ROGERS -- Teachers created their own comic book strips using apps and websites during a workshop in Rogers on Wednesday.
The comic strip applications are one tool teachers can use to get kids writing, said Tena Reese, technology curriculum specialist. New standards ask students to learn persuasive or argumentative writing, explanatory or informative writing and narrative writing, Reese said. That may mean more writing for students.
At A Glance (w/logo)
Picture Learning
Educational comic books and graphic novels have value, according to Reading with Pictures, an organization created to bring comics into the classroom. Big words with pictures nearby can be less intimidating to a developing reader than pages of unbroken text. Graphic novels also introduce more rare words, according to the group. The group notes that under new curriculum standards, students are asked to vary their reading sources.
Source: Reading With Pictures
"We know that kids like graphic novels so we're trying to match those two together," Reese said.
Jeanne Trueg, library media specialist at Grace Hill Elementary School, said she's always trying to get her students to read more.
They love graphic novels, Trueg said. A graphic novel can be an illustrated biography or can feature a historic event. Graphic novels allow struggling readers to piece together clues from the pictures to figure out the words, she said.
"They can tell who is talking because the balloon is coming out of their mouth," she said.
She went to Wednesday's workshop so she can teach children to make book trailers or short visual book reviews about what they've read.
"It allows them to be creative. They love anything that has to do with technology," she said.
When they write their own comic strips, students will have to make the panels cohesive, in the right sequence and use proper grammar and spelling, Trueg said. Because they are small, the word balloons will encourage children to summarize, and that can be a hard concept to teach, she said.
"It takes a lot of effort to sit here and think what to write," Trueg said.
Teachers around the room in Wednesday's workshop built their own comics with back-to-school instructions or depicting historical events. Reese went over several online programs with the teachers.
Stacy Schmidt, a special education teacher at Greer Lingle Middle School, looked through a catalog of figures in historic dress and settings in Storyboard That, a computer storyboard creator application. She might ask her students to write their storyboard about something that happened in World War II, Schmidt said.
Not all her students have strong motor skills. They want to display their ideas, but their fingers don't always match their thoughts, making it hard for them to display work of which they are proud. Clicking and placing figures into a story would make an even playing field for them and give them something of which to be proud.
Rachel Patrick, Reagan Elementary School special education teacher, said she might laminate historically themed strips then cut them apart and ask students to assemble them on a timeline.
Getting students to pair words with pictures is a communication medium, not the lesson, Reese said.
"It really can be done in any class," she said.
NW News on 07/24/2014