Reading with Pictures Teachers Guide - Andrews McMeel Publishing

146 Pages·2014·4.46 MB·English

Comics that teach core concepts in science,
math, social studies & language arts!
Teacher Guide
CONTENTS
About the Lesson Plans, by Tracy Edmunds ...............................................................................3
How to Read a Comic .............................................................................................................4
Comics & Education ...............................................................................................................5
Comics & The Classroom: A Match Made in History, by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey ..............6
Why Comics? by Dr. Katie Monnin, Tracy Edmunds, and Josh Elder .............................................14
Overdue, by Dino Caruso and Dave Windett ............................................................................18
Heroes, by Russell Lissau and Christine Larsen ........................................................................20
LESSON PLANS
LANGUAGE ARTS
G-Man: Reign of the Robo-Teachers, by Tracy Edmunds ............................................................23
The Power of Print, by Dr. Katie Monnin ..................................................................................28
Albert the Alien in “It’s a Figure of Speech,” by Dr. Katie Monnin ................................................32
Special Delivery to Shangri-La, by Dr. Katie Monnin .................................................................37
Alliteration, by Dino Caruso and Simon Fernandes ...................................................................44
SCIENCE
The Adventures of Doctor Sputnik: Man of Science! in “Force and Motion,” by Tracy Edmunds ........46
Like Galileo, by Tracy Edmunds .............................................................................................53
Mail Order Ninja and the Silverback Horde, by Tracy Edmunds ..................................................61
MATHEMATICS
Finding Ivy, by Tracy Edmunds ..............................................................................................71
Probamon! “Gotta Chance ’Em All!,” by Tracy Edmunds .............................................................79
Solution Squad, by Jim McClain .............................................................................................95
Lumina: Celebrity Super-Heroine in “Menace of the Mathemagician,” by Tracy Edmunds ...............101
Squirrels vs. Birds “Prime–Composite Showdown,” by Tracy Edmunds .......................................108
SOCIAL STUDIES
The Black Brigade, by Sari Wilson .........................................................................................112
Field Trip, by Sari Wilson .....................................................................................................118
George Washington: Action President!, by Sari Wilson .............................................................124
Resources for Teaching with Comics ......................................................................................132
Back in the Day, by the Fillbach Brothers ...............................................................................138
Contributors ......................................................................................................................144
Acknowledgements .............................................................................................................145
2 Reading With Pictures • Teacher Guide
About the Lesson Plans
Educators at all levels are discovering the teaching and learning power of the comics
format. There is emerging research that shows that comics and graphic novels:
• motivate kids to read
• support struggling readers
• enrich the skills of accomplished readers
• effectively teach math, science, history, and other subjects
Reading With Pictures and this accompanying teachers’ guide are designed to provide
instruction in language arts, mathematics, social studies, and science that engages both
students and their teachers. The instructional plans in this guide are educationally sound,
using techniques and standards that can be found in classrooms across the country, but
also fun and will create high levels of student engagement.
Each lesson includes:
• standards: Common Core State Standards, McRel Compendium, National Council of
Teachers of Mathematics Standards (NCTM), and Next Generation Science Standards
• objectives
• vocabulary
• materials needed to teach the lesson
• assessment suggestions
• extended learning activities
All lessons provide activities for before, during, and after reading the comics, and many
include hands-on activities and reproducible student pages.
All lessons are written for students in three through six. We realize there is a great deal of
difference between a third grader and a sixth grader, but we also know that all students
in these grades can learn from Reading With Pictures. Comics provide a form of built-in
differentiation: the images provide scaffolding to help lower-level readers decode text,
and the interplay of text and images creates a complex, high-level reading experience for
accomplished readers. Teachers can easily differentiate the instruction in the lesson plans
by making some activities teacher-guided and some independent, varying the sizes of
student groups, having students work together, and re-teaching whenever necessary. In
addition, the Extended Learning section of each lesson provides activities to take students
deeper into the content of each comic.
If you are new to comics, please take a look at “How to Read a Comic” on the following
page to learn more about the conventions of this visual medium. “Why Comics?” (page 14)
details current research and rationale for using comics in education. Throughout this guide
you will also find some great comics about education and the history of the medium.
This guide has been a labor of love by educators who believe in the power of comics to
teach and engage students. We hope that once you teach these lessons, you will become
a believer as well!
Tracy Edmunds, M.A. Ed.
Curriculum Development Manager
Reading With Pictures
Reading With Pictures • Teacher Guide 3
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by Tracy Edmunds, M.A. Ed.
Panels are frames Word balloons contain
that each contain one character dialogue. The
segment of the action. tail of the bubble points
Panels can be any shape to the speaker.
or size. Read the panels Sometimes different
from left to right, colors, shapes, or fonts
top to bottom. are used to show the
personality of a character.
Gutters are the spaces
between panels. This is
where the reader must
imagine the action from A cloud-like
panel to panel. thought bubble
means a character
is thinking, not
speaking.
Slow down!
Read both the text
and the pictures.
Think about what is Captions usually
happening between contain narration but
the panels. sometimes dialogue or other
text information.
Splash panels are large
images that take up most
or all of a page. They are
often used to establish
location or mood.
Bleed is when an
image goes all the
way to the edge
of a page.
What action
takes place
Sound effects are usually between these
drawn to visually represent panels?
the volume and feeling
of the sound.
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