Student Flash Animations from Grant Thomas on Vimeo.

The pages are not numbered in this book, but Chapter I begins on the fifth page.

Based on what you see on this page, what can you tell about the setting of this scene?

Who lives in this home?

What do the things shown on this page tell us about the people living in this home?

Page 6

What is the man doing?

How does the woman feel about what the man is doing?

Can you find the objects from page 5 in this panel?

(panel 5) What is the girl looking at?

Where are the people going?

Do you think the family is safe or in danger?

What do you see that supports that opinion?

Why does the man give his daughter the bird?

(panel 4) Why is the woman crying?

(panel 6) What do you think the man is saying to the woman?

How do you think the woman and the girl feel now?

What are some reasons why the whole family didn’t get on the train?

 

Maureen Bakis has just about the coolest job out there.  She teaches an English class to high school seniors with Graphic Novels.  In Bakis' class Graphic Novels are not simply supplemental reading to go with a traditional books; they are the main event.  Bakis not only has students read graphic novels to find themes and symbolism as one would do in a traditional English class, but she has students look at the form of the medium, too.  In fact, she begins each year with having students read a short Chris Ware piece from the New Yorker to illustrate to students, just how difficult reading comics can be sometimes.

 

Last November, Bakis published a book (The Graphic Novel Classroom) that explains how to get students to read comics and graphic novels and to engage in higher level thinking when encountering these texts.

 

She also has a thriving online community Graphic Novels and High School English with additional resources and articles.

Visit Making Curriculum Pop

 

Nick Sousanis recently pointed me in the direction the Making Curriculum Pop ning site.  I've toyed with the idea of having a forum to go with this site, but Making Curriculum Pop already has a thriving community go that is do what I imagined would go here (and more).  Over the next couple of weeks, I'll be pulling some highlights from what I've discovered over there as well as linking to folks I met at ROMOCOCO.