Teaching Media Literacy Using Graphic Novels

Purpose & objective

1.) Featuring examples of practical lessons and student work, this session offers educators of all subjects multiple strategies for using the comic medium to foster media literacy across the curriculum, including selecting content-appropriate comics, pairing/contrasting graphic novels with other media, and incorporating student drawing assignments and exercises in the classroom using Whiteboard.fi and other online drawing tools.

2.) This session will demonstrate the urgent benefits of graphic novels for all educators, as well as the importance and gravity of embedding media literacy education across the curriculum. (Libraries cultivate an informed and connected citizenry, and with disinformation and misinformation as rampant as ever in today's media landscape, the learning objective of this session could not be more timely or important.)

3.) This session will provide attendees tools for encouraging students to ask the right questions when analyzing media messages and visuals, including analysis of POV, inherent values, power dynamics, representation, objects, tone, and storytelling techniques.

Participant Outcomes:

1.) Upon completion, participant will be able to embed student drawing assignments and exercises across the curriculum in order to foster greater critical thinking about media literacy. Participants will explore Whiteboard.fi and other digital drawing programs.

2.) Upon completion, participant will be able to implement multiple strategies for using graphic novels to foster media literacy across the curriculum, including selecting content-appropriate comics and facilitating media-comic contrasts.

3.) Upon completion, participant will be able to empower students to ask the right questions when analyzing media messages, including analysis of POV, representation, power dynamics, objects, tone, and storytelling techniques.

Evidence of success embedded in this article link (in section on my Comm Skills course, where students crystallized a Super Bowl commercial into a multiple-panel comic):

http://bit.ly/3NtkxZx

Outline

Here is a link to the PPT of my presentation, which I will adapt further for the format provided to increase audience engagement, including more synchronous drawing exercises, meme creation, etc. Since I am currently working on writing a teacher resource book, the possible activities will grow and evolve.

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Quyh_ERQxccJZTues3sZYTTZXCVVvtLpfOZRANz_y0o/edit?usp=sharing

Content:

1.) Featuring examples of practical lessons and student work, this session offers educators of all subjects multiple strategies for using the comic medium to foster media literacy across the curriculum, including selecting content-appropriate comics and pairing/contrasting graphic novels with other media.

2.) This session will demonstrate the urgent benefits of graphic novels for all educators, as well as the importance and gravity of embedding media literacy education across the curriculum.

Activities (attendees will need a device and wifi to participate in these web-based activities):

1.) This session offers educators of all subjects multiple strategies for incorporating student drawing assignments and exercises in the classroom using Whiteboard.fi and other online drawing tools. 10-15 min.

2.) Educators of all subjects will learn how to embed lessons where students create multiple panel memes to learn course content, while fostering media literacy. 10-15 min.

3.) This session will provide attendees tools for encouraging students to ask the right questions when analyzing media messages and visuals, including analysis of POV, inherent values, power dynamics, representation, objects, tone, and storytelling techniques. 10 minutes.

Supporting research

I am linking to my Booklist article which refers to supporting research and other recognized experts.

http://bit.ly/3NtkxZx

Here are a few other supporting research articles:

McClanahan, Barbara J., and Maribeth Nottingham. “A Suite of Strategies for Navigating Graphic Novels: A Dual Coding Approach.” Reading Teacher, vol. 73, no. 1, July 2019, pp. 39–50. EBSCOhost, doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1797.

Monnin, K. (2010). Teaching Media Literacy with Graphic Novels. New Horizons in Education, 58(3). 78-84

Smith, Jennifer M., and Kathryn Pole. “What’s Going On in a Graphic Novel?” Reading Teacher, vol. 72, no. 2, Sept. 2018, pp. 169–77. EBSCOhost, doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1695.

Vandermeersche, Geert, and Ronald Soetaert. "Intermediality as cultural literacy and teaching the graphic novel." CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture, vol. 13, no. 3, Sept. 2011. Gale In Context: High School, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A268403897/SUIC?u=loui7274&sid=bookmark-SUIC&xid=5f8e4ba5. Accessed 20 Feb. 2022.

A few other links:

https://www.edutopia.org/article/science-drawing-and-memory

https://sites.google.com/site/graphicnovelclassroom/vocabulary

https://www.socialstudies.org/social-education/80/03/media-literacy

https://www.readwritethink.org/sites/default/files/resources/lesson_images/lesson1102/terms.pdf

https://resilienteducator.com/classroom-resources/graphic-novels-visual-literacy/