This document was prepared for READ884 Literacy Development. Travis Landers is pursuing a graduate degree in education with a focus on ESOL learners. This document was part of that process. June 2014
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CONTENTS
Assignment Explanation 4
Article Summary 4-5 What it Means to Me 6-8 References 9
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Assignment Explanation The goal was to choose an article about literacy from a professional journal, provide a summary of it, and then reflect on the article. In this way, we Comic Books’ Latest Plot Twist: could learn more about new developEnhancing Literacy Instruction ments in literacy and begin to catalog by David N. Rapp researchers in the field.
Chosen Article
Article Summary -
This article attempts to shake off the negative stigma comic books have gotten over the years for being unsophisticated or unworthy of use in the classroom. It presents a compelling claim that comic books and/or graphic novels can be used to interest those hard to reach students and at the same time offer new opportunities for cognitive development that goes beyond merely interpreting words on a page. All students need material that will engage them in literacy so that they can connect their reading with their lives. The idea of promoting lifelong literacy necessitates this connection and interest. Unfortunately, the most well planned curriculum still fails to connect with certain students. The author argues that comic books present another avenue for connection. Not only that but in general this new approach affords exciting out-ofbox thinking.
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author mentions that really this is not that new. Some teachers have >>> The used news programs to connect words and visuals. Other examples exist as well. However, comic books have a unique language all their own with lines that mean speed and different shaped speech bubbles to indicate various feelings just to name a few characteristics. Using comics offers a chance to engage bored students in new ways because they must actively participate to understand the rules of this new realm.
Comic books allow readers to easily connect words to visual cues so that retelling the story is easier but they do more than that. They provide opportunities for fine tuning cognitive skills by challenging readers to make inferences. Because of the setup, comic books don’t say everything in words. This challenges readers to predict what the future might be or what characters might be feeling in certain instances for example. Since many comic book series span several years there is a lot of opportunity for prediction. Readers can become invested in this history and it allows for intense discussion. Graphic Novels, which are a lot like comic books, also give many new and interesting activities for literacy. The author suggests students could first read the original work and then compare it to the graphic novel. The differences in the material could spark debate about plot choice and omissions. This is a new and exciting way to review literature that is unique to using this media in conjunction with standard materials. There are a few downsides to using comic books: 1. Could be hard to get, money problems, etc. 2. Vast amount of them, Where should one start? 3. Teacher need to create supporting materials in many instances Despite these downfalls, I believe the author presents some very interesting ideas for using an unconventional and exciting new source of material for literacy.
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What it Means to me-
Having read so much about engaging students and the importance of it, I was instantly drawn to this idea. The texts I have read about culturally and linguistically diverse(CLD) students or English as a Second Language(ESOL) students seem grounded in this principle. One of my current textbooks, Mastering ESL and Bilingual Methods, argues that the learning environment should support the CLD student’s identity.(Herrera 19) Materials should be tailored to give students a sense of pride in who they are and this will in turn interest them more. CLD students certainly have an extreme need for this because they often are placed in the middle of two cultures. While being surrounded by challenges in their new home, they struggle to connect past and present. However, it is not just CLD students or culture that we should be looking to relate to!
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students need to be actively engaged and interested or learning is >>> All not maximized. Just as CLD students struggle with two cultures, all
learners fight to connect their past learning with newer ideas. This may not be cultural but still we must consider who they are and try to connect. We need to give interesting material that builds upon students’ past experiences and comic books could be a different way to do so. Comic book legend, Stan Lee was asked whether he thought comics had a home in education. “I did realize it, but not right away,” Lee answered. “After we had been doing Marvel Comics for the first five or so years, in the late 60s, I started getting mail from school teachers saying ‘we were very surprised, we always thought comics were no good for kids, but we find that the kids who read your comics seem to be doing better in English and composition and grammar than the other kids.’” (Esposito) Comics and graphic novels “require, and perhaps encourage, substantial cognitive work that exemplifies the types of literacy skills necessary for comprehension.” (Rapp) They call upon a whole new level of inference as students work out the character, plot, and future possibilities from limited wording and pictures. Most importantly they do this in a new exciting way that will appeal to some hard to reach students. Comic books certainly could be an inspiration for students lacking real direction but I think the topic really points to an even bigger more powerful idea, student-centered learning. We can always come up with new sources of material to introduce to kids and they could succeed or fail. However, what we need to be doing is asking our students or rather empowering our students to make the decision about what they would like to learn. Why are we trying to force subjects onto them? If we allowed them to make decisions on the topics they wanted to learn, later these could eventually be connected to the primary disciplines such as math, science, etc. To take the idea a step further, why not let the students have some more power in how they would prefer to learn something as well. A choice between the activities used to cover the topic would no doubt yield more content and focused learners, wouldn’t it? Are teachers supposed to be controlling introducers or facilitators accessing and connecting kids with the information they desire?
To be continued...
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“Knowledge isn’t a commodity that’s delivered from teacher to student but something that emerges from the students’ own curiosity-fueled exploration.” (Davis) In a riveting article referenced hereafter, one teacher at José Urbina López Primary School in Mexico decided to try and fuel his students’ curiosity. With little in the way of resources, no computers or many other materials schools often take for granted, Sergio Juárez Correa decided to use what he did have instead. He tapped into his students true potential by allowing them more freedom in the subjects they learned. He also let students guide the lesson by giving them open-ended questions and time to tackle it initially on their own. These simple but powerful ideas not only allowed his students to excel but uncovered one student’s true genius. Her name was Paloma. Using a student-centered classroom approach an amazing story unfolded where “Paloma received the highest math score in the country, but the other students weren’t far behind. Ten got math scores that placed them in the 99.99th percentile.” (Davis) Impossible you might say, but the facts hold true. What is truly impossible are the walls we are building up for students by not allowing them more choice in their learning. Do boredom or fatigue exist when you are truly inspired? Assuming students can not contribute more to the direction of their learning is a mistake that even a great comic can’t write a happy ending to. Hopefully by sharing more stories like this we will begin to realize how limitless education could be if we only gave more freedom to our students. Freedom of what to study and how to to do it might be one of the greatest tools in our arsenal. It is so simple and yet with all the theories, materials, approaches, and jargon we have built up around education freedom could be the farthest thing we are providing at times. We truly can teach inspiration but involves allowing freedom for it to grow.
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“The bottom line is, if you’re not the one controlling your learning, you’re not going to learn as well.” (Davis)
References Davis, Joshua (2013). How a Radical New Teaching Method Could Unleash a Generation of Geniuses, June 2014. http://www.wired.com/2013/10/free-thinkers/ Esposito, Joey (2011). Comic Books as Education. IGN Entertainment, June 2014. http://www.ign.com/articles/2011/05/05/comic-books-as-education Herrera, Socorro G. and Murry (2011). Mastering ESL and Bilingual Methods. Pearson Education, (pp.19-24) Rapp, David N. (2011). Comic books’ latest plot twist: Enhancing literacy instruction. Phi Delta Kappan Magazine, June 2014. http://rhondaaltonen.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/rapp-d-n-2011comic-books_-latest-plot-twist-enhancing-literacy-instruction-graphicnovels-can-add-value-to-literacy-instruction-especially-for-struggling-ordisaffected-reade.pdf
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This document was prepared for READ884 Literacy Development. Travis Landers is pursuing a graduate degree in education with a focus on ESOL learners. This document was part of that process. June 2014