Graphic Novels

I tend to stray away from graphic novels because they intimidate me. However, as a teacher, I have to relent that students love them. Sipe's (2010) The Art of the Picture Book introduced Molly Bang's work Nobody Particular: One Woman's Fight to Save the Bays, at the exact moment that my local shrimp shop was deplete of shrimp due to low catches. Of course, I had to check out her text. I found that it could spark conversation about many elements of Georgia sixth grade science standards. As a graphic novel, it made it particularly engaging for students.

Nobody Particular: One Woman's Fight to Save the Bays to teach...

S6E3. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information to recognize the significant role of water in Earth processes.

a. Ask questions to determine where water is located on Earth’s surface (oceans, rivers, lakes, swamps, groundwater, aquifers, and ice) and communicate the relative proportion of water at each location.

S6E6. Obtain, evaluate, and communicate information about the uses and conservation of various natural resources and how they impact the Earth.

b. Design and evaluate solutions for sustaining the quality and supply of natural resources such as water, soil, and air.

c. Construct an argument evaluating contributions to the rise in global temperatures over the past century.

What Makes This Book Special? Low (2012) describes comics as a "treasured"by youths and as the ideal medium for "meaning making". Something that I haven't discussed much in this blog are gutters. Many of the picture books that I selected feature double-page spreads, leaving little room for these spaces. Low (2012) indicates that gutters are more abundant in the graphic novel and that these spaces allow for interaction with and reflection on the text, making them prime media for inducing comprehension. I believe that Nobody Particular can support many of the elements of S6E6 as well as many of the 6th grade earth science standards. This is consistent with Low's (2012) assertion that graphic novels can lead to deep exploration of a topic.

This graphic novel will be special to students because it is informational. The endpapers are important in this text, Sipe (2010) says that they "begin the story". Sipe and McGuire (2006) describe beginning and ending the narrative as a way to use endpapers to frame the text, one of many functions endpapers may fill. The story of Nobody Particular, indeed begins with the endpapers.