Fostering Visual Literacy with Graphic Novels

My reading group has just finished our first graphic novel together. After our first lesson about analyzing the visual aspects of a graphic novel, I was optimistic that this group would do very well with the book, Smile by Raina Telgemeier.  

Our typical schedule for reading a novel includes students completing reading and response activities without my support. During this time, students also create discussion questions for the group. Once a week, we meet together to discuss our questions. I’m able to gauge student comprehension progress during those discussions and provide redirection or mini-lessons to ensure the group remains on track.

I provide a few guiding questions for each chapter to draw attention to abstract themes and help students make inferences that they might otherwise miss. For this graphic novel, I asked students to choose one panel to discuss in depth with the group during our meeting. I was hoping my students would have more amazing conversations like our discussion of an illustration in our previous book.

Unfortunately, my students really struggled to notice critical panels worth analyzing together. Instead, they would often choose panels that did not allow the group to have deep discussions. In the future, I will provide my groups with more scaffolding for this part of our work together. I plan to select specific panels for students to analyze and discuss. Gradually, I will release the the students to choose important panels once they have more experience.

Overall, I found that using this graphic novel was a great way to practice reading skills that my students usually struggle to master. Students were able to make inferences based on visual clues. During our discussions, students were able to analyze visual information and understand symbolism. As we continue to develop these abstract skills, we will begin transferring our reading skills to print-based texts. My hope is to have students make connections back to our visual texts in order to continually make inferences and recognize symbolism.

Student Comics

As a culminating project, my students used Pixton to create their own comics. They were challenged to use a graphic novel technique that we discovered a few weeks back (shading, color, perspective, body language, and font or text use) and were given the choice of content:

1. Tell a story from your own life when you faced a problem
2. Put yourself into Raina’s story and show what you would have done differently

Look at some of their work! I am really impressed with their ability to apply their understanding of visual communication to create comics.

What an interesting way to show perspective in panel 3!

This student changed the shape of her speech bubbles to show
that the character is in pain. 

Student Learning

When I asked these students for some feedback about what they had learned while reading graphic novels, they were able to express some great insights. One student explained that even though there are fewer words, he had to think more while reading. Rather than breezing through the story, he had to add his own knowledge to the pictures to really understand the full story. Another student said she was glad to read this story because she thought graphic novels were boring before.

We also had an interesting discussion about if graphic novels should be considered “real reading.” I was surprised that many of the students in this group said that it wasn’t really reading because there weren’t many words. Instead, they agreed that our learning was more about thinking than reading words, which I would agree with. We didn’t focus on reading words, but instead on thinking deeply, making inferences, and noticing symbolism. Whether my students believe they were really reading or not, they did develop key reading skills that we will apply in our next book study. I’m pleased with the progress this group made in their reading skills, and I’m looking forward to using graphic novels with my other reading groups as well. Thanks to generous donors, my latest Donor’s Choose grant for graphic novels was fulfilled. My students are so excited to read these new titles!

Beginning with Graphic Novels

Teaching with graphic novels is new for me. While I have several sets of various titles, I’ve decided to only have one of my reading groups choose a graphic novel so far. I wanted time to learn from my students and improve my instruction to benefit the rest of my student groups. In other words, they are my guinea pigs. You should have seen their excitement when I showed them the graphic novel choices for our reading. They were surprised that we would get to spend our time together discussing and analyzing a graphic novel.

Pre-Teaching Concepts

Before starting with our graphic novel, Smile by Raina Telgemeier, I used a series of books to preteach important visual literacy concepts. Some of the books, like Level Up by Gene Leun Yang are graphic novels, while other books like Hippo! No, Rhino! by Jeff Newman, and The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick, are picture books with limited text. Rather than showing students different examples of visual concepts, we took time to look through each book together so that students could construct their own ideas.

We discussed this key question during our lesson: How do authors of graphic novels express their ideas? After some discussion, here is what we learned:

Authors use perspective and size to show important details or different characters’ views.

Body language and facial expressions show a character’s feelings.

Font, text color, and size can help the reader know how words are said.

Shading and color can be used to draw attention to important parts of the pictures.

Application

I had taught the above lesson in preparation for beginning our graphic novel. It happend to take place a few days before my group finished reading Bridge to Terabithia. As we were having our final book club discussion, one of my students drew our attention to an illustration toward the end of the story. Here is what our conversation sounded like:

S1: I want to talk about this picture. It reminded me of what we learned about graphic novels, even though it’s a regular book.

Me: What do you think this picture is showing us?

S2: Well, it’s all black and white. It’s kind of like that Hugo picture where the illustrator made one character stick out using light colors. Jess sticks out here too because of light colors.

S3: Why is his dad in shadow, though?

Me: That’s a good question. Does anyone have an idea why the illustrator did that?

S1: Maybe to make the character stand out. It also shows us the difference between the dad and the boy. The dad is in shadow, but he is bigger and stronger. The boy looks weak.

Me: That’s interesting. Do you guys think the story supports those thoughts?

S4: Yeah, because the dad helped the boy when he was crying because his friend died. The dad kinda didn’t care about his son too much earlier in the book, but here he is strong for him.

Goosebumps. I had goosebumps! This was the start of my student-led discussion after ONE lesson on visual literacy concepts. They were discussing symbolism that was supported by the text. I’ve usually had trouble introducing the concept of symbolism with my students in past years because it is so abstract, but these kiddos jumped right in because the illustration was approachable. It didn’t intimidate them like regular text might. We went on to discuss the sunlit background vs. the darker foreground and what that might mean.

I think we are off to a strong start, and I can’t wait to see how this group does as they apply these concepts to our first graphic novel.

Looking Back and Planning Ahead

Quarter One Recap

Over the summer, I spent some time reflecting about the changes I wanted to make to my instructional practices this school year. I set two very large goals. First, I decided move to a math workshop model for daily math instruction. During our first quarter, we successfully settled into the daily expectations and flow of learning. My co-teacher and I have seen huge student benefits using this model including small group instruction, daily differentiation, and greater student motivation. With teaching about six or seven students at a time, we also have a much clearer understanding of each student’s progress toward mastery. At the end of quarter one, we started moving toward blended learning by incorporating technology into our workshop. We are excited to move forward with our workshop model next grading period.

My second large goal for this year is to incorporate at least one student project inspired by my graduate school learning each grading period. During the first quarter, my students used their Chromebooks to record video book talks and provide peer feedback as a performance assessment for our first language arts unit. My students learned important language concepts and technology skills while boosting their confidence when publishing work online.

Quarter Two Projects

There are two projects that I think my students are ready to take on this grading period that I’m pretty excited about!

Visual Literacy and Graphic Novels

I recently had a Donor’s Choose grant funded by some very generous donors to supply my class with sets of graphic novels. I learned all about the importance of visual literacy for our 21st century students this summer. I studied the benefits of graphic novels in teaching visual literacy, and now I plan to apply those concepts during small group instruction.

Some educators and parents are probably skeptical about using graphic novels and comics to teach reading skills and concepts. I used to agree with the stigma that comics and graphic novels aren’t “real reading” because I thought you need lots of text in order to engage in deep comprehension and improve reading skills. I’ve learned, though, that graphic novels are actually quite sophisticated. They require readers to practice abstract skills like making inferences, understanding symbolism and metaphors, and using point of view. What better way to engage reluctant readers to analyze text for deeper meaning?

Graphic novels also provide our students with practical and motivating ways to interpret information in different ways than traditional prose. More and more, student are acquiring information on the internet through videos, graphic depictions, models, and interactive learning modules. Learning to analyze and understand images through reading graphic novels is both relevant and beneficial for our digital learners.

If you’re interested in reading more about using graphic novels in your reading instruction, I recommend these two quick resources: NCTE’s Using Graphic Novels in the Classroom, and Scholastic's Comic Books.  

Student Blogging

There are so many potential learning benefits with student blogging. Not only can student create content for an authentic audience, they also have ownership and purpose for their writing. This quarter, I am having my students complete a weekly blog post to reflect on their learning for the week. They can post about anything they learn about as a way of processing their learning and setting goals for the following week. Classmates can comment and make connections to their peers, and parents can track their student’s weekly reflections and support their learning at home.

I have chosen to have student blogs center around reflection because I think it is a valuable learning task that is currently lacking in my classroom. Mindshift’s writing, What Meaningful Reflection On Student Work Can Do for Learning, says that in order for reflection to be meaningful, it must be metacognitive, applicable, and shared with others. I think it will take time to coach my students toward this type of reflection and away from simple summarization, but I think it will be incredibly beneficial for their learning.  

Blogging and Website Creation

I started this blog about three months ago. I spent a considerable amount of time designing the visual aspects you see here as well as planning content, and with each new idea I had, I always considered my reader and how I might best communicate with you. At first, I was extremely nervous about publishing my ideas and work for anyone to find on the web. Now I look forward to hearing your comments and receiving emails from various readers. My sphere of influence has grown exponentially and I am able to collaborate with teachers who I haven’t met face to face.

When I consider my experiences blogging thus far, I realize that there are wonderful possibilities for my own students in website creation and blogging. Outside of social media, I think blogs and vlogs are the primary way people digitally share interests, experiences, and knowledge today. Empowering students in this way teaches critical 21st century digital literacy skills such as using technology tools, recognizing evidence of quality resources, composing messages in a variety of formats for various purposes, participating in a creative community, and sharing ideas with others.  

Before having students create their own websites and blogs, I would encourage students to explore a variety of example sites. Students can observe and identify key components of an effective website or blog that they can later incorporate into their own work. This step in the learning process allows students access to skills they will need as well as practice critically analyzing quality websites. Once students have a foundation knowledge of how websites and blogs work, they will be ready to begin creating their own sites, practicing various digital literacy skills.

Graphic Design

When students begin to create their own websites, they can practice basic graphic design principles such as the use of color, font, and white space. Students also practice balancing text with visual content to create clear messages. I found these Blog Design Tips for Non-designers very helpful when creating my own blog. It includes visuals of each tip that would be helpful to show students

To aid the reader, website creators and bloggers should keep their work simple and clean by limiting themselves to two fonts and no more than three colors. I found Coolors, a color scheme generator, very helpful when designing my blog. In general, the bulk of the written text should be black, allowing readers to focus on the content. Students should also avoid overfilling their space, deliberately using white space to increase legibility.

In general, less is more. Too many fonts, colors, and extras only distract the reader from the message the author is trying to send. Teaching students the need to avoid “clicky clicky bling bling,” a tendency to dress up boring or inadequate content by adding visual or audio effects, is critical in ensuring quality digital products. For more tips about graphic design, see my blog post titled, Creating Online Content: Advice from a Pro.

Authorship and Audience

While students used to simply consume content in a passive role, today’s learners need to be active participants in their learning. One way for them to achieve this is by creating and publishing their own content online. Instead of simply completing assignments for a grade, students have an authentic purpose for creating content and publishing their work.

If we are teaching our students to be critical consumers of media, then they can use those same skills to critique and reflect on their own work. Rather than considering media with a critical eye for what the author is attempting to communicate, students become the author and use their digital literacy skills to present a message for their target audience. What a great opportunity for students to apply the skills they are learning including audience, message, purpose, and point of view.

Creating their own work and having the power to publish it for others to see gives students a new purpose for their learning. Students in my class were so excited to see their work or picture featured on my blog this year. They find a sense of motivation and meaning in work that is shared with others. After all, who doesn’t like feeling proud of their work?

Allowing students to publish their work on a website or blog also allows them to participate in a global community. In the past, students were able to display their projects and learning for their classmates, parents, and other individuals face-to-face. Today, however, web 2.0 applications have make social production accessible to virtually all Internet users. Student authors are no longer constrained by their location in sharing their work.  

Communication Skills

Clearly communicating ideas and information in a variety of formats is essential for our 21st century learners. Student websites and blogs promote a variety of skills associated with communication. Students would also be able to incorporate original and existing visual content to communicate ideas to their audience. Infographics are a great way to communicate information in an interesting way for readers, and students could easily incorporate these into their work. For more information on infographics, see my blog post titled Literacy 2.0.

Students naturally apply the writing process when planning, creating, and revising content to publish. Organization of content is another skill students would have the opportunity to apply when writing posts and organizing their sites. Finally, students can reflect and analyze their work, improving critical reasoning skills and make conscious decision about how to improve their future work.

Practical Application

So what would it look like for students to publish work online through a website or blog? I’ve been brainstorming for next school year and looking into some resources. If you have ideas to share, please comment below. I’d love to hear from you! Here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

Online Portfolios

What a great way to collect a student’s best work. From subject-specific portfolios for art projects to collaborative classroom portfolios, there are numerous online resources for digital portfolios. Students are able to demonstrate their learning using a variety of tools and formats while storing their work in one central place. While paper portfolios are put away or recycled at the end of a school year, a digital portfolio can be easily accessed for years to come.

Current Event Reflections

This would be a great opportunity for students to first learn about current events and then share their reflections. They could pose solutions to common problems, persuade their audience to take action, or make connections to other social issues.

Comic Strips

Challenge students to demonstrate their understanding of various topics and lessons by creating comics. Comics require the author to convey information visually since there is so little space for text. Authors must make purposeful decisions about what information is included or left out to make a clear message. See my blog post titled Using Comics to Teach Literacy for more information about the benefits of incorporating comics and graphic novels in your teaching.

A Fourth Grader's Guide to Everything

As students master various concepts and skills, they can create a series of how-to resources as teaching tools for other students. Students can choose the format of their information based on the content they wish to explain. A variety of resources can be chosen from including teaching charts, infographics, written explanations, and simple videos.

Using Comics to Teach Literacy

Not too long ago our media specialist began increasing the graphic novel section in our school library. I began seeing more and more students bringing these books back to my class and asking me where to find similar books in my own classroom library. Admittedly, I found little value in this format at the time. Afterall, my goal is to increase student reading and how can I do that when comic books hold so few words? My recent study of various literacies has show me just how wrong I was!

These ladies were reading graphic novels in the media center.

He brought this book from home and read it every chance he had!

Comics, graphic novels, and political cartoons can be used to teach students valuable components of visual literacy. Since there are so few words, the author must use images to communicate a message and readers can work to uncover the meaning behind each panel. The reader must continually think and use their mind to complete the picture and draw conclusions.

I know that my own students are motivated to read these books, so next year I am planning to incorporate this format into my instruction. Here are a few ways I plan to incorporate a graphic novel and political cartoons with my fourth graders. As with my last post, Literacy 2.0, I will reference the five essential elements of digital and media literacy as described by Hobbs and Moore in their book, Discovering Media Literacy.

• Access: locating materials responsibly and understanding those materials
• Analyze: comprehending messages in a variety of formats and evaluating the credibility and quality of those messages
• Create: using digital tools and technology to make content in a variety of formats
• Reflect: making responsible choices and evaluating one’s own behavior and work
• Act: taking action to solve problems and address social issues

Inferencing with Mysteries

After reviewing several graphic novels for my students, I found Big Break Detectives by Alan Nolan. This graphic novel follows a group of four friends who solve mysteries during their lunch period. When using this text with my class, I will begin with a series of lessons teaching my students how comics strips and graphic novels are read. While some of my students have experience with this format, many do not, so they will need to know how to follow the panels, narration, and speech bubbles. I will also need to show them examples of the difference between the narrator’s voice and the thoughts and feelings of the characters. These skills will enable my students to better comprehend the author’s message (access). If you’re interested in a resource to learn about the various parts of a comic, this review resource gives a nice overview with visuals.

Once my students have a bit of experience reading graphic novels, we can begin using Big Break Detectives to explore the literary conventions of mysteries. I want to teach them to use the features of graphic novels to not only realize that images have meaning, but also have the skills they need to figure out the meaning (access, analyze). To do this, I need to show many of my students how to analyze a section of a comic and pause for reflection, rather than breezing through it. I predict that many of my students would look at the picture, glance at the text, and allow their minds time to perform closure, a skill where the reader takes in parts of the story draws conclusions about the text as a whole.

A major fourth grade skill is making inferences by using both the reader’s background knowledge and the clues left by the author. Big Break Detectives is a great choice for fourth grades because mysteries naturally engage the reader in looking for clues, considering suspects, drawing conclusions and making inferences in order to solve the problem. When reading graphic novels, students must realize that the author must decide what to include in the frames of a comic or graphic novel. Everything left in the gutter, or the spaces between panels, is an opportunity to make an inference.  The story continues beyond the shown frames, and what happens in the gutter should be considered as well as what is seen (analyze).

Creating Comics

In the past, I have used comics as a way for my students to retell parts of a story we have read together. I hadn’t yet used a graphic novel as a main part of my curriculum though, so students struggled to use the format to its full potential. Once students have an idea of how authors force readers to make inferences through reading Big Break Detectives, I will give my students the challenge of creating their own comics (create). They can choose to make a single panel or multiple panels, all focusing around making an inference. As authors, students will make purposeful choices about what to include in a frame and what should be left to the reader's imagination (reflect, act).

Here is an example of a comic that I made using Pixton, a free comic maker. I was really surprised at how easily and quickly I could create a comic. Pixton has numerous backgrounds, characters, and options to easily construct comic panels. I think this web tool will be a hit with my students!

Political Cartoons in Action 

Political cartoons are unique in that there is a lot of information packed into one or two frames. The reader must have some background knowledge of the topic or situation in order to understand the author’s message. If a student is missing background information, they may need to read a few articles to become up-to-date on a topic (access). Political cartoons often include irony, metaphors, caricatures, and symbols. Students must spend time considering each aspect of a cartoon beyond the literal picture (analyze). While the content of many political cartoons may be too mature for my elementary students, the skills required to read and understand them are valuable and absolutely appropriate for teaching visual literacy. Even elementary students benefit from this deep thinking.

Benjamin Franklin [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

I plan to use Benjamin Franklin’s political cartoon, Join, or Die while teaching a unit on the American Revolution. We will search for the main message of the cartoon and discuss how the author used a metaphor to portray his ideas (analyze). Following that lesson, students will research various other persuasive media during war times, such as Rosie the Riveter and various Uncle Sam images (access). We can discuss how authors use images and very few words to portray their message. Next, students will be given the challenge of using images to make their own war propaganda or political cartoon for the American Revolution in order to persuade colonists to join the revolution movement in some way (create). Students can offer peer feedback, revise to communicate a clear message and publish their work (reflect, act). I think this is a great way to apply content knowledge, persuasive techniques, and visual literacy skills.  

I made this example of a political cartoon for my students as a model for the project they will try. I used a premade background and added a few details to communicate my message through Pixton. The various backgrounds are a great way to make quick and effective comics without needing lots of experience with the program.

Literacy 2.0

I’ve been reading up on visual, digital, and media literacy lately and I’ve learned some really great strategies that I plan on using with my class next year. Join me over the next few weeks as I share a series of posts outlining useful strategies to promote these literacies in elementary classrooms!

What is Literacy?

When you think of literacy you probably think of reading, writing, listening, and speaking. What I’ve come to learn lately is that this is just part of what literacy can really mean. Infact, there are many different kinds of literacy:

• Visual literacy involves the design, creation, and interpretation of visual images.
• Media literacy focuses on comprehending, analyzing, and creating media in popular culture.
• Digital literacy encourages using the internet and social media responsibly.

While reading Discovering Media Literacy by Renee Hobbs and David Cooper Moore, I read that there are five essential elements of digital and media literacy. I will reference these elements in the lesson ideas I share with you here and in upcoming blog posts.

• Access: locating materials responsibly and understanding those materials
• Analyze: comprehending messages in a variety of formats and evaluating the credibility and quality of those messages
• Create: using digital tools and technology to make content in a variety of formats
• Reflect: making responsible choices and evaluating one’s own behavior and work
• Act: taking action to solve problems and address social issues

When considering these literacies together with the skills associated with them, I realized that there are many opportunities for students to both practice higher order thinking strategies, and also develop the 21st century skills that are vital for their success. The reality is that our systems of communication are rapidly changing. Teaching our students to engage with these various literacies empowers them to be effective and creative communicators.

Do you use visuals when teaching your students? You probably incorporate various visuals as often as possible. Why? Because teachers know that visual supports help our students learn, especially our students with disabilities. In fact, when a student can visualize a concept or idea, they are more likely to remember it and make connections to prior knowledge. Teachers often use graphic organizers, picture books, videos, and diagrams to enhance their lessons.

A new-to-me idea that I read about in Teaching Visual Literacy is the concept of graphic note taking. The idea is to represent learning through visuals. See this great blog post at Teach Thought for 10 great examples. This skill needs to be modeled and supported by the teacher in order to move beyond pictures to actual graphic representation of complex ideas.

Using Collages to Promote Visual Literacy

I think the idea of a picture collage has a lot of possibilities in my fourth grade classroom. I really like the idea of students graphically representing their learning throughout a grading period. Each week, students could have the opportunity to make a symbol or visual example of something they learned in math, Language Arts, science, or social studies (create). During this time, I would also teach lessons about images being used as symbols as well as lessons about graphic note taking and mind mapping as tools students could use as they learn new concepts. By the end of the grading period, students would have a nice visual to show their parents during student-led parent-teacher conferences. This collage project would serve many purposes including students learning and demonstrating principles of visual literacy and allowing for better communication between parents and students regarding classroom learning (act).

This first collage example shows an end-of-the-year project we tried just a few days ago. I challenged my students to graphically represent one or two concepts they learned this year in fourth grade (create). This was our first try at graphic representation beyond simple pictures. I modeled the process for students and showed the difference between a picture and a model or symbol before students gave it a try. As you can see, our collage includes a lot different concepts, and I think it’s pretty great for our first try. I used PhotoCollage, a free collage maker to create this arrangement.

I made this second collage using PicMonkey, a free online collage maker. I outlined a day in my classroom. This collage is much cleaner, and less visually stimulating. I was interested to see that my class was pretty evenly divided between which collage they preferred. After a short discussion about the benefits of each collage, students shared a few key observations (analyze, reflect). While some students liked being able to include many pictures of various sizes using PhotoCollage, others disliked that they could not see each visual in its entirety. Next year, as I use collages and visual images with my students, I plan to give my students choice in the program and type of collage they use to represent their learning.  

Infographics: Short but Sweet

If the goal of teaching literacy is to help students communicate in various ways, then reading and creating infographics is a fantastic way to teach and practice visual literacy skills. While many infographics do not contain much text, they do communicate clear messages, requiring the reader to think, make connections, and infer (access, analyze).

This simple infographic shows data I collected from my current students. I was interested in learning about how they prefer to learn and represent their understanding. Many of my students prefer to see examples of what they are learning and create projects to demonstrate their understanding. Reading and creating infographics would be a great fit for this group of learners.

The Edutopia article, Inventing Infographics: Visual LIteracy Meets Written Content  by Brett Vogelsinger, gives some really great tips for teaching visual literacy through infographics. It also gives some questions to use with your class to help students analyze various infographics. I realized shortly after having my students attempt to create infographics this year, that they tend to simply draw pictures. Direct instruction and exploring various examples of quality work is a necessary step that I skipped this year because I expected making infographics to be easy.

Next year, I plan to use a lot of the ideas from this article to teach my students visual literacy concepts through reading infographics (access). Next, I would like to have my students use data they collect for various science and math lessons to create infographics using Venngage (create). This would allow students to both practice the visual literacy skills of the use of color, text and graphic alignment, and the balance between text and images and also explore the various ways they can display information.

My first lesson idea related to creating infographics is to have different student groups represent the same information in an infographic. Then, student groups can evaluate each project based on the visual literacy skills we learned (analyze, reflect). We can see how the use of the visual elements affects the overall product we create.

As a more advanced lesson, students could again use the same data, but have a different purpose for making an infographic. Some groups could inform their audience, while others entertain or persuade. Students could then compare and contrast the infographics and discover how authors can use the visual skills we learned in different ways to depict the same information in various ways (create, analyze, reflect). Students will then have the opportunity to update their work based on their collaboration with their peers (act).

If you’re interested the reading more on the topic of various literacies, I suggest Discovering Media Literacy by Renee Hobbs and David Cooper Moore and Teaching Visual Literacy by Nancy Frey and Douglas Fisher. Both texts share great ideas for incorporating visual literacy in daily teaching practices.