From ALL of us here at Reading With Pictures, thank you so much. With your help – not just through pledges but also retweets and Facebook posts – we’ve reached our goal and taken The Graphic Textbook from idea to soon-to-be reality. Of course we still have almost three days left in the campaign, so the question now becomes… “How high can this thing go?”

We should all breathe a sigh of well-earned relief, pop some champagne and then get right back into it! And here’s why:

• Protect against cancelled pledges: Some pledges always get cancelled at the last minute and some charges won’t go through, so we need a “buffer” above and beyond our goal to protect against that.
• Provide additional proof of concept: We used Kickstarter to prove that this idea had merit and that this product had an audience. The more we earn, the more likely it is that The Graphic Textbook becomes an entire line of books rather than just a single release.
• Make Reading With Pictures a sustainable enterprise: We provide resources for educators, academics and cartoonists on our website free of charge. All of it paid for by the sale of products like The Graphic Textbook. Any funds we earn beyond our Kickstarter goal will go to pay the salary of our Executive Director, Laura Harper, so that she can continue to develop and maintain those resources.
• Hook awesome people up with awesome rewards: We still have amazing rewards from Mark Brooks, Chris Giarrusso and many more still available – with rewards from Mark Waid, Neill Cameron and more yet to come! How can you say “no” to that?!

Again, thank you all. Now let’s see if we can get this thing over $75k by Thursday!

Onward!

RESEARCH
Tegan Zimmerman Henry of Literacy Roots talks about best practices in teaching reading and language arts in her cognate presentation: Reading Strategies Comic Strip and Rationale.

RECOMMENDED READING
We are launching with a group of University of Chicago medical students who discover a new more effective method for studying in Redrawing the Textbook.

CARTOONIST RESOURCES
We are featuring the syllabus and story of how Elaine M. Deering, Instructor of English at Lynn University, developed her course on Comic Book Superheroes.

RWP NETWORK
We are featuring Dr. Katie Monnin, RWP supporter and Assistant Professor of Literacy at University of North Florida, who explains why we should Get Comics into Schools and Schools into Comics.

By: Jay Peteranetz
This paper argues the validity of comics as a tool for teaching literacy in today’s modern classrooms. It discusses how comics can help learning readers become literate Americans. It provides teachers definitions of integral terms that must be understood to read and discuss comics. It then uses the Common Core Standards, the most commonly accepted standards for United States public school systems, to talk about an excellent age-­‐ appropriate comic. The purpose of this paper is to give teachers a starting point to help reading become more interactive, entertaining, and enjoyable for all school-­‐age students. Download thesis here.

The interview reviews Trevor’s body of work, including web comics and convention panels, and eventually concludes with his work on Reading with Pictures. Be sure to check out the awesome and hilarious interview.

Check it out here.

A few years ago I was browsing Wikipedia and admiring its wonderfully collaborative nature. Anyone could create content and build upon or refine the contributions of others. However, as someone who loves stories and creativity, I lamented that it deals only with objective fact. Poetic license is necessarily sifted out through peer-review and consensus. What if, I thought, there were a Wikipedia for stories and other expressions of the imagination?

Then I had an “aha” moment.

I realized that the best medium in which to build a collaborative, online storytelling platform would be the highly visual and most universally loved medium of all – comics!

Born in England, I had grown up in Canada reading a lot of comics, especially enjoying the wit and style of The Beano from Britain, Astérix from France, and especially Tintin by the Belgian, Hergé. So for me, it was natural to draw a connection between comics and storytelling.

And as an expert web developer, I could immediately start to envision the mechanics of a comic-making platform enabled for the social web. Anyone with an internet connection would have ready access to the same, sophisticated set of tools. Traditional, freehand drawing would be removed from equation, enabling unprecedented collaborative possibilities. Thus Pixton.com was born, a new kind of comic authored by the world.

As Pixton has evolved our userbase has steadily grown, mainly through word of mouth. Teachers and students from grades 3 to 12 and beyond number among those who come together to create comics that entertain, inform, educate, and inspire.

We have thus developed Pixton for Schools, a private, fully hosted web-based application that gives educators and students a whole new way to express themselves and communicate in the graphical, narrative format of comics. Teachers in all subject areas, including Language Arts, Science, and Social Studies, have delighted in the creativity that Pixton activates within their classrooms. And a number of features designed specifically for education, such as customizable rubrics and teacher moderation, make Pixton for Schools a versatile, robust and effective tool to engage students in learning.

Looking forward, the Pixton community will continue to inspire innovation and even more ways of reinventing comics. I think Hergé would be proud!

Creator of Pixton, Clive Goodinson has the technical chops worthy of a superhero. Prior to Pixton he spent nearly a decade building interactive content for some of Canada’s leading design agencies and brands, including Honda and Harley Davidson.

Marketing Director Trevor Mueller (Albert the Alien) will be joined by fellow contributors Russell Lissau (The Batman Strikes!, Strawberry Shortcake) and Steve Horton (Amala’s Blade).

Look for the RWP banner at booth C19 for the latest information on RWP initiatives, to buy copies of the anthology, or to learn about how you can help get comics into classrooms!

By Adrian Neibauer

STORY REVIEW
Neil Barton is your typical thirteen-year-old: he’s unsure of himself, awkward, shy, and spends most of his time alone with his nose in a book. AMERICUS, written by MK Reed and illustrated by Jonathan Hill, is a coming of age story set in a small town in Anytown, USA. Neil, our main character, uses the local library in his small home town of Americus as a safe-haven to the discomfort of junior high school. There, he and the young librarian introduce us to the fantasy world of Chronicles of Apathea Ravenchilde, the Huntress Witch, a Dungeons and Dragons inspired young-adult novel series. However, it isn’t too long before the conservative Christian citizens in town begin publically ousting the Apathea series as “unfit for the souls of our youth.” Neil must battle the town’s conservatives to prevent the Apathea series from becoming banned in the library; meanwhile, Apathea must battle her half-dragon brother in order to save her kingdom.

MK Reed does an impressive job blending these two stories as each protagonist battles his/her own conflict. Themes of censorship and adolescent rebellion are prominent throughout AMERICUS, and can be great launching grounds for classroom discussion. Reed’s characters and setting are believable. Readers can assimilate into the anonymity of Americus and its town’s residents, while simultaneously feeling sympathy for Neil’s teenage angst.

ART REVIEW
Although Reed writes believable dialogue, Jonathan Hill’s illustration style creates actual human beings with actual problems and true emotions. He doesn’t draw a lot of details, yet his use of black and white makes the book realistic in its depiction of Middle America happenings.

As the AMERICUS flashes into the story of Apethea, Hill begins to use more generous strokes of ink wash. He illustrates more shadows and varying shades of gray, giving the fantasy world a very appropriate Lord of the Rings look.

What is most intriguing is how Hill blends the fantasy and reality using his pen. Readers have no difficulty in discerning which story one is reading, but the combination of these two different worlds is never drastic and shocking. It is as though both sets of characters co-exist simultaneously to give refuge for uncomfortable teens looking to escape to a different world.

IN THE CLASSROOM
It would be very easy to steer clear of AMERICUS, due to the controversial themes presented. Especially in elementary school, teachers don’t usually jump into discussions on censorship at the hands of conservative Christians. There is talk of the sin of homosexuality; in fact, Neil’s best friend, Danny, gets shipped off to military school because of his love of the Apathea series and the fact that he is gay. His parents don’t seem to place either on a spectrum, but instead claim that one is the cause of the other. Nonetheless, I think AMERICUS is a great tool for teaching the more sophisticated technique of writing a frame story.

Frame stories, or a story within a story, are an effective way of comparing and contrasting different characters, settings, and themes. Successful writers have often used this technique to show the reader how people are not only influenced by their interactions with other characters, but storytelling (think Hamlet’s play within a play, i.e.: The Mousetrap). Since AMERICUS does such a fantastic job visually representing a frame story, it makes sense to use this graphic novel to teach students how they can incorporate one in their own fiction.

Before reading AMERICUS, either as a read aloud or graphic novel study, I would introduce the idea of frame stories. It is important to emphasize the visual aspect of frame stories (how characters are “watching” another story) by using film examples. As you progress through AMERICUS, use questions to deepen students understanding:

How do you know we are entering the world of Apathea?
When do we enter this world? What purpose does it serve the main plot?
How are these two sets of characters related? Compare and contrast.
How are these two settings related? Compare and contrast.

It is oftentimes appropriate to dissect the two plot-lines so that students can see them running parallel to one another. You can use a Flow Chart to map out the key plot points of each narrative, while noting when and why they intersect.

As Neil fights to save his beloved Apathea series from being banned, Apathea fights her own battles. Both characters grow from the process and emerge stronger. Students should start thinking about other narratives that either offer similar thematic elements, such as conflicts, or similar characters to their own narrative piece. Incorporating one story into another takes time and trial and error, but I feel that AMERICUS is a good model for doing this well.

As Neil fights to save his beloved Apathea series from being banned, Apathea fights her own battles. Both characters grow from the process and emerge stronger. Students should start thinking about other narratives that either offer similar thematic elements, such as conflicts, or similar characters to their own narrative piece. Incorporating one story into another takes time and trial and error, but I feel that AMERICUS is a good model for doing this well.

MORE INFORMATION
Author: MK Reed
Illustrator: Jonathan Hill
Pages: 216
Color: Black and White
Publisher: First Second
ISBN: 978-1-59643-768-5

MY RECOMMENDATION
I highly recommend AMERICUS for Writing and Literature classrooms grades 6 and up, especially for high school. I recommend with reservations using AMERICUS in the elementary grades due to the references to religion and homosexuality. You could use the frame story technique in fifth grade, but only toward the end of the school year when students are more proficient writers. AMERICUS’ readability is targeted for ages 12+, and MK Reed writes with this demographic in mind. Middle school students can easily relate to Neil, his adolescent woes, and his need to escape into the realm of fantasy literature.

]]> http://readingwithpictures.org/2012/05/03/americus/feed/ 0 http://readingwithpictures.org/2012/04/24/hey-brooklyn/ http://readingwithpictures.org/2012/04/24/hey-brooklyn/#comments Tue, 24 Apr 2012 20:09:43 +0000 Laura http://readingwithpictures.org/?p=3219

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