Stick to Your Story: Fleshing out Existing Narrative Structures

byTharish R. Harris

My students struggle with writing every year, most start with little or no pre-reading skills and are reluctant to write at all. When they do enjoy writing they only want to write about crime and violence.

In an effort to get my students excited about writing we will be incorporating graphic novels into our read-aloud time and learn to use some techniques that I have read about in Scott McCloud's Understanding Comic Books: The Invisible Art. This will make writing more exciting for my students.

This is a unit written for 1st grade but could be modified for second or third grade. It addresses reading and writing standards by teaching students to make comic books. Students will be learning everything they need to know about how to make a great visual character, an inviting setting, and a plot in their story done in a graphic novel or comic book fashion. They will learn about how to make their characters run and jump on pages, how to make them scream or whisper, and even how to show them how to make their character jump off the page in the comic book.

(Developed for English/Language Arts, grade 7; recommended for English/Language Arts, grades 5-11)


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