (Image Comics 2011) is illustrated and written by Michel Gagne - a veteran animator (who has worked for Warner Bros. and Disney/Pixar).  This is a beautifully illustrated adventure, science fiction, love story about a gentle-souled fox named Rex who is plucked from his world and transported to the planet of Edernia  where he meets all sorts of creatures, including his soul mate. This book contains some brief narration, but the story itself is told almost exclusively through illustration.  The text provided is well written and has advanced vocabulary.  While the illustrations are magnificent, cute and inviting (the young fox makes you think it may be for young kids), it takes some sophistication to construct the story and there is one scene that might be scary for young children.  I therefore recommend this book for older kids (middle school and older).  Finally, because there is so little text, reading this book presents a wonderful cognitive exercise as the reader constructs the story panel by panel, illustration by illustration.  For more information and a "look" into each chapter of the book, please go to: http://www.gagneint.com/Final%20site/books/Rex_saga/Rex_saga_main.htm.  [Note to teachers: As an educational exercise you may want to begin reading this aloud and have kids 'write' their own dialogue.]


 Zita the Spacegirl (First Second 2011) by Ben Hatke is a beautifully illustrated book about Zita who must rescue her friend Joseph who was reluctantly sucked into another world after warning Zita of the dangers of touching a 'meteor' that fell to earth.  Zita faces monsters, robots and magicians in her quest to save and return Joseph to their world.  This is appropriate for grades 3 +.  It is also a wonderful book to read aloud together.  There is so much to talk about! For a cool trailer you and your kids will enjoy go to: http://zitaspacegirl.com/  or view this trailer on youtube:

It blows my mind how far comic books have come and it boggles the mind to think of where books - graphic or prose will be in another ten years....but that's a different blog post!

I hope you enjoyed these clips and would love to hear from you.  In the meantime..

Here are some other posts to visit to read more about graphic novels:
http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/06/visualverbal-literacy-part-2-reluctant.html
http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/06/visual-vs-visual-literacy-no-contest.html http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/05/science-fiction-skills-chills-and.html http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/03/learning-with-laughter.html http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/03/kicking-back-bitwhats-all-this-about.html http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2011/01/great-reads-for-avid-4th-and-5th-grade.html http://departingthetext.blogspot.com/2010/10/graphic-novels-at-home-and-in-school.html 

I would love to know what YOUR FAVORITE comics and graphic novels are!!!  Please leave them in the comments.

Reading, Graphic Novels, and Memory

In my last post, I discussed how reading and comprehending graphic novels demand large chunks of attention: attention to detail, attention to background, attention to language, and attention to art and lettering (size, font, and shape).  This week I would like to focus on graphic novels and memory.

Prose vs. Graphic Novels and the demands reading them place on memory.

Prose Novels: When reading anything in print we have to remember:

• The shapes and corresponding sounds of letters;
• We have to remember the corresponding sounds of letter blends, 
• We have to remember vocabulary (recalling the spelling of words to more efficiently decode them as well as their defintions), 
• We have to remember what we just read and if it makes sense vis-a-vis what you read a few sentences ago (metacognition - keeping track of our comprehension), 
• We have to remember rules of grammar and punctuation, and 
• When reading we have to constantly keep track of plot, time, motives, names, places and events.

Reading places demands on short term memory, long term memory, and active working memory.

Graphic Novels:  When reading graphic novels, we have to remember:

• ALL the demands on memory listed above for prose novels PLUS:
• We have to remember not only the words we read, but the sequence scenes we view in the panels.  
• We have to remember what occurred in the previous panel while constructing and inferring what was not included in the gutter.  
• We also have to remember the artist's different use of font and panel borders.  (Sometimes, for example squiggly lines around a panel means someone is thinking, sometimes it can mean they are angry.  
• We have to keep track of the particular artists' intent in the choice of letter fonts and sizes, and panel divisions and borders.  The art, while adding an emotional and very engaging component, also adds additional demands on memory.
• When reading comics or a graphic novel series we also have to remember small sequences of the story over a long period of time.  With comics, only a small segment of the story is printed at a time, with weeks between issues.  The reader has to keep track of plot, motives, intents, etc. [And, while we do this as well with sequels for books, the stories in each prose novel book are complete and easier to remember than the small segments readers are given at each comic installment.  The disjointed story makes it more difficult to remember.]

How to use graphic novels to build memory skills:

• Read comic books in regular installments.  Read them together with your kids and:
• Talk about them.  
• Brainstorm where you think the author(s) will take the next installment.
• Before reading the next installment, review what has happened so far.
• Discuss how the art helps you remember certain aspects of the story.  
• Discuss how the art provides cues to help your mind read and not have to think or remember reading strategies.  For example, different fonts and borders may help you realize this is a flash-back. Also, different art styles within a comic can cue your mind in terms of which sequence panels should be read in.  Once you realize the artist's intent, it frees your mind to focus on other issues.
• Whether reading these books together or individually, you may want to create story maps to visually "see" where the story is going (and help remember details). 

There are now many kids non-fiction and historical fiction graphic novels.  Pairing these graphic novels with science, social studies, history and language arts in the classroom will help provide graphic images as well as complementary content that will help make the educational content more meaningful and easier to recall.  Here are a few young adult nonfiction and historical fiction graphic novel suggestions (recommended age ranges vary):

•  American Born Chinese (Yang, G.)  a perspective of growing up as a multicutural minority student (recommeded for middles school and above);
• Laika (Abadzis, N.)- provides a Russian perspective to the Space Race (third grade and above);
• Mouse Guard (Petersen, D.) - perspective of life in the Middle Ages (fourth grade and above);
• The Olympians (O'Connor, G.)- provides a wonderfully visual account of Greek myths (third grade and above);
• Persepolis (Satrapi, M.) - the story of childhood in Iran (recommended for mature middle school - high school);
• Kampung Boy (Lat) - about a Muslim boy growing up in rural Malaysia in the 1950's (middle school and above);
• Malcolm X:  A Graphic Biography (Helfer, R.D.) - critiques the Civil Rights Movement and Malcolm X's life (recommended for high school);
• Campfire Graphic Novels have published re-tellings of classic stories such as Treasure Island and Moby Dick and some of Shakespeare's classics (Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, for example) that you may want to check out.

Most of all, you want to enjoy the reading experience!  Let me know what your favorite non-fiction and historical fiction comics/graphic novels are.

Comics and Graphic Novels as Attention Trainers

This past weekend in The Wall Street Journal Weekend Review, Jonah Lehrer writes that while managing and focusing attention in school and in work is important, the more creative thinkers have been found to have attentions that wander and roam:

"Those undergrads who had a tougher time ignoring unrelated stuff were also seven times more likely to be rated as "eminent creative achievers" based on their previous accomplishments..Such lapses in attention turn out to be a crucial creative skill."

He does go on to note that these studies conducted were with college students, and results may be  different with younger subjects.  Furthermore he acknowledges how important it is for school-related success to execute mental control over attention.

So where does this leave us?  I see two correlates:

1. In school, it is important for our kids to hone attention to what is being said by the teacher and to attend to the tasks directed by him or her.
2. Finding time to daydream, to depart the text, to brainstorm, to pursue creative venues is equally important.

There are many ways to help your kids pursue creative, brainstorming activities: 

• Read aloud and brainstorm alternative endings and titles to the chapters or to the books.
• When reading, brainstorm sequels.
• Make cakes and cards for parties instead of buying them.  Create and design the cake, invitation, and decorations.
• Build forts in the snow, in the house (with chairs, sheets, blankets, boxes...).
• Design and Create - don't buy costumes for Halloween or other costume parties.
• Brainstorm unusual Sunday activities, or unusual family meals (experiment!).
• Take advantage of local historical sights, museums, nature trails, and events.
• Read all sorts of books, articles and of course, graphic novels, comic books!

As I am in comic book/graphic novel mode (see my "Note" to the right), let's talk about how comic books and graphic novels can help:

Attention and Graphic Novels:  When reading graphic novels, the reader MUST ATTEND to verbal and visual stimuli:

• to the words,
• to the font shape;
• to font sizes, 
• to the illustrations, 
• to the color of the fonts and illustrations, 
• to the foreground and background of the illustrations
• and even to the way the panels (dialogue and picture 'boxes') are laid out on the page. 

This is a lot to attend to and to take in.  Reading these texts in an exercise in controlling and managing attention.  And, because they are so visually appealing and of high interest, readers find these texts extremely engaging.  So, not only will you kids be attending to various stimuli, they may be able to sit longer than usual because they are so motivating.

How to use graphic novels to build attention:

•  If you read graphic novels together (which I recommend):
• Talk about the art -  how it makes you feel, what you noticed immediately, what took time to see and understand.
• Discuss design components and the page layout.  Discuss changes in layout and why the illustrator may have made those changes.
• Ruminate about how word size and fonts all contribute to the story.  
• Look for and discuss details. 

• You may want to create your own graphic novels for favorite book and stories. Doing this forces you to focus on the essential dialogue and story elements.  It provides opportunities to brainstorm about design and layout as well. 

A note of graphic novel selections:

• Please see my blog post of October, 13, 2010 for lists of graphic novel genres, kid friendly graphic novels and publishers, and a brief history of modern comics.
• Also please note that especially for younger kids - adults should be involved in selecting graphic novels.  There are some wonderful ones, but they have various levels of violence and sexual innuendo.  There are many with little or none:  (Laika, Zeus, Athena, Robot Dreams, American Born Chinese all published by First Second Books), The Bone Series and Ghostopolis (Scholastic) have some minor violence but is appropriate for younger readers,  These are just a few suggestions.
• WHEN IN DOUBT SEEK A LIBRARIAN'S ADVICE - most good librarians not only know their graphic novels, they are strong advocates.

Let me know what you and your kids are reading.  We can start a dialogue and recommended reading list.  And, know that the next few weeks will be delve further into the pros (and cons) of graphic novels

How To Make Learning Math + Science + Reading = FUN

Before getting to my post I just want to give a SHOUT OUT to my fellow She Writers on this festive Blog-Hop weened!  And, while I have no blogging tips to add - I hope you like my other tips!

A few months age, The Wall Street Journal's  Friday Journal (November 5, 2010) splashed the headline: "The Turf War for Tots:  In TV's battle for the hearts and minds of preschoolers, it's Mandarin and math vs. stories and sparkle"  Executives at Nickelodeon's Nick Jr. and Walt Disney were jockeying for market position following "starkly different" points of view:

Nick scheduled programs emphasizing "learning" such as "Dora" and spin-off "Go Diego, Go" (teaching kids Spanish) and "Ni Hao, Kai-Lan" (with 6-year-old cartoon Kai-lan Chow teaching kids Mandarin Chinese").  Disney argued that "learning programing" emphasizes too much work and not enough play, focusing on story-telling  instead.

This is all fine and good, and as parents it is nice to have a wider options for our kids.  My question is: Why isn't LEARNING = FUN (period)?

• Why does programing have to be either "learning" oriented or "story-telling"? Isn't story-telling a form of learning?  Isn't learning a form of story-telling (especially when learning about cultures)?
• Why is everything in education presented as extremes (for example:whole language or phonics)?

In my December 6, 2010 blog ("Our Education Dilemma") I mentioned an article by Paul Lockhart, a mathematics teacher at Saint Ann's School in Brooklyn, NY who laments about our current math curriculum which teaches students to memorize and apply formulas but which, in his opinion, should engage students by having them explore natural 'built-in' mathematical problems all around them instead.  Jon Scieszk's Math Curse does just this.  It was such a popular book he went on to write Science Verse detailing the poetry of science.

If Scieszka and Lockhart can integrate math + science + humor = fun ... why can't educators?  Why is everything either or? Our schools are losing so many students.  How many times have we, as parents, heard from our kids that school or learning is 'boring'?  I certainly have. 

So, here are some suggestions to make learning fun:

• Learning must be meaningful.  Teachers and parents must constantly introduce topics in a way that makes whatever the topic is, meaningful right then and there. Here are just a few suggestions:
• In math we have "manipulatives" - ususally blocks, discs, or shapes to "play" geometry or addition, subtraction, multiplication. division - but we also have to show them WHY these tools and operations are so important:  What's in it for them?  

• Design and make different types of kites.  Fly them - which works best -why (this combines math and science).
• Have your kids virtually 're-tile' a bathroom given a specific shape or sets of shaped tiles.  Re-tiling must involve geometry and math's various operations to be successful.  
• Maybe, you have a football fan - why not teach base ten, base two, base whatever as "first downs"?  
• Maybe you want to travel?  Have your kids select destinations and  convert local temperatures from Celsius to Fahrenheit  (working with fractions and conversion).
• Convert time zones and compute travel time (using various modes of transportation).  You can be really creative and invent your own forms of travel and travel time.
• They can do the same with various foreign currencies. Let them plan their trips, let the design their bathrooms - make it meaningful
• In Science - it's the same idea - make it meaningful to them.  You may want to relate whatever you are studying to their lives, their bodies, their immediate universe.
• Reading -again...fun!  Independent reading should be easy reading and it should be about meaningful topics and things they love.  

• Let them select their own independent reading material and you can expand their horizons by selecting very different books (slightly more challenging) to read aloud.  
• For reluctant readers - start with comic books or graphic novels.  They are coming into their own now and offer incredible art, relevant topics, serious vocabulary - and they really challenge cognitive skills such as inference (more on this in later blogs).
•  Go on field trips:

• Go on hikes (local and distant) - look for birds (with a book and binoculars), look at flora and fauna (again with book - or a camera/cell phone) - hunt for unusual things you can research later. Or, go on hikes talk together, have fun.
• Go to local (and distant) museums.  There are so many different types of museums now.  There are local historical sites, art, media, cultural, music, spiritual museums - explore - make their learning more personal.

This world is such an wonderful, colorful, vibrant, fascinating place - let's take advantage of it!

Have fun!  Let me know what and how you are helping your child explore his or her world!

Helping Kids Deal With Violence

I am of the original Saturday Night Live Generation and one skit in particular from "Weekend Update" has come to mind these last few weeks.  The character is Emily Litella (played by the incredibly talented Gilda Radner), an editorial responder who is passionate about her opinions which are never quite right.  In this particular skit "Violins on Television"



http://www.hulu.com/watch/2364/saturday-night-live-weekend-update-emily-litella-on-violins

Emily responds asking what is wrong with violins on television pointing out the benefits of exposing kids to classical music. When she finds out that the station's editorial was about restricting violence on televion and not violins, she pauses, smiles and says, "never mind." Unfortunately, while this is quite funny, violence on television, in books, and in life is not.

This past year my son's best friend's father was one of seven people shot and killed in cold blood at his workplace by a disgruntled employee.  There was brief national coverage and this calamity was forgotten except by those touched by the tragedy.  Earlier this month again, the nation reeled from the violent shooting of Congresswoman Gavrielle Gifford and 18 others, and again, the debate has surfaced on how to control violence (and mental health) in our lives.

Over these past few months I have been wrestling with the question of media control of violence - both as a result of these violent deaths and because I have been recently been researching and advocating for the use of comics and graphic novels (bound comics - not the sexually graphic adult novels) in the classroom which in the 1950's were restricted by a Congressional Panel.

In 1954 psychiatrist Fredric Wertham wrote a book called Seduction of the Innocent which claimed that the overt and covert depictions of violence, sex, and drug use in mystery, superhero and horror comic books encouraged similar behavior in children.  This publication led to a U.S. Congressional inquiry into the comic book industry which in turn led to the creation of the Comics Code which banned the use of violent images, certain words (such as "terror" and "zombies") and dictated that criminals must always be punished.  This nearly destroyed the comic book industry.

In researching modern graphic novels for use in classrooms, I have found some outstanding works of literature and art. Because of the prose, relevant topics and the illustrations, these books can and should be used to help visual learners learn to read. They are excellent vehicles for teaching social cognition (as kids can learn to better 'read' facial expressions), and are also excellent vehicles for teaching how to make inferences and abstract concepts. Many, however, contain varying degrees of violence.

As I read some of these gems (I Kill Giants - about a 5th grader's struggle to deal with her mother's cancer; Chinese Born American - about assimilation and Chinese culture; Laika - about the Soviet's sending the first sentient being - a dog into space - to name only a few of my favorites), I keep thinking what a loss it would be not to have these books.  Then I think of books like Lord of the Flies - (which I had to read for school) about kids stranded on a desert island who turn to cannibalism to save themselves or the Harry Potter series all chocked full of violence.  What about the local news broadcasts and nightly television shows or even the road rage we experience while carpooling?  The bottom line is that there violence is all around us. If we were to censor books, we would have to censor news, advertisements - everything.  I just don't see that happening.

The solution is that we have to teach our kids HOW to 'read' the violence on the screen and in print and How to address issues of violence and HOW best to respond.  The solution is not avoidance, it is how best to meet violence head on with alternative solutions.

Here are a few things we as parents and educators should do:

• Read violent books, view violent cartoons and shows together discussing the pros and cons of violence.  You might even want to discuss why the author chose to depict the scene that way. 
• Discuss the types of visual icons and images that illustrate violence and violent intent. Help them recognize the pre-violent' signals in facial expressions and posture.
• Discuss the character's alternatives - what could they have done to limit the violence.  How might they have resolved their conflicts without violence?
• Discuss alternative ways to respond to violence.
• Debate the censorship of violence in the media. 
• Discuss different ways to address rage.

I'd love to hear your response and what you are doing to address violence in your child's life.  How do you help your kids deal with violence in media, in books, and /or violence in their lives?