Teaching Strategies
Here are some recommended teaching strategies for teachers:
Visual Literacy: This strategy focuses on explicitly teaching students how to read a graphic novel. It involves discussing panel progression, speech bubbles, thought bubbles, sound effects, and how colors convey emotions. The core of this approach is analyzing how illustrations tell the story without words and understanding the power of images. Students will need to analyze key panels to draw inferences.
Vocabulary Preview: To enhance comprehension, introduce key vocabulary in context before reading. This involves using visuals to reinforce learning, with a particular focus on high-frequency words related to emotions, travel, family, and challenges.
Read Aloud: This technique helps second language students improve pronunciation and fluency. For heritage speakers, it serves to reinforce literacy.
Quick Write: Encourage students to pause at important moments to write down a thought, question, or a prediction in the target language. This can be used as a translanguaging tool, allowing students to express themselves in both English and Spanish.
Scaffold Language Support: Offer students sentence starters and frames to complete speaking and writing activities. This scaffolding helps build their confidence in language use.
Modified Reading: Break down the graphic novel into smaller, manageable sections. Incorporate comprehension questions in English, as needed, to ensure students understand the plot of the graphic novel.
Bilingual Word Wall: Provide students with a bilingual word wall as a reference tool for speaking and writing in the target language.
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