Pamela M. Fowler
Goal: TO INCREASE COMPREHENSION SKILLS
The student will read a series of comic classics and answer comprehension questions, which also encompass answering Who? What? Where? When? and Why? in relation to the story.
My students’ most prominent disability lies in comprehending what they have just read, retaining and recalling the information. They are very visual students and before I can ask them to write a story I must feel confident that they understand what a story consists of.
Therefore, the unit begins as a group activity. The teacher divides the comic book into four reading sections to be read over a course of four days.
In reading Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for example, there are 81 pages along with discussion questions at the end of the book.
Pages 7-15 in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde introduce Dr. Jekyll in his lab and his inventions. Over a period of 40 minutes the class takes turns reading two pages each. During the reading the teacher should stop and ask questions related directly to the pages read. For example, after reading about what Dr. Jekyll’s newest experiment is, how he discovers it and what the side effects are, I would expect the teacher to ask the group a few questions such as: “What did Dr. Jekyll discover?” ”How did he figure out how it works?” ”Do you think creating this drug is good?” “Why or why not?” and so on. Do not get the students too far away from the subject because they may a difficult time getting back on track.
After reading pages 7-15 the class puts the books down and prepares their notebooks for answering the comprehension questions and outlining the first part of the classic. (See following pages for set up)
The questions are very simple and are written out on the blackboard for the students to copy down into their notebooks. Each question is then read aloud by the teacher an answered by the class. As these questions are being answered, the teacher is to write the answer on the board as the students once again copy it down into their notebooks. Stress that the format that you use on the blackboard is the exact format that they are to use in their notebooks. This alleviates any question that the students may have about how to write it down. Upon completion of this session the notebooks are placed inside the folders.
The wording and the questions both increase in difficulty so that the students can identify that some words have more than one meaning in context and that there are various ways to say the say thing. For example: The question ‘What does Dr. Jekyll look like?’ soon becomes ‘Describe Frankenstein from what you have read’.
Each student shall read six comic classics over the course of eight weeks/or one academic quarter. If time allows more will be incorporated into the curriculum. I chose to begin reading
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
because I wanted to capture the interest of my students. Slowly the list leads to books that they would not read on their own.
Reading List for Comic Classics
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1. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
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2. Frankenstein
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3. Tom Sawyer
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4. Huckleberry Finn
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5. Moby Dick
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6. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
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7. The Red Badge of Courage
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8. Black Beauty
Format for Outline and Comprehension Questions
(Title of Book) Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde
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Name
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Date
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page numbers
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Class
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Dr. Jekyll
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1. Who is Dr. Jekyll?
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Dr. Jekyll is a doctor.
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2. Where does he live?
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He lives in Soho
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3. What did he invent?
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He invented a drug that could change him from good to evil.
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4. Why did he invent this drug?
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Because he believed that two people can live inside one body.
Mr. Hyde
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1. Who is Mr. Hyde?
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Mr. Hyde is the evil side of Dr. Jekyll.
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2. Where does he live?
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Hyde lives inside Jekyll’s body.
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3. Is Mr. Hyde ever good?
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No, Mr. Hyde is never good.
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4. What do you think of Mr. Hyde so far?
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I think Mr. Hyde is bad and dangerous. He is going to hurt Dr. Jekyll and other people, I think.