As a middle school language arts teacher, trying to keep students engaged in longer reading assignments has become increasingly difficult and even more so since COVID has changed the way we have taught. My students spent an entire year online learning before returning last spring for a brief spell as hybrid learners. Returning to school this fall, it has become increasingly clear that things need to be adapted for students who are struggling to adjust back into life in the traditional classroom space while also acknowledging the different learning environments students have experienced over the last couple years. Not all students found online learning frustrating and this was something that seems to be overlooked.
One thing I have noticed was student (and staff) mental health suffered immensely for a number of people during the start of the pandemic. Students and staff in my district spent the better part of a year at home, rarely leaving their homes. Studies have shown that being inside for such extended periods of time does have a detrimental impact on mental health.3 Something that has been particularly important to me in the past year has been to get my students back outside. Typically, this has been through a sort of activity break, but I wanted the opportunity to embed activities in nature in the classroom so that my students could spend more time outdoors.
A second thing I noticed during COVID was students hadn’t been taught how to create their own academic learning space. As a part of this unit, students will be asked to consider the role place plays in their academic development and pushed to consider learning spaces beyond the classroom. Students will come with significant background knowledge from their experiences online, during hybrid learning, and from in-person instruction. To achieve this end, students will be offered the opportunity to work in the classroom as well as natural settings both on and off campus to determine how they learn best.
Furthermore, I have noticed over the last year that my students are devouring graphic novels at a pleasantly insane rate. I am surprised by how many of my middle school students are bringing in their own texts or taking out and reserving the graphic texts on the school’s digital library. I want to be able to capitalize on the students’ passion for text to increase their literacy. When I speak of literacy, I am not speaking solely about a student’s ability to understand language-rich text. I want my students to be able to engage in visual literacy as well. Graphic novels provide students with the opportunity to do both. Also, with a visually rich text, all my students are provided with the opportunity to access skills that are not always accessible in language-rich texts. Observation and graphic note-taking activities will also provide my multi-lingual students with another access point in the classroom.
Subsequently, graphic novels allow a teacher to explore multiliteracies in the classroom. As described by the New London group, multiliteracies is “the shift in the conception of literacy and literacy pedagogy from that of a page-bound practice restricted to an official … language to a critical and dynamic understanding of literacy as a multiplicity of discourses.” 4 In this definition, teachers in classrooms through the United States are asked to think of the definition of text beyond those printed and printed in English. It asks teachers to consider the intersection of words and images and the diversity of languages out there. Given the high number of developing readers in my population (both multilingual and English only learners) this is a concept of value. The intersection also increases the students critical thinking as more than one conversation is going on at once.5
What I have found in general is students have struggled with remembering literary texts without the aid of note taking. Traditionally, I have had my students take notes using a graphic organizer, but, in my rising eighth-grade class, I have several students who are artistic. I would like to explore note taking in terms of visual representations. I believe this will allow different learners the opportunity to engage in learning with their ability levels in mind.
Also, in education in general, there is an ongoing focus on test practice. For my district, that means preparing students for the Smarter Balance assessment. In the middle school curriculum, there is a brief unit on mythology and folk tales that I have wanted to expand upon and discussed above briefly with idea of intersecting cultural mythologies. I have felt that expanding this unit would be important because it would be beneficial to embed assessment-based activities into a more expansive unit without it feeling like constant test preparation. For this work, I have chosen to use Matt Dembicki’s book Trickster: Native American Tales: a Graphic Collection.
Trickster would be a lengthier book for my students, but the structure of the text makes it an easy read, which makes completion attainable. So many times, students are intimidated by texts over 150 pages; however, with a graphic novel, the relative amount of language on a page will provide students the opportunity to build confidence while also maintaining interest. While being high interest is important to me, building reading confidence is also a significant part of my educational philosophy.