Reading With Pictures: Comics That Make Kids Smarter

by Josh Elder (Editor)

Overview

Comics have gone from "scourge of the classroom" to legitimate teaching tools, and the Common Core State Standards for scholastic achievement now explicitly recommend their use in the classroom.

Reading With Pictures: Comics That Make Kids Smarter unites the finest creative talents in the comics industry with the nation's leading experts in visual literacy to create a game-changing tool for the classroom and beyond. This full-color volume features more than a dozen short stories (both fiction and nonfiction) that address topics in Social Studies, Math, Language Arts, and Science, while offering an immersive textual and visual experience that kids will enjoy. Highlights include George Washington: Action President by Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey, Doctor Sputnik: Man of Science by Roger Langridge, The Power of Print by Katie Cook, and many more.

Includes a foreword by Printz and Eisner Award-winning author Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese, Boxers and Saints).

A downloadable Teachers' Guide includes standards-correlated lesson plans customized to each story, research-based justifications for using comics in the classroom, a guide to establishing best classroom practices, and a comprehensive listing of educational resources.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781449460204
Publisher:	Andrews McMeel Publishing, LLC
Publication date:	08/05/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	160
File size:	44 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

Josh Elder is the founder and president of Reading with Pictures. Reading with Pictures is a nonprofit founded in 2009 "to get comics into schools and schools into comics". They have an advisory board of education experts and are supported by well-known middle-grade cartoonists such as Dave Roman, Raina Telgemeier, and Chris Giarrusso. Their website, which is replete with resources, is www.readingwithpictures.org.

Editorial Reviews

(starred review) "Elder has assembled an array of creators adept at speaking in engaging, nondidactic voices, and each subject…features three to five stories that skillfully craft basic principles into energetic stories…every student will find something to connect with…A great tool." (Booklist)

"This serves as an introduction to educators who would like more background on the use of comics in the classroom." (Karen Hildebrand, Reading Today magazine)

"Parents and teachers of kids in grades 3-8 will find materials here that kids will enjoy, and may suggest new ways to teach familiar subjects.  It belongs in both school and public libraries, and would also be of use to home-school families." (Nick Smith, ICv2)

From the Publisher

2014-06-29
Fifteen short, new (save one) episodes from 32 comics artists, writers and editors are presented as demonstrations of how comics can be used for educational purposes.That agenda often weighs heavily on the entries, which are grouped under headers for "Language Arts," "Science," "Mathematics" and "Social Studies." Chris Schweizer's "The Black Brigade," for instance, introduces a company of "Ethiopes" who fought on the British side in the American Revolution—but nearly all the action takes place offstage, and in the tiny panels, figures are crowded out by expository dialogue. Furthermore, in some episodes, the action is hard to follow, and in others, the writing barely reaches the sophomoric: "Whole books could now be produced in mass"; "Last night's homework was over how you can explain complex instruction visually." And even the better-crafted contributions aren't free from factual errors. Martha Custis' name is misspelled in a revealing, high-energy portrait of "George Washington: Action President," and the gravitational effects on space flight are casually dismissed in a hilarious discourse on the Newtonian Laws of Motion featuring Dr. Sputnik and the detached head of the great scientist.Worthy of concept, wildly uneven in execution. (downloadable lesson plans, not seen) (Graphic anthology. 10-13)

Kirkus Reviews