Hacking Graphic Novels: 8 Ways to Teach Higher-Level Thinking with Comics and Visual Storytelling

by Shveta V Miller

Overview

Too many of our kids struggle with reading and writing

Now, you can help us end illiteracy and unlock the love of reading and writing in all learners, with the power of graphic novels and comics.

Teaching with comics increases engagement, and the ultimate value is in helping your students look with care, see possibilities, consider alternatives, ask nuanced questions, show their thinking, and bravely tell stories they would not have told in any other medium.

Best of all, even your most reluctant readers and writers will engage enthusiastically with your lessons and content.

Hacking Graphic Novels offers new ideas and practical tools for teachers of all subjects, grades, and experience levels with sequential art. Shveta Miller, a teacher leader and global advocate for teaching with comics, shows teachers how to:

• Guide students to look at visuals slowly with curiosity, open-mindedness, and intention
• Develop independent learners who explore the possibilities and real-world applications
• Encourage students to think, process, and express their understanding of complex systems and ideas
• Help students escape the comfort zone and productively struggle in the growth zone
• Use close reading and close looking for writers to inspire comprehension through storytelling
• Inspire colleagues, administrators, families, and students with the power of visual texts

Want all of your students to learn through storytelling and express their learning in writing? Grab Hacking Graphic Novels today, and watch your students smile tomorrow.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948212632
Publisher:	Times 10 Publications
Publication date:	06/22/2021
Series:	Hack Learning , #25
Pages:	264
Sales rank:	651,347
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.55(d)

About the Author

Shveta Miller, author of Hacking Graphic Novels, taught high school English Language Arts in New York City public schools and at a few colleges throughout Asia, where she honed the process of teaching students how to critically read and craft texts of all kinds, from TV sitcom scripts to graphic narratives and parodies of classic novels.

Now a teacher leader and literacy specialist, she presents nationally on research-based instructional practices and coaches teachers in their classrooms and online. She currently serves a school district in Oregon as a secondary instructional coach, primarily supporting teachers with differentiating instruction for students' assessed rates and levels.

Shveta advocates for teaching with comics and graphic novels through her position as Director of Curriculum for Reading With Pictures, participation on Comic Con panels, and through school and library visits. Her articles about teaching and learning have appeared on popular education sites such as Edutopia, Cult of Pedagogy, Education Week, and Shaped: The HMH Blog. She is a contributing writer for Book Riot and the author of 5 Steps to a 5: 500 AP English Literature Questions (McGraw Hill, 3rd ed, 2021), a book that is less about memorizing test strategies and more about using higher-order questions to stretch your understanding of a range of complex literary texts.

Table of Contents

Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13

How to Use This Book

Hack 1: Build Investment in Visual Storytelling. . . . . . . . . . . . . .19

Establish the Value of Graphic Stories

Hack 2: Uncover the Elements of Comics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45

Guide Students' Discovery of Tools and Devices

Hack 3: Encourage Slow Looking, Committing Closure, and

Resisting Closure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .75

Help Students Combine Words and Pictures to Tell Compelling

Stories and Communicate Complexity

Hack 4: Think, Learn, and Communicate by Creating Comics. . .109

Use Drawing and Visual Storytelling for Deep Thinking

Hack 5: Disrupt the Comics Canon. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .153

Expand Concepts About Possibilities

Hack 6: Create With Constraints . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .179

Experiment with Creative Limits

Hack 7: Offer a Flexible Process for Creating Graphic

Narratives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .197

Model Creation Processes

Hack 8: Connect With the Comics Community. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .231

Connect Students to Real-World Graphic Novelists

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .247

Graphic Novels Made Me a Better Teacher

Editorial Reviews

I practically begged Shveta Miller to write this book. When she

showed me the incredible power of graphic novels as a tool for

expression, complex thinking, and demonstrating learning, I

wanted every teacher to hear about it. Graphic novels have gotten

a lot more attention in the past decade, but Miller has a special

gift for diving deep into their emotional and cognitive benefits; at

the same time, she manages to make implementation seem easy.

I feel certain that you'll be trying the ideas in this book before

you've even finished reading it.

- Jennifer Gonzalez, Editor-in-Chief of Cult of Pedagogy, and

Co-Author of Hacking Education: 10 Quick Fixes For Every School

Miller's work is a much-needed addition to the ever-growing

canon of comics scholarship because it provides an abundance of

practical, hands-on activities for teachers. By framing each chapter

with a specific issue faced in the learning environment, presenting

a "hack" to address that issue, and supporting her plan with visuals

and a near-exhaustive list of "things you can do," she provides a

clear map for teachers to discover the numerous ways that comics

can inspire creative and critical thinking in their students.

- Rocco Versaci, Author of This Book Contains Graphic

Language: Comics as Literature and That Hidden Road: A Memoir

Slam, Bang, Pow to dated classrooms. Shveta Miller's text

explodes with eminently practical strategies for creating a genuinely

student-led classroom set free from the burdens of textbook

and administrative-driven instruction. If you want students who

are critical thinkers, imaginative problem-solvers, and nuanced

observers, read and use this book!

- David Seelow, PhD, College of Saint Rose, Editor of Lessons

Drawn: Essays on the Pedagogy of Comics and Graphic Novels

From the Publisher