Comic books and graphic novels, known collectively as "graphica," have long been popular with teenagers and adults. Recently graphica has grown in popularity with younger readers as well, motivating and engaging some of our most reluctant readers who often shun traditional texts. While some teachers have become curious about graphica's potential, many are confused by the overwhelming number of new titles and series, in both fiction and nonfiction, and are unsure of its suitability and function in their classrooms.
Drawing on his own success using graphica with elementary students, literacy coach Terry Thompson introduces reading teachers to this popular medium and suggests sources of appropriate graphica for the classroom and for particular students. Taking cues from research that supports the use of graphica with students, Terry shows how this exciting medium fits into the literacy framework and correlates with best practices in comprehension, vocabulary, and fluency instruction. Adventures in Graphica contains numerous, easy-to-replicate, instructional strategies, including examples of how graphic texts can be used to create a bridge as students transfer abstract comprehension strategies learned through comics and graphic novels to traditional texts.
Adventures in Graphica provides a roadmap for teachers to the medium that the New York Times recently hailed as possibly "the next new literary form."
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Author Bio
Terry Thompson received his bachelor's degree in elementary education from Lamar State College and his master's degree in counseling from Sam Houston State University. He has worked in elementary education for sixteen years in grade levels K through 5 as a classroom teacher, Reading Recovery teacher, basic skills teacher, reading interventionist, state testing coordinator, and literacy coach. He is currently a full-time literacy coach for the pre-K through 5 Title I campus in north Houston. He travels regularly, giving presentations to literacy instructors.