Blog #3

               With all of the diversity and variety seen among student’s in today’s world, I think it is time to bring this diversity to the classroom as well. That is a key point I discovered from the two articles read this week. In the “Conventions of Comics” article, I learned a lot about graphic novels that I would have passed by before. I read this article in Shannon’s Intro. To Culturally Diverse Literature class and it was neat to get to read it again and pick up on things that I missed previously. I really like the part that discusses the panel about multimodel analysis. The author explains how she had her students begin with what they saw, which incorporated visual meaning. They then went into auditory meaning, spatial meaning, linguistic meaning, and gestural meaning. I think it’s important that all senses of a reader are engaged when reading, which this panel clearly focuses on. I also like how this activity allowed for each student’s opinion and reactions to be heard without being considered wrong, since there is not one correct way to interpret the panel. The quote, “a pedagogy that embraces multiple literacy’s then is one that considers the multicultural and diverse society that we all live in and broadens our understanding of “literature” to include multimedia and visual forms of literacy,” really showed me the importance once again of incorporating new technologies. This will help keep students interested and make them want to learn. If you really think about it, would you want to do the same thing again and again? Neither do our students!

                In the second article, I liked how the author pointed out that when teachers attempted to start conversations about the works students were interested in, such as graphic novels, students tended to be very hesitant to talk about them. As the teachers looked into these different types of novels that so many students were interested in reading and saw how they allowed students to read and respond to detailed meanings while reading about subject matter they could relate too, they knew they had to incorporate this somehow into their teaching. I think that this shows effective teaching based on the fact that they took their students interests to heart and adapted their teaching to meet the student’s needs. I hope to be able to do this! I liked the large variety of teaching techniques the teachers used. I liked the “shades of meaning” lesson because it taught a basic concept but in a unique way and progress was seen among students from this type of learning. This really showed me that you can teach in a way that is different from the “normal” way and still be successful in your classroom. I really enjoyed the culminating project that the students used in which they used photographs for an about the author page, and continued describing fictitious events to go along with the photographs. I thought this was a great idea and a really neat project for students to get involved in. It allowed them to have fun with learning and they incorporated the real world into their writing which I think is wonderful. I would like to use a project like this in my classroom! In the conclusion of the article, I found the sentence, “having begun with the idea that graphic novels were comic books at best and a waste of time at worst, we now realize the power they have for engaging students in authentic writing” very important and it reminded me of a specific experience I had in an observation. In an 8^th grade classroom, students were required to choose a book of their choice to do a book report on. As the teacher went around the classroom checking to see what novels the students chose and writing down the titles he came to one very quiet student who had chosen a graphic novel. His response to this student was that it was not a book and that he must choose another book with words. I was appalled at this comment by the teacher and the rest of the class laughed at the student for choosing this type of book. Did the teacher really think that reacting in this way would make the student ever want to read again? This experience was traumatizing for myself to watch so I just wonder the effect it truly had on the student. I will never forget that moment and I think that that will really help me be a better teacher by experiencing that situation.

                In Chapter 5 of You Gotta Be the Book, Wilhelm really focuses on expressing the importance of visual information for students in order for them to truly understand a story. “Visual imaging encourages students to access and apply their prior knowledge as they read, increases comprehension, and improves the ability to predict, infer, and remember what has been read” (Wilhelm 158). This quote really showed me just how powerful visual information plays a role in a student truly understanding the background of a story. I believe that as a teacher you must use whatever techniques you have to help get this visual message across to students, whether they need it by visual, tactile, or auditory information. It is the teacher’s job to adapt their teaching to each individual student’s learning style. That is why I believe variety plays such a key role in the classroom!

                “I just have to wonder if school conveys a very limited view of literature that does not include picture books and comics, and if this limited view of literature contributes to how bummed out and distanced many of my student readers become from literature and the literary experience”. I really like this quote and think that it conveys an important message. I was only introduced to graphic novels in college, so the fact that the literature viewed in grade school is so confined is a big issue! I believe more students may find a love of reading when they see how much variety is truly offered. I also enjoyed the fact that Wilhelm noted that he read a comic book in a foreign language and learned how much easier it was to figure out words from the context and follow the actual story. I think actually putting yourself in the students place can really open your eyes up and reveal a lot! Also, by going about books in different ways, you can show students that there is not always a right or wrong way to show your ideas.

                Not only does having a visual image of a story help with comprehension, but it also allows the student to remember things much more. If you think about it, aren’t the lessons that clearly stand out to you from school the ones that you can actually picture in your mind? Mine sure are! Drawing pictures often really helps with visualization and this can be adapted so that all students can enjoy something even if they aren’t very artistic. I was that way in school. Whenever an assignment required drawing, you would hear the biggest sigh come out of my mouth. I like how Wilhelm explained that you could have students cut and paste pictures instead of drawing. I like how he gives students  a choice and offers variety. I think this makes students feel that their opinions matter.

                To sum it all up, there were a lot of benefits to incorporating art in the classroom noted by Wilhelm. As he explained, it helped his students take better notes for other classes, which shows that they can apply their best learning strategies to other areas which is a very good skill to have and helps them make intertextual connections. Also, it helped students to understand the “bigger picture” behind a story, which also helps with overall meaning. By using artistic responses, it helps give the students a voice as well and not just the teacher, which is drawing away from the bottom-up method. Perhaps you could have students take turns teaching about what they got from the reading and explain what ways they chose to express themselves and why.  I learned about so many benefits from incorporating visual artwork into reading that I never knew of and would have never guessed. I can now truly appreciate and understand the quote “Reading IS seeing and you do have to BE the book”!