Multimodal Research Project: WebQuest and Annotated Bibliography

Graphic Novels Unit
Text: Maus by Art Spiegelman

Supplements: Excerpts from: Blankets by Craig Thompson, Fun Home, by Allison Bechdel, Stitches by David Small,  and Persepolis by Marjiane Satrapi. "And then they Came for Me" by Martin Niemoeller, "The Terrible Things," by Eve Bunting, "The Third Wave" by Ron Jones, "The Experiment," by Stanley Milgram.

Unit Goal:
Students will research a contemporary event from global history (from 1950- the current day) and will use their obtained information to create a 4-5 page graphic novel about the event.

WebQuest- Informative Genre 

Dearest Students,

Below is a WebQuest to be completed over the next three weeks of the unit. Each task is designed to address one essential question or skill that comprises the graphic novels unit. Your blog posts (one to two) for each task are to be posted to your personal blog by Saturday night by 11:59 pm. Comments must be posted on your learning partners' blog posts by Monday at 11:59 pm. We will spend one day a week in class on this task so outside time will be necessary. If you need access to technology outside of the normal class hours, simply follow my schedule for Lunch and Learns and after-school tutoring to find appropriate times to use the scanner or the Macbooks.

This WebQuest will count for your homework grade for the unit.

Good Luck and Have Fun,

Mr. Shook

NOTE: Remember to always follow our class norms for commenting on work and offering feedback.
See the video below if you need refreshing.

PRE-WORK: Examine the Prezi below about the history of graphic novels in the United States. While doing this, create a Goodreads account, friend me (mr.shook.ela.fhsa@gmail.com) and begin collecting a text set of 4 graphic novels. For each, give a brief overview of the text as well as any awards or controversy it received. NOTE: AT LEAST ONE of the texts in your text-set should be from the Prezi. You will submit your annotated text set with your first assessment in three weeks.

PREZI- DIGITAL GENRE

http://prezi.com/1idgll-itgf_/?utm_campaign=share&utm_medium=copy

Work Cited:

Bucher, Katherine T. and M. Lee Manning (2004) Bringing Graphic Novels into a School's Curriculum  The Clearing House, 78(2) 67-72

TASK ONE: "But does it kill creativity?"

The debate between educators is constant and ongoing about whether or not graphic novels should be used in English classes. Look at the dialogue transcript and article  below to see some of the common arguments for and against teaching graphic novels.

Article:
http://intranet.ecu.edu/cs-lib/trc/upload/Gene_Yang_article.pdf

TRANSCRIPT-DIALOGUE FOCUSED GENRE

The Battle of the Graphic Novel

Scene: Ms. French and Mr. Joyce are sitting in the teacher’s lounge after a long week of teaching. Both were steps away from sneaking out of the school seconds after the dismissal bell when their principal stopped them and asked them to submit a revised text-set list for the next year. Both need coffee or a glass of wine but can have neither until this blasted list is done.

FRENCH:  What’s the next unit? 

JOYCE: Candide. 

FRENCH: I honestly don’t know what we were thinking…

JOYCE: Right? Talk about a disaster. That’s one that has to go. 

FRENCH: What books do we still have class sets of? 

JOYCE: Ulysses, Things Fall Apart, Persepolis, and a bunch of social studies books that list Eisenhower as the president.

FRENCH: Let’s go with Persepolis. The kids will find it interesting and we can bring in the Iranian Revolution from their history class.

JOYCE: Oh…

FRENCH: What?

JOYCE: Nothing…

FRENCH: I never say “Oh” when nothing is wrong. Literally, no one does that and saying “Nothing” means something. Let’s just get this show on the road. I’ve forgotten what the sun looks like.

JOYCE: It’s my fault, really. I just thought we were going to teach…y’know… actual books?

FRENCH: Persepolis is an “actual book.”

JOYCE: It’s a comic book.

FRENCH: Graphic novel. 

JOYCE: You say potato…

FRENCH: Kids love these. They help students with disabilities understand not only plot, but also characterization, setting, conflict and other literary elements because the pictures add depth and insight to the words. All of which you would realize if you weren’t an idiot.

JOYCE: Oh. Well, in that case, let’s just drop “Pride and Prejudice” and teach “Cathy” or “Garfield” instead since we want to totally eliminate rigor and creativity from the reading process. 

FRENCH: Are you actually high right now? I have no idea what you’re talking about. How do comic books kill creativity?

JOYCE: Think about it. And I’m going to use the last book you probably read for my point of reference. EVERYONE knows what Batman looks like. Ask anyone who hasn’t been living in a cave or some oppressive Orwellian state what Batman looks like and he or she will give you the same schpiel. Black suit, bat ears and a slick car. That’s because Batman is from a comic. The picture comes with the words so you don’t have to do anything while you read it. The creative work is done for you.

FRENCH: I’ve never thought of it that way…probably because that is an idiotic point but I’ve still never thought of it. Do you actually read any of the Dark Knight books? Batman has never looked the same for more than 5 years. We have 50s Batman in purple speedos. We have 80s Batman in some bizarre testosterone-hyped Reaganomics Batman. Compare that to Elizabeth Bennett. No one has put her in a sleeveless armor or fatigues. She’s always envisioned wearing the regency dress, having her hair up, and sipping tea while passing judgment on everyone around her.

JOYCE: Oh. So now you’re attacking Austen? I see how it goes. Teach them whatever you want. Then the kids will fail their Regents and never go to college and whose fault will that be?

FRENCH: No. Let’s have it your way! SPED students, English Language Learners, and struggling readers can just get with the program on their own. I can’t wait to see the griping manifestos they produce about War and Peace.

JOYCE: That tears it. I’m making my own map. Y’know. With actual books?

FRENCH: Fine. There are not sufficient dollars in the per-session budget to make it worth my while to listen to your bullcrap.

JOYCE: Why can’t I open this door?

FRENCH: It’s locked, Moriarty. We can’t get out until we’ve slid the map under the door and had an administrator sign off on it.

JOYCE: Good. They’ll love mine and hate yours and hate your stupid brain.

FRENCH: Fabulous. And they’ll reject your copy and keep mine. Also my brain is smart and your ugly face is as dumb as a butt.

JOYCE: I’m making a line down the room. Don’t cross it.

FRENCH: I hate you. Enjoy wasting time on your stupid, archaic book list.

JOYCE: Ditto. Good luck being wrong about what constitutes actual literature. 

Work Cited: 

• Schwarz. Gretchen E. (2006) Expanding Literacies through Graphic Novels.  The English Journal, 95(6) 58-64
• Bova Ben (2010, Aug. 14) Knowledge Really Is Power- For Better or For Worse. Naples Daily News. Retrieved from www.naplesnews.com

POST ONE: Respond to one of the arguments made about graphic novels in this transcript. Do you agree with the speaker's take on graphic novels? Why or why not?

Task Two: "What difference does it make?"

Look at the two multi-genre adaptations of "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves" below.

1. http://vimeo.com/56223373

2. "The Dance at St. Lucy's" - Drawn by Mr. Shook- Visual Genre 

Work Cited

Griffith, Paula E. (2010) Graphic Novels in the Secondary Classroom and School Libraries

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(3) 181-189

POST TWO:
On your blog, compare these adaptations of the story. Do these take away from your ability to develop your own images of the text? Does it offer you the chance to compare your own interpretation to someone else's? Respond with your reflections.


TASK THREE: Adaptations.

Option One: Adapt the excerpt from either Persepolis or Dykes to Watch Out For strips into a short piece of narrative writing.  POST THIS TO YOUR BLOG.

"The Trip" from Persepolis by Marjiane Satrapi

http://iranian.com/Books/2002/November/Satrapi/1.html

"Rent" and "The Gift of the Magi" from "Dykes to Watch Out For" by Alison Bechdel
NOTE: You must do one narrative for EACH of these strips if you select the Bechdel strips.

Option Two:

Adapt a scene from EITHER Proulx's "Brokeback Mountain"  OR Marquez's "A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings (use your copies from the last unit) into a comic strip (one to two pages)

NOTE: YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE AN ARTIST TO DO THIS. Use the principles Bing writes about in her book on illustrations as outlined in the powerpoint in the link below.

Molly Bing: "Picture This: How Pictures Work."
http://www.nhsdesigns.com/pdfs/graphic_ss_picture-this.pdf

Post what you come up with as well as a one paragraph reflection on the adaptation process (such as what you had to think about while adapting the text) as your third blog post.

EXTRA CREDIT:

Watch the narration of the picture book "The Rabbits" by John Marsden below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOssx3CFMVk

When Marsden wrote the manuscript for "The Rabbits," he did not include his own illustrations. It was meant to be a text about rabbits as a catastrophic invasive species that ravaged Australia's ecosystem in the 19th century. However, Shaun Tan's illustrations give the book its chilling allegory about colonialism.

Extracredit Post:
3-4 paragraph response to the question:

What power does an illustrator have in conveying an author's meaning?
Does this also apply to graphic novels?

Multigenre Research Project
Annotated Bibliography

Bucher, Katherine T. and M. Lee Manning (2004) Bringing Graphic Novels into a School's Curriculum  The Clearing House, 78(2) 67-72

Deconstructing previous stereotypes about graphic novels (such as the idea that they are all violent, sci-fi adventure stories) and offering rationale for curriculum inclusion, Bucher and Manning offer a more comprehensive view on how graphic novels are distinguished from the comic book title and how these can be used in the classroom for day to day instruction. Furthermore, this text explains that English classrooms need not be the only ones in which graphic novel instruction is included. Social studies, art and even science can benefit from inclusion of these texts as they teach students critical reading, following plot and dialogue, and offer visual accounts of events from real life. The article is pragmatic in its approach, focuses on providing a guideline for curriculum specialists and librarians for implementing these texts into schools.

Schwarz. Gretchen E. (2006) Expanding Literacies through Graphic Novels

The English Journal, 95(6) 58-64

Gretchen E. Schwarz’s text focuses on the benefits of including graphic novels in English Language instruction. Focusing on skills, such as enhancing critical literacy, offering diversity for students in terms of not only thinking on the part of students, but also offering diverse writers and types of texts to diverse learners, and appealing to various readers, Schwarz’s attention is firmly in the column of incorporating graphic novels into the classroom as such inclusion offers a wider range of texts for students to pull from and offers a diverse set of entry points for students. This text offers interesting insight since it was written before graphic novels were widely used in the classroom and the practice was considerably more controversial. She examines titles such as Maus, Watchmen, and From Hell and their impact in classrooms based on teacher anecdotes. She explains the process of pictures working with the texts to offer multiple literacy practice in an English classroom.

Griffith, Paula E. (2010) Graphic Novels in the Secondary Classroom and School Libraries

Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 54(3) 181-189

Using the anecdote of a student bookfair, Paula Griffith describes her conversion from the “graphic novels aren’t real literature” camp to an educator who accepts them as part of the curriculum. Her story examines the debate going on between traditionalist instructors and those who regularly incorporate graphic novels into the classroom not only because of student popularity, but also because of the critical acclaim surrounding many graphic novels. The text also offers a helpful list of qualifiers for selecting graphic novels for classroom use (such as color palate, text readability, and the dimensions of the characters included). This text is especially helpful for students needing to examine what qualifies a graphic novel as good literature versus bad literature, a key component of the project. Obviously, X-Men and The Dark Knight cannot take the place of Maus, Persepolis, or Unstable Molecules. Students need to examine why that is the case. This article also helped me answer questions I had at the first of the planning process about what makes a graphic novel more valuable than a manga or comic book.

Bucky Carter, James (2007) Transforming English with Graphic Novels: Moving toward Our "Optimus Prime"

The English Journal, 97(2). 49-53

“How are we teaching beyond tests to help adolescents deal with the challenges of being teenagers in difficult times or learn lessons that will help them live productive lives after graduation?” (Carter, 49). The author offers this question before laying out his arguments in support of graphic novel instruction in the classroom. Citing texts such as “The Tale of One Bad Rat,” “The Amazing True Story of a Teenage Mom,” and “Unstable Molecules,” the author argues that graphic novels have an innate advantage in ending the achievement gap in students by providing them with a chance to exercise skills through books that they actually want to read. Furthermore, graphic novels can be used to enhance writing and prompt students to think about issues of social justice and racism through texts such as the infamous Maus. He challenges teachers to think beyond traditional texts when planning curriculum, offering graphic novels as a viable resource for classroom instruction.

Letcher, Mark. (2008) Graphically Speaking: Graphic Novels with Appeal for Teens and Teachers. The English Journal. 98(1). 93-97

This article offers insight to teachers not only in the form of authors and novels that can be used in the classroom, but also in creating questions to deepen instruction. For example, he talks about the prospect of stylistic analysis of a graphic novel, a central component to my unit. He gives the example of Satrapi’s understated style in Persepolis as opposed to Bechdel’s more abstract and psychological approach in Fun Home. This article takes instruction beyond simply reading a text and provides a multimodal lens for students who need to be made keenly aware that they are not just reading a book. There are other literacies in play while reading graphic novels that likewise must be decoded.

Bova Ben (2010, Aug. 14) Knowledge Really Is Power- For Better or For Worse. Naples Daily News. Retrieved from www.naplesnews.com

Ben Bova differs from many authors in that he does not feel that graphic novels should take the place of literature in the classroom. He writes about the decline in literacy and the need for students to focus on actual literacy instead of 21^st-century literacy, a terminology of which he is not fond. While I disagree with him fundamentally and find his approach snobbish, there is a strong voice in the English community about the relevance of graphic novels to the English curriculum. To exclude these voices from my research would limit the freedom of students to create their own opinions about graphic novels in the classroom, undermining the entire point of the unit.