52 Short Books for 11-CCR Students: TLDR and What HS Students Are Reading (and NOT)

image: from OpenClips on Pixabay

TLDR: Too Long, Didn't Read.  Scroll down if you want to skip this short read and go directly to The List.

A recently released study by Renaissance Learning finds that HS seniors read on average 5.2 books a year, down from 55.4 in grade 2 and 16.2 in grade 6.  There is also a decline in the number of words contained in the reading, from a high in grade 6 (419,121) to 304,252 in grade 12.

Wait a minute.  Do the math.  The books read by HS students must be longer.  That must explain the decline in the number of books read.

Nope. My quick study of the Top 20 lists for 6th and 12th grades provided in the report suggests that 6th graders are actually reading longer books, on average, than their HS counterparts, who are overwhelmingly reading fiction under 250 pages (must have small print). With the exception of The Hunger Games (which first appears on the grade 5 list, 810L) and another light read titled Safe Haven (830L), the longer texts read are found in the bottom (least read) 10. These include some zingers: Twilight (another light read but 544p 770L), Kite Runner (402p  840L), and Divergent (501p HL700L). Hardly a sterling list in terms of challenge.

Supporting my contention that 12th grade students are selecting books well below what they should be reading is the report's finding that the average ATOS book level (similar to the lexile scale) in grade 12 is 7.1 (one month into 7th grade).  The average ATOS in grade 6 is 5.3, which is not great, but at least it's not embarrassing.

I don't think too much should be made of this report, although it purports to be important (it's important for Renaissance Learning). How many of these titles are assigned and how many are choice independent reading?  The titles are all Accelerated Reader quizzed titles, which certainly directs choice and limits what titles are entered into the data.  The identity of the cohort is unclear; the HS students in the sample may not - probably do not - represent the full top-bottom range of student readers.

On the other hand, today's NPR post Why Aren't Teens Reading Like They Used To? reiterates the Renaissance report's finding that HS students are reading well below the level recommended by CCSS and other standards. It is possible to chalk the Renaissance report up as representative of the American public school student reading population.  OK through 5th grade in terms of fiction reading quality and quantity, but downhill from there.  Too far downhill in the 11-12 grades.

The essays which "pepper" the Renaissance report stress the importance of e-reading in today's classroom, suggesting perhaps that digital texts will spur students to read more.  I believe it is valid that e-reading is engaging and, for readers who use the tools, supportive of deeper reading. But a page-turner is a page-turner and a plod is a plod and long is long and a tool can not change that. What needs to change is access to better reading choices.

If we want our HS students to read more than 5.2 fiction titles a year (I am not mentioning nonfiction because the report finds it amounts to no more than 15% of their reading, despite recommendations to the contrary), we need to consider the fact that, in their/our culture of e-communication and e-research, TLDR (Too Long Didn't Read) is a message HS students send out every day.  By not reading.  By selecting short rather than longer titles.  By selecting easy reads with ATOS reading level 5-6.

This is not helping/challenging/growing our students.  What we need to offer HS students are high quality, high challenge, high engagement short books.

I have spent some time with lexile.com and with good lists over the last few days.  It is possible to mine the classics and good contemporary fiction for excellent short books.  Alas, many of these probably are not in the Accelerated Reader quiz bank.  You may not have read or heard of many of them.  But it's high time HS readers were encouraged to make better reading choices, so gather up as many of these titles as you can.

My arbitrary short book cutoff is 250 pages.  Where possible, lengths are from lexile.com. Amazon.com is the backup.

Here is my list of 52 short fiction books (and one or two nonfiction titles) for 11-12 grade readers, generated by mining lexile.com (for pages and lexile ranges) and other lists.  They are in lexile order, something a bit questionable, but at least this is a consistent measure in line with Common Core standards. More about that later. Only two titles have been carried over from the Renaissance report's grade 12 top 10.  It adds up to one book a week for a year.

Note: We can not really rely on lexiles to determine suitability and challenge. Examples: most of Gary Paulsen measures well over 1100L and ditto with the best of Zindel (e.g. The Undertaker's Gone Bananas measures 1050). Both novelists are great for MS, but with only a few exceptions are not suitable for HS. Ray Bradbury and Steinbeck, on the other hand, score much lower on the lexile scale than this reader would expect and are suitably complex for HS. Of Mice and Men belongs on this list, but since it is often read in grade 9 or 10 anyway, I have omitted it.

Moreover, many non-Western titles and short story collections have not been lexiled. Surprise! My list is more multicultural than most lists.

The Common Core, by the way, has realigned lexile bands with grade levels to make "stretch" reading the norm. Only the last 2 books on my list fall within the 11-CCR band.  That's absurd. A book does not have to have a lexile over 1200 in order to be great or to be an intellectual challenge for a 16 year old. I stand by all of these short books for 11-CCR.

The List, in lexile order (do you notice a pattern in the titles not lexiled?):

1. Day of Tears: A Novel in Dialogue - Lester - not lexiled
2. I See You - Shukri - not lexiled (fictional contemporary African country) - a Best Book of 2014, Africa is a Country
3. Every Day is for the Thief - Cole - not lexiled - selected for many Best of 2014 lists (Nigeria)
4. Citizen: An American Lyric - Rankine - not lexiled - America Book Award 2014 shortlist - poems and short pieces
5. The Thunder that Roars - Garda - not lexiled (South Africa, Muslim)
6. How to Escape from a Leper Colony (stories) - Yanique - not lexiled 
7. The Strange Library - Murakami - not lexiled
8. The Dead Lake - Ismailov - not lexiled (trans. from Russian)
9. Family Life - Sharma - not lexiled - India/America - Named one of the Ten Best Books of 2014 by the New York Times Book Review and New York Magazine
10. Things We Found During the Autopsy - Manickavel - not lexiled - South Indian short fiction - a Best Book of 2014, Africa is a Country
11. Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood - Satrapi GN380 (Iran) or American Born Chinese - Yang GN580
12. The Metamorphosis - Kafka 670 or The Room - Karlsson - not lexiled - find a great short film of the Kafka here.
13. When the Emperor Was Devine - Otsuka  810
14. Snow Country - Kawabata 820
15. Drown - Diaz 830 (stories, Dominican Republic immigrants)
16. If I Die in a Combat Zone: Box Me Up and Ship Me Home - O'Brien  830 or How To Slowly Kill Yourself and Others in America - Laymon - non-lexiled (NF)
17. Slaughterhouse-Five - Vonnegut 850
18. Things Fall Apart - Achebe 890
19. Ceremony - Silko 890  (Laguna Pueblo)
20. Grendel - Gardner 920
21. The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith - Keneally - 920
22. The Thing Around Your Neck (stories) - Adichie  920 (estimated) (Africa and United States)
23. Montana 1948 - Watson 940
24. Life and Times of Michael K: A Novel - Coetzee 940
25. The Bluest Eye - Morrison 960
26. July's People - Gordimer 970
27. Being There - Kosinski - 980
28. Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids - Oe 1000
29. Nothing - Teller 1000
30. The Pearl - Steinbeck 1010
31. Snapshots: 20th Century Mother-Daughter Fiction - Oates, ed 1020
32. The Secret Agent - Conrad 1030
33. Frankenstein - Shelly  1040 
34. The First Fast Draw - L'Amour 1040
35. Interpreter of Maladies (stories) - Lahiri 1050 (India, United States)
36. The Heart of Darkness - Conrad 1050
37. The Crying of Lot 49 - Pynchon 1060
38. The Great Gatsby - Fitzgerald 1070
39. The Time Machine - Wells 1070
40. Bridge of San Luis Rey - Wilder 1080 (or perhaps The Scatter Here is Too Great - Tanweer, set in Karachi - not lexiled)
41. The Bad Seed - March 1100
42. The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie - Spark 1120
43. Picnic at Hanging Rock - Lindsay 1140
44. The Bridges of Toko-Ri - Michener 1140
45. My Life in Dog Years - Paulsen 1150  (NF)
46. Animal Farm - Orwell 1170
47. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Haddon 1180
48. Hiroshima - Hersey  1190
49. Ransom - Malouf 1200 (estimated lexile)
50. Forrest Gump - Groom  1210
51. Eighteen Best Short Stories by Edgar Allan Poe - Poe 1220
52. Chronicle of a Death Foretold - Marquez 1270

It goes without saying that most of these books will require more effort to read than The Hunger Games trilogy. That effort is one of the reasons that readers find Animal Farm, Of Mice and Men and Gatsby turn-offs and Percy Jackson so captivating, and it is probably the real motivation behind TLDR. Educators can give in to this, or they can combat it with titles like those above. One approach builds lists of easy, long, page-turners; the other approach builds better and better-educated readers. Your choice.

This is, of course, just one solution to our national non-reading dilemma. There are others:

• If you really want students to be stretched, assign books and articles about fiction and authors.  That's the best place for students to meet those higher lexile texts.  Some might find these essays lead them to great novels.
• Allow/encourage your students to read multi-culturally and diversely.
• Celebrate the humanities as well as STEM.
• Write and read.  Introduce students to living writers and their works.
• Encourage collaborative reading in 11-12 grades.  What?  This means groups encouraged to read like a book club reads.  
• Invest in great audio books for your students. Time well spent.
• PBL: Oral histories of the reading memories of parents and seniors; Twitter reading selfies and campaigns.

Want to add a book or an idea?  Write a comment or email me directly.

Mashing Up Literature: rap, fairy tales, graphic novels, quirks

A literate mashup of a literary classic is not the same as a condensed, "retold" or rewritten version.  To be read in my classroom, a mashup must maintain the core integrity of the original in terms of plot, character, narration (although this may change from the original) and complexity.  It must also add something new to the original that, because of the creative and interpretive nature of the mashup genre, makes the original text more approachable.  A remix is meant to be read with the original.  Students unable to read the original in total should read selections supplemented by the remix.  A brief introduction to some takes on the literature remix can be found at do.the.mash(MASHUP).

Every once in a while there is a new mashup, remix, or cover of classic literature that deserves a place in the classroom. Right now the rap remix has resurfaced in a terrific online collection by Canadian Baba Brinkman.  Brinkman performs remixes of The Canterbury Tales and other classic titles. The Pardoners Tale and the General Prologue can be downloaded. His Beowulf remix is also available online (free to listen online - or download for "name your own price!").  Here is a selection from the latter.  I have chosen the final lines because I like his ending - it will resonate with literature purists, like myself, but also with students. 

If you want to know her actual facial features
Just go ask your twelfth-grade teachers,
Or your college professors – they’re like the last gate-keepers
On tradition – or read Seamus Heaney’s version
His verse is amazing!
But any pop-culture interpretation
Is subject to virtually unlimited changes
‘Cause if you try to please the Tourists
Well, the Purists get Tourette’s and curse you
But then if you try to do the reverse
Well, the Tourists are known for their lack of endurance
So who do I try to please first?
Myself, and it usually works!
So instead of judging like jurists
Just sit back and enjoy the experience
And I’ll go back to the story... actually
You know what? Forget it – I’d rather just leave it
If you really wanna know how it ends
Well then I guess you’d better just read it!

That’s right
Go read it
Seamus Heaney
Norton Publishing
Get the dual language edition
Read the introduction too
Super informative
C’mon ladies and gentleman
You can’t listen to rap music to get an education
That’s insane!
This is entertainment only
You have to go read!
Go read! Go read!
Go reeaaad!!!
(Beowulf remix from Canterbury Tales Remixed)

Another great text is Brinkman's Gilgamesh remix, which ends:
If immortality exists, ladies and gentlemen
Well then I guess, you’re listening to it
(Baba Brinkman's The Canterbury Tales Remixed )

Amen.

Here are three more text-based subsets of the literary mashup genre:

1. Literately remixed fairy tales exist in many forms, from opera to picture book to Broadway to adult novel.  The best resource remains SurLaLune.  If you have not already done so, give one of these YA titles a look:

• Datlow's story collection A Wolf at the Door (an Amazon bargain at $.01)
• Yolen's Briar Rose
• Napoli's The Magic Circle
• Gidwitz's A Tale Dark and Grimm 

2. Classics remixed - often more accurately covered - as graphic novels can be iffy, but for most mixed-ability pubic school classes they will support and spur on the reading of difficult texts.  Here is a grab-bag of titles for which literate graphic novels exist:

• Beowulf
• The Odyssey
• Fahrenheit 451 (also Bradbury short stories)
• Frankenstein
• Alice in Wonderland
• The Call of the Wild
• Romeo and Juliette
• Macbeth
• Great Expectations
• Jane Eyre
• Sherlock Holmes (multiple titles)

3. "Quirk Classics" are surfacing as a new genre, new at least to the world of text (a variation has existed in the film and TV worlds for some time).  These novels "poke fun" at classics by adding new, faddish elements, notably vampires and zombies.  Find a list on Wikipedia.  Warning: probably most titles are not for middle school or conservative readers!  One of my favs not on this list is Pat the Zombie.  Another amusing title is the Lampoon's Hunger Pains.

Students have been challenged to create mashups for years as summative assignments.  I have never been overly pleased with the results, based as they often are on shallow readings.  This is no replacement for an essay or iEssay.  On the other hand, remixing Shakespeare into contemporary language, even into text or chat conversations, can be a valuable assessment of student understanding (or at least translation) of character, motive, meaning, and plotline.  What is often lost is the literary-ness - richness of language in particular.  If richness of language is not to be part of the mashup, another richness (visual, nuanced, symbolic, humorous, ironic) must take its place.  See Shaking Up Shakespeare for one teacher's response to this challenge.

Zombies + Literacy

Essential Questions:

• Why are zombies compelling?
• Can ELA teachers afford to ignore a national trend?

Zombies Vs. Literacy?  Yes, the app exists - an early reading iPhone app for kids as young as 1 year.  Read about it at the App Store. I bought it - not very good, but a sound introduction to the alphabet (letters and sounds), phonic blends (and therefore rhyme), and sight words.  My 2-year old Millie loves it. BabyBinks is a developer that I have recommended, by the way.  What do they know that I am just discovering?  Zombies are trending!

Just for fun, search Amazon Children's Books for "zombies" and sort by date.  There are 368 hits, about 2/3 of them dated after 2010.  In the Books search, there are over 9,000 hits and 2011 does not appear until p.9. 

The Update [11/23/13] - Read about Zombie [tech] Ideas at Hack Education and learn about Zombie Politics with Bill Moyers.

[4/17/14 - still trending] - The Pentagon has released a zombie apocalypse defense plan. Read about it at CNN and follow a link to actual plan.  Tongue in cheek, certainly, but definitely piggy-backing on a trend.

The Rationale: Zombies have even invaded PowerPoint. Above is a screenshot from a post by Bill Ferriter - The Tempered Radical - Five Tips for Creating Powerpoint Slides...   I like his ideas, and I follow this blog.  But I was temporarily stunned by the argument made for the power of the zombie image, which to me is repulsive:

• "Let's be honest: Audiences in today's hyper-connected, always on world have seriously fractured attention spans, y'all."

The zombie image is a grabber. Whether visually presented or stereotypically drawn in words (bleeding, blood-thirsty, brain-eating, sexless, distorted, cannibalistic, dulled to intelligent thought), it is nightmarish but mesmerizing.

So we have preK at one end of the zombie spectrum and adults (teachers) at the other.  It seems that we like to like zombies.  We like the idea of confronting the living dead. 

It turns out that this may be scientifically accurate.  Read Christina Robertson's  Why Do We Like to be 'Scared to Death' and Science Daily's Why Do People Like Horror Movies? for intelligent, if short (good for the classroom), discussions of the questions.

On the other hand, I am distressed by this summative statement from Robertson's post: "There are many ways we may choose “non-being” in our lives – by not being aware of what we think and what we are choosing, by making inauthentic decisions, by not determining our values, by following the values of others, the list is endless.  Actions leading to non-being lack authenticity and responsibility."  Psychologically, non-being is an attractive choice.  This sounds very much like the YA worldview.  One way that teachers can confront distress is to teach it - then the students help with the therapy.  We do, after all, read about a lot of distressing topics: bullying, dysfunctional families, the end of life as we know it, abuse, self-abuse, gangs, desertion, war, murder - to name a few.  Why not zombies?

So my question is this: Why are zombies an appealing choice?  Is it:

1. because students can brainlessly interact with them (read about them, play with them, view them, laugh at them) while still feeling alive (afraid, powerful, superior, surprised, funny),  or
2. because students instinctively identify with the concept of "non-being" and its correlatives: freedom to behave outside of the accepted moral code, and to do so without the hindrance of conscience or fear of death or physical pain, or
3. because we can not help but grapple with the questions: What does it mean to be HUMAN? or
4. because zombies are ugly, gawky, socially awkward, easily targeted, and - basically - victims?
5. because zombies reflect cultural fears, appearing during those historical periods that we feel most out of control and fearful, or
6. because of something else that students themselves can explain and define?

#2 - #6 are interesting answers for the classroom, raising zombie literacy into the realm of honest study.  Conveniently, #1 is also true, making that study attractive to kids.  So I think they deserve a PBL unit, or at least a lit circle, of their own.

The Resources: What materials are available to the literacy teacher using zombies to frame a unit?   I am assuming that this study would begin in the late middle grades, although that may be a false assumption, given the growing number of apps and visual texts with zombie content.  I personally would set the bar at 8th grade, but you have to know your class.

Fiction

• The Forest of Hands and Teeth (Ryan - ) - I did not read the remaining books in the series, having found this book very uneven, but many YA girls love it - interesting
• The Undead: Zombie Anthology (stories, ed. by Snell) - many of the contemporary zombie novelists are represented - great for comparative study (plots, themes, symbols, characterization)
• Zombies! Zombies! Zombies! (stories ed. Penzler) - a collection of classic stories, some of which are the backbone of the genre
• Book of the Dead (stories ed. Skipp) - also a Book of the Dead 2 - recommended as the best 20th century collections
• Zombie Mommy (M.T. Anderson) - Pals in Peril series - for the 3rd - 5th crowd, by the award winning author of Feed, Octavian Nothing and other great books
• Not Everything Brainless is Dead (Joshua Price) - 1st book in new series, exclusively for Kindle - MS will like it best
• Day by Day Armageddon (Bourne) - journal format, making a neat twin for Brooks' World War Z and I Am Legend (film)
• World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie Wars (Brooks) - chillingly matter-of-fact narration with a hint of 19th century voice - an upcoming classic in the genre
• The Terminal Experiment (Sawyer) - Nebula winning SF deals with electronic zombies
• Boneshaker (Priest) - steampunk meets zombies
• Never Slow Dance with a Zombie (Van Lowe) - chicklit meets zombies
• You Are So Undead to Me (Jay) - young YA, easier - cheerleader zombie slayer
• Night of the Living Dead (Andrews) - novelization of the classic film
• I Am Legend (Matheson) - re-release of 1954 novel set in 1976 - also film and graphic novel - also a Kindle ebook summary and study guide
• The Jumbee (Keyes) - zombie theme add suspense to this young-girl-falls-for-mysterious-guy-on-tropical-island tale
• Cell (King) - nice for today's kids
• Eaters of the Dead (Crichton) - classic - he does not specify zombies, but it is close - this is a great read

Children's Books - many of the newer titles use the zombie theme to "spoof" classic titles - some of these will be warm reminders of childhood - these provide great ideas for student authentic projects

• Pat the Zombie, a Cruel Adult Spoof (Ximm) - don't go here as a parent or kid, but as a teacher I would show the book to grades 7+
• That's Not Your Mommy Anymore: a Zombie Tale (Mogk) - may be the hottest new title
• Zachary Zombie and the Lost Boy, a Story for Demented Children (John H. Carroll) - free for Kindle and part of a series currently numbering 7 - clever!
• Diary of a Zombie Kid GN (Perry) - yes, it's illustrated
• Goosebumps Hall of Horrors #4 - Why I Quit Zombie School (R.L. Stine) 
• Zombie Tag (Moskowitz)
• Zombie in Love (DiPucchio) - picture book, early reader
• Ten Little Zombies - a Love Story (Rash) - you know the rhyme - zombified
• Z is for Zombie (Kutner) - not your everyday alphabet book
• Baby Bubba Wants a New Mommy (Crenshaw and Ballard) - read this one online
• Nobody Wants to Play With Zombie Jesus (Preble) - Kindle eBook for $.99 - yes, it is offensive

 

Graphic Novels and Comics - The visual art in these can be compared to the impact of word descriptions in the above - find any humor here?  why not? 

• The Walking Dead (Kirkman), Dead Rising - for the shoot-em game players - series - sold (read online or  download for iPad) at ComiXology - not for MS
• Shaun of the Dead (IDW Publishing) - comic book - 4 issues
• Night of the Living Dead TP (Russo) - prequel to the film! new characters and plot additions - there is also a Vol. 2, which introduces some contemporary plot elements
• Richard Matheson's I am Legend (graphic novel) (Niles) - from the novel and film
• The Zombie Survival Guide: Recorded Attacks (Brooks) - pair with World War Z - premise is that throughout history the zombies have been active
• Zombies (Cole et.al) - gathering of great zombie comics - 2012 release
• Remains - zombie attack comic/graphic novel - sold (read online or download for iPad) at ComiXology
• They Do Not Die! (Brown) - undead at 18 in rural Alabama - girl teen protagonist
• Infestation series (IDW) - zombie events affect the worlds of comic classics Ghostbusters, GI Joe, Star Trek, and others in this cross-over digital comic series sold (read online or download for iPad) at ComiXology
• Many more titles can be found by searching ComiXology for "zombies"

Poetry

• Little Book of Zombie Poems (Beckett) - download .pdf file - these will appeal to struggling poets
• Aim for the Head: An Anthology of Zombie Poetry (ed. Peterson)
• Magnetic Poetry Kit: Zombie (Amazon) - how cool is that for the creative classroom!
• Zombie Haiku: Good Poetry for Your...Brains (Mecum) - real cheap used from Amazon - these will appeal to YA, but also are quite imagistic: 

Biting into heads

is much harder than it looks.

The skull is feisty.

Drama & Scripts- not recommending these for quality, but I have skimmed them all - offered as models and for reading in class, but students can also comment on the scripts at Simply Scripts

• Zombie Wedding - purchase and download e-script
• Zombie Playground - .pdf download
• Alone - .pdf download 
• Apocalyptic - .pdf download - alien zombie invasion
• Axing the Zombie - .pdf download - comedy short
• Dead and Gone - .pdf download - classic survive after deadly virus short
• Dispatch - .pdf download - short 9-1-1 thriller
• 28 Days Till the Return of the Night of the Evil Dead Residents - read online

Film, TV, media - also check out wikipedia's list of Zombie films

• Night of the Living Dead (Romero, 1968 - DVD) - classic film that kicked off my own study - my middle schooler's just barely made it through this one
• Carnival of Souls - see a trailer here
• The Living Skeleton
• Abraham Lincoln vs. Zombies (2012 NR, Netflix) - how can your resist?
• Shaun of the Dead (DVD) - Rated R - but out-cuts would be excellent
• I am Legend (2007 - PG 13 - DVD) - based on I am Legend novel - zombies are more like vampires here
• Omega Man (1971 - PG - 1971) - based on I am Legend novel - quasi-zombie-vampires here
• The Last Man on Earth (1964 - DVD) - based on I am Legend novel - unrated
• The Walking Dead (TV series on DVD)
• The Returned (French with subtitles, Sundance Channel TV, 8-part series) - Netflix
• Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things (Ormsby, 1972 - DVD - PG) - somewhat humorous
• The Ghost Breakers (1940 - DVD) - Bob Hope comedy!  or Scared Stiff (1953) - Martin & Lewis remake
• Michael Jackson's Thriller (YouTube)
• We're Alive - the Zombie Podcast - best downloaded - episodes listed here - reviewed here
• Super 8 (2011 - DVD) - kids set out to make a zombie film, but run into something else entirely

Creative non-Fiction - Informational text - Humor

• So Now You're a Zombie: A Handbook for the Newly Undead (Austin) - basically a survival guide, but also background info on zombies - humorous
• Zombies (Graphic Dark Side) (Shone) - graphic format "investigation" of zombies
• The Zombie Survival Guide (Brooks) - tongue in cheek and also great reading - challenge your guys to get the sarcasm and humor, and of course off up some straight survival guides
• Zombie Types - web page guide - nice model for a similar student compilation
• A History of Zombies in America - this one is straight - use it for background - readable as is
• Fact or Fiction? (information literacy - main idea - compare/contrast) - these are just some suggestions:
• Zombie Attack at Hierakonpolis
• Did Zombies Roam Medieval Ireland?
• Top Three Zombie Outbreaks in US History
• How To Survive a Zombie Apocalypse

Social Networking - Collaboration

• Lost Zombies - building a collective library of images and stories - student project? - you decide 
• Zombie Research Society - you decide - check out the blog
• Z-Composition - students can submit poetry, art, flash fiction and other fiction to this new e-zine
• Zombie Nation - another place for submissions: haiku, short video, comics, more - great ideas for projects
• Kill the Zombies - submit reviews and comments after playing
• Simply Scripts - students can read zombie screen play scripts, comment on them, and submit their own

Simulation/Games/Apps - as of Thanksgiving (a fitting time for this search) there are 2199 apps found in an iStore search for "zombie" and my own 6 year-old grandson will only play Plants vs. Zombies on the iPad, which is his first game app ever

• Operation: Eradicate - ($1.99 app) - tactical game for the serious gamer in which assault teams work together and independently to stop - you got it - the zombie invasion
• Zombie Virus Survival (free app) - avoid the incoming green virus
• The Running Dead - free app - PacMan in zombieland?
• Zombie Life - free app in the Sims tradition (problem-solving), but to advance you need to purchase gems and gold ($.99 and up) - "fantasy violence" but also problem-solving
• Zombie Lane - free app and also a web app - competitive social game-play, so this has a creative-thinking element - to advance you need to purchase cash ($.99 and up) - "fantasy violence"
• Zombies vs Ninja - free app - player takes on role of ninja killing zombies, so this is a point of view exercise too - to advance you need to purchase weapons ($.99 and up) - "fantasy violence"
• Zombie Wonderland and Zombie Wonderland 2 - inventive fun destroying and mopping up zombies - app
• Farm Destroy: Alien Zombie Attack - free strategy 3D game app - destroy a farm full of zombie animals - no in-app purchases necessary
• My Pet Zombie - free app - like NeoPets, these zombies can be dressed, designed, fed, etc. - for the elementary school crowd (no reading necessary) - lots of cool stuff to buy for them 
• Resident Evil - game series features zombies - also turned into an easily read novel series, by the way (Perry)
• Kill the Zombies - on-line game play - many options
• The Endless Zombie Rampage - social gaming - "enjoy the carnage"
• Play Zombie Games - I like the very simple Bounzy game, which uses simply physics to eliminate zombies - the Angry Birds of zombies

Activities - Aside from those suggested by the games, apps, children's books, and media above, you might involve students in: 

• A Zombie 5K fund-raising run - Not kidding! - to support a health-related cause - read about the real runs
• A comparative read of a different apocalypse novel (or film viewing) - there are tons: vampires, ice age, comet crashes, moon going off course, alien invasion, plague, unknown mysterious events causing the death of all adults, pollution, war - easy to find a read for every student
• a spoof - a spoof of a spoof is always good fun

So there you are - Zombies + Literacy = Engagement.  It's a no-brainer : ).  

iPoems & Other Flash Fictions

I just posted to U & D, my Wabanaki studies blog, an announcement of new works by two of my favorite Native authors, Joseph Bruchac and Sherman Alexie.  If you are at all interested in contemporary Native American literary works, please check out Alexie and Bruchac: New Texts.

As a result of writing that post, I learned that an iPoem is a format created by Narrative online magazine.  The guidelines are interesting - this is a format for the digital age. Take a minute to read the five examples provided.  My initial supposition that this was an "about me poem" could not have been more naive (and less native).  Cool that Sherman Alexie got it all! 

While I am at it, let me remind you of other interesting short formats that attract today's students:

• the iStory, like the iPoem, can be easily viewed on an iPhone screen.  Narrative specifies that an iStory be "a short, dramatic narrative, fiction or nonfiction, up to 150 words long" (Guidelines).  I first met this form, a subset of flash fiction/sudden fiction/microfiction, at Wondermark, where it took the form of The Machine of Death.  Although I would not share that book with middle school students, I might share it with high schoolers.  Or I would make up my own constraint for submissions.  A contest has been entered, for example, or a text message has been received...  It is fun also to set your own word count: exactly 150 words is a problem-solving activity!  50 words is another commonly found limit.  There are book length collections of short-short fiction, but students really do not need too many examples.  This seems to me to be a great use of blogs or wikis for posting and commenting.  
• the six-word story is a somewhat of a classic story form.  Hemingway has perhaps the most famous, but many literary authors have penned one.  There are collections online to serve as student models (Six Word Stories, Wired archive - edit this one! ).  Daniel Pink has written a column about it, suggesting that this format can expand the mind, or at least that it is a 21st Century format.  Here is a lesson plan suggestion that ties the form to informational text/video text.
• a story in emails [alt. version: a story in texts] is a fun format found at times in The New Yorker. Short and sweet, fitting on 1- 2 pages, 2 columns, it tells a story entirely from emails written by a character in the story.  I love this recent example, "Dear Mountain Room Parents" by Maria Semple.  I think back to my "postcards from the novel" project and regret that I did not have students display their postcards (6 in all) as a collection, rather than randomly.  What a great way to retell a story while at the same time conveying comprehension of character and theme. 
• and on the topic of The New Yorker, it is always fun to stir imaginations by taking the caption off of a great "story cartoon" - create your own contest.  The below cartoon, from the Oct. 24 magazine, would be great for this project.  Think of the tasks you can embed in this activity: establish reference/allusion, define the irony, identify setting, narrator, establish mood.  This is a great mini-lesson in many literary terms (get that out of the way early in the year...). Students can, of course, also be challenged to tell the beginning, middle, or end of the story in a flash format.  How much fun would it be to have those texted and emailed to you, to the entire class, or to an Evernote page!

The New Yorker, Oct. 24, 2011

i-Documentary and i-Journalism

DVD cover

Nigel Marvin is the star of ITV's short-lived but long-remembered and well-preserved mockumentary mini-series, Prehistoric Park.  In the series, the intrepid Nigel speaks directly to the camera from back in time, where he has gone to capture prehistoric creatures and corral them in 21st Century.  His every move, and every fact that he knows related to the adventure at hand, is chronicled by a combination of "live action" camera and his present tense commentary.  A 3rd element is provided by voice-over narration, which moves omnisciently between past and present tense as the story timeline unfolds.

It is a powerful combination!  I have often wondered why our digital classrooms do not make use of this technique for informational projects.  Most students are natural hams; all students "see" the story they have researched along with learning its facts; in connecting to historical events and people, students move fluidly back and forth along a timeline which only partly includes themselves.  The i-Documentary is a powerful tool for learning, K-12.  Why is it so powerful?

• research must be accurate and deep, or there is no content, no detail, to flush out the video and commentary - Nigel and the narrator must be credible and omniscient
• it is fun - fun to make, fun to watch - and that makes for learning. There is something inherently comic about a student acted documentary, but also much underlying seriousness as students strive earnestly to convey their learning
• it is personal and persuasive - in controlling the angles, lighting, framing, setting, etc., the student director is creating mood, tone - he is not just reporting, he is making a commentary about his topic
• it uses tense to create tension, voice-over and dialogue to control pace and tone.  

This is good literacy practice and craft. The same four points can rarely be made about a middle or high school informational essay.

Graphical i-Journalism

Gregg Cook - "What we so quietly saw"

Nigel's tools are so good and so powerful, in fact, that serious journalists have adapted them into a graphic format that some call nonfiction picto-essays.  Others call it comics.  For some critics and creators, it is graphic novel.  I call i-Journalism, a subset of creative nonfiction.  By upgrading the name, the teacher can focus students on seriousness of purpose.  The best examples of this format use graphic arts - cartoon and comic - tools to retell and comment upon a personal or a serious event, or to make a social or cultural observation.  In a sense, they are the literal representation of the movies that run "in the head" of good readers of informational text.  Think of it this way: characters (real people) "speak in quotes" but also in facial expressions, actions, body language, dress, relationship to setting, proximity to objects and to other people.  These are the stuff of graphics.

Good journalistic creative nonfiction is based in the true and actual.  But it uses personalization, narrative, and a storytelling style in place of a dry, reportorial style.  I would recommend offering students some samples of contemporary creative nonfiction journalism along with i-Journalism texts.  Sources should be contemporary journals: New Yorker, Harpers, Sports Illustrated, Slate, and the fan mags that should be found in your school library. 

Students can, and should, read great examples of i-Journalism, with the caveat that the texts are personal and persuasive.  In this, they are more literary than journalistic.  They deserve to be examined not just for factual/historical references, but for their print and visual literacy.  Questions such as "What is the message?" and "How is this message developed?" must be asked. Students should attend to the text (tone, POV, voice, language), to speaker, to the persona of the cartoonist (who is always in the story), and to the graphic design of the panels themselves (color, angle, line, close-up, layout...).  It might be useful for students to read selections from one of David Kiersh's short Cartoon Talk commentaries.  He has interesting points to make about design elements and message.

Jarod Rosello, who uses Syncopated (see description below) as a text in teaching his writing course (syllabus), focuses students on this question: "How does this text help explain what it means to be human?"  I think that is one essential question.  Another might be: "How does this text function as a Call to Action?"

Neri - Yummy

A selection of i-Journalism titles for students - MS = not recommended for middle school

• Bloody Sunday - This picto-essay tells the story of the massacre of the Wobblies, a Pacific Northwest labor event in 1916.  Compare the graphic essay to the Wikipedia article.  It is short and free, so it makes for a good introduction to both the historical event and the iJournalism form.
• Comics and Art: a picto-essay is available for .99 from Amazon.com (Kindle edition - read using a Kindle, iPad, or other device with the free Kindle reader installed) - this is wonderful introduction to how and why the graphic format works
• World Comics India is dedicated to using comics to inspire activism in rural villages - there is an excellent strip example in Comics Journalism
• Syncopated: an anthology of nonfiction picto-essays (Amazon.com) - these short pieces range from the personalized report ("Penny Sentiments") to powerful reports on historical events ("Like hell I will" and "What we so quietly saw") and people ("West Side Improvements" - which can be the backbone of an entire HS unit when read with McCann's This Side of Brightness and Toth's The Mole People).  Please do not use "Welcome Home, Brave" - written by a non-Native, it is rife with offense even though the opposite is clearly its intention. A lukewarm review of the collection, a critical review, and a positive review might guide your selections.
• AD: New Orleans after the deluge - Neufield (Amazon) - MS - follows 6 survivors of Katrina - read the author interview on the Amazon site
• The Complete Persepolis - Satrapi (Amazon) - memoir of an Iranian girl-to-woman
• Joe Sacco is, I think, the most powerful i-Journalist today.  MS - Available from Amazon: Palestine, Footnotes in Gaza, Safe Area Goradze, The Fixer and other stories, War's End (the last 3 are a Bosnia trilogy, all the more powerful in light of recent war crimes trials and reportage) - Journalism contains shorter pieces from the last 10 years
• Guy Delisle's work is more like cultural commentary.  Available from Amazon: Pyongang: a journey in North Korea and Burma Chronicles. 
• Deogratias: a tale of Rwanda - Stassen (Amazon) - MS (?) - the story of the Darfur genocide, which will be powerful if read, as I experienced it, with a viewing of Raindrops over Rwanda.
• Yummy: the last days of a southside shorty - Neri (Amazon) - based on a true story of a Chicago youth's life and death, this would be a great pairing with Monster or other work by Walter Dean Myers, including his memoir Bad Boy. 
• The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam - Fleming (Amazon) - an i-Journalism memoir of a Chinese immigrant who led a fascinating life that reflected the culture in which he lived - one of my favorites
• A Secret History of Coffee, Coca & Cola - Cortes (Amazon) - exposé history of how Coke began and continues
• We are on our own - Katin (Amazon) - another memoir, this one of escape from the Nazis, nice because it is by a woman author - obvious pairing with Once, Milkweed, Upstairs Room, Book Thief, Maus and other Holocaust titles
• Waltz with Bashir: a Lebanon war story - Folman (Amazon) - MS (?) - Israeli - Lebanon war - this story has also been told by the author in an "animated documentary" film of the same title (Amazon), begging comparison

and more - The American Library Association gives a prize to Great Graphic Novels for Teens, which includes a nonfiction category.  Although most of these are not what I would call i-Journalism, a few are.  The current list (2012 nominations) includes i-journalism on Sacco and Vanzetti and Israel.  Previous lists include Yummy (gangs), Gettysburg, Trotsky, and more.

Next steps for teachers:

• Find out what texts are in your library, classrooms and resource rooms.  Build a collection! 
• Think of a way to embed the collection in your curriculum. 
• Urge students to create "photo essays" or "graphic essays" of a journalistic nature.  Smart phones and flip cameras are perfect tools for this.  ComicLife is a perfect fit.  Upload to YouTube - Teacher.  
• Announce your student work to EC Ning and, of course, to your parent community.

International Texts: A Compelling Unit

source

[Look for additional titles on the Graphic Novels for MS/HS page to the right,  in this annotated list from George Ramos, Books for Expanding Global Understanding, and in SLJ's newly updated An Expanded Cultural Diversity Booklist.]

Janice Murphy, a highly qualified, highly successful, and highly regarded teacher at Freeport Middle School, has shared with me a reading workshop unit comprised of texts - fiction and memoir - from an international palette.

There is no doubt that we are living in a global world, one that challenges educators to open student eyes, as appropriate, to life beyond the bounds of a zip code.  This means, more often than not, exploring cultural, social and political realities (and/or histories) not discussed or explored in the traditional curriculum.

Janice's unit is particularly powerful for middle school (she teaches grade 8) because at its core are adolescent issues: fairness, power, identity and "place," equality (social, gender, class), and the voice of the individual within his or her culture and world.  Instead of focusing the reading on culture, history, etc., or asking endless comprehension questions, she personalizes the reading experience.  Her Essential Question is: How do the situations or events in memoirs, autobiography, prose or historical fiction have relevance in my life? 

This question is a powerful one.  Moving from text to self is at the core of reading. [2014 disclaimer: yes, I know that now, in the CCSS world, this is no longer to be encouraged].

As designed by Janice, this is a collaborative unit.  Students read in groups - some as small as two - from a list of titles that have been purchased in multiple.  There is choice.  This year, the majority of the choices were not read.  This is to be expected in some classes, especially when insecurity about reading and heightened social awareness are the rule. Nonetheless, the larger the range of choices, the more chance there is that you will find a good fit for every student.  You may also find, as I often did, that good choices and good discussions lead students to make a 2nd choice - and even a 3rd.

Janice used two straightforward organizers to focus discussion of the texts: Collaborative Homework Questions and Critical Thinking Map, both from ReadWriteThink.  In combination, they direct discussion and serve also to give the teacher a quick assessment of how individual reading is going. 

Beyond that, I don't know the details of Janice's adventure. Aside from the fact that it worked. She shared several stories of students who read, for the first time, in a new zone.  One boy discovered a voice to talk about his own culture.  High readers asked for even more challenges. Some self-professed non-reading boys connected to the realistic nature of the genre. 

You will find at the bottom of this post reading choices for upper MS and HS. More ideas welcome!  The list does not contain Holocaust fiction and (generally) non-fiction; great lists are available online elsewhere.

Here are some ideas for Quest level activities (to continue the gaming metaphor I began in the previous post):

• view and discuss, as a class, Adichie's wonderful TED talk, The Danger of a Single Story
• culture/nation/news/history research (including fact-checking from text) - wiki - perhaps an edu.Glogster.com poster for the wall 
• tier 3 vocabulary lists from text - student selected - word walls (would need to contain images)
• video and audio files, images, artifacts - edu.Glogster posters or Prezi
• author research - wiki (same as other research)
• character study map or Prezi - the powerless protagonist (growth or change?)
• text passage selection - wiki - I would organize it by the Homework Questions topics - this can be huge in developing the Boss level project
• creative writing assignments: RAFT pieces, audio recordings, POV pieces - this can be sustained as one character throughout the unit or change with reading assignments (depends on the book - students should decide)

At the Boss level, Janice is using the Social Issues discussions to have students develop essay responses to the reading.  That is perfect for her personalized Essential Question and it allows her students to develop personal statements in the introduction and conclusion.  Very fine twist on the 5-paragraph essay.

If you wanted to use a more global question rather than the personal question, you might ask students to prepare a persuasive, issue-based presentation for a global roundtable (simulated UN) on the question of ....   Groups could then use a tool like TitanPad to write and refine an actual position paper.  In classes where I have used this approach, we had sit-ins, signage, graffiti (chalk), and lots of demonstration around the key points of discussion.

Who says ELA is boring and disconnected?

Reading list:  (lexiles given where available) - MS = not recommended for middle school

• Angel de la Luna and the 5th Glorious Mystery - Galang - Philippines
• Bamboo People - Perkins - Burma - 680
• Before We Were Free - Alvarez - Dominican Republic - 890
• Behind the Beautiful Forevers - Boo - Mumbai, India - 1030 - nonfiction - MS
• The Bite of the Mango - Kamara - Africa - Sierra Leone - 800 - MS
• Bless Me, Ultima - Anaya - Chicano - 840
• Boxers and Saints - Yang - China - graphic novel
• Burma Chronicles - Delisle - Burma - graphic novel - MS
• The Breadwinner - Ellis - Afghanistan - 630 - also Parvana's Journey (640) and Mud City (740)
• Breaking Stalin's Nose - Yelchin - 670 - Stalin's Russia - graphic illustrations - Newberry
• The Bride Price - Emecheta - Nigeria - 1060 (retold at 610 for MS)
• The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao - Diaz - Dominican Republic - 1010 - MS
• Chinese Cinderella - Mah - China, autobiographical - 960 - or the author's autobiographical Falling Leaves - 950
• Claire of the Sea Light - Danticat - Haiti - MS
• The Clay Marble - Minfong Ho - Cambodia - 860
• Colibri - Cameron - Guatemala - 730
• Collected Stories - Marquez - Columbia - MS
• Cuba 15 - Osa - Cuban immigrants - 750
• The Death of Vishnu - Suri - India
• The Disappeared - Whelan - Argentina - 780
• Exit Wounds - Modan - Israel - graphic novel - MS
• The Farming of Bones - Danticat - Dominican Republic (Trujillo) & Haiti - MS
• First They Killed My Father: A Daughter of Cambodia Remembers (P.S.) - Loung Ung - Cambodia - memoir - 920 - MS
• God Grew Tired of Us - Dau - Sudan and US memoir - pair with Lost Boy, Lost Girl
• The Grand Plan to Fix Everything - Krishnaswami - India - 770
• A Hand Full of Stars - Schami - Syria - 810
• Haveli - Staples - Pakistan - 1030
• Heart of a Samurai - Preus - Japan (and US) - 760
• Haroun and the Sea of Stories - Rushdie - 940 - India
• Homeless Bird - Whelan - India - 800
• Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet - Ford - Japanese American-WW2 - 730
• The House of the Spirits - Allende - Chile - 1280 - MS
• Inside Out and Back Again - Lai - Vietnam (fleeing at end of War) - National Book Award, Newberry - poem form - 800
• In the Time of the Butterflies - Alvarez - 910 - MS (graphic sexuality)
• Iqbal - D'Adamo - Pakistan - 730
• The Jade Peony - Choy - Chinese-Canadian children
• Kampung Boy - Lat - Southeast Asia (Muslim) - graphic novel
• The Kite Runner - Hosseini - Afghanistan - 840 - MS - advanced readers will enjoy and appreciate his new novel, And the Mountains Echoed
• The Life and Times of Michael K: A Novel - Coetzee - S. Africa - 940
• A Long Walk to Water - Park - Sudan - 720
• A Long Way Gone - Beah - Africa--Sierra Leone boy soldier - non fiction - 920 - MS
• Lost Boy, Lost Girl: Escaping Civil War in Sudan - Dau - Sudan - non fiction - 900 - 8th+
• The Metamorphosis - Kafka - Russia - 670
• My Name is Not Easy - Edwardson - First People (Canada) 
• Never Fall Down - McCormick - Cambodia boy soldier - 710
• The Old Gringo - Fuentes - Mexico - MS
• The Orphan Master's Son - Johnson - North Korea - definitely MS
• Over a Thousand Hills I Walk With You - Jansen - Rwanda
• Paradise of the Blind: A Novel - Duong Thu Huong - Vietnam - 720 - upper MS and HS
• Persepolis - Satrapi - Iran - graphic novel - MS
• Purple Hibiscus - Adichie - Nigeria - 920
• The Red Glass - Resau - AZ. and Mexico - 800
• Red Scarf Girl - Jiang - China, Cultural Revolution - 780
• Shabanu - Staples - Pakistan - 970
• Shiva's Fire - Staples - India - 990
• Shizuko's Daughter - Mori - Japan - 820
• So Long a Letter - Ba - Senegal - translated from French, Muslim woman - MS
• Sold - McCormick - Nepal/India - 820 - verse format - MS
• A Step From Heaven - An Na - Korean girl - 670
• A Stone in My Hand - Clinton - Palestine (Gaza) - 540
• The Storyteller - Llosa - Peru - MS
• They Poured Fire on Us From the Sky: The Story of Three Lost Boys From Sudan - Ajak, Deng, Deng - Sudan - non fiction 
• A Thousand Splendid Suns - Hosseini - Afghanistan - 830
• Tofu Quilt - Russell - young girl in Hong Kong 1960's - poem format
• Trash - Mulligan - unspecified underdeveloped country - 860
• Two Old Women - Wallis - First People (Canada)
• We Need New Names - Bulawayo - Zimbabwe - displacement, immigration of young girl - MS
• The White Tiger - Adiga - India - MS
• Zahra's Paradise - Amir - Iranian boy disappears after 2008 elections - graphic novel - also may be available serialized online 

Native American literature in the US can also be considered international, due to the sovereign nationhood of more than 500 Nations.  The best lists and reviews are found at Debbie Reese's American Indians in Children's Literature blog.  It is a good idea to check a title with Debbie's blog before using it in the classroom. Debbie and others have also compiled a k12 list of the Top 100 Books by Indigenous Masters.

Similarly, the Raza experience is often poorly portrayed in fiction.  Find reliable recommendations at De Colores: The Raza Experience in Children's Literature.

Another slant is the immigrant experience and the experiences of other cultures within the US, which have generated some exceptional fiction. Some of the best titles:

• All the Broken Pieces - Burg - Vietnam boy immigrant (post-War) - poem format - HL680
• American Born Chinese - Yang - graphic novel
• Americanah - Adichie - Nigerian immigrants to America and London
• An American Brat - Sidwa - Pakistan girl
• Any Small Goodness - Johnston - Mexican immigrant to East LA barrio - 660 - reviewed here in The Raza Experience in Books for Children
• America Street - Mazer - short story collection for MS and up
• The Arrival - Shaun Tan - immigrant experience - graphic novel
• Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother - Chua - Chinese mother in America - MS
• Breaking Through - Jiménez - Mexican immigrants
• Brother, I Am Dying - Danticat - autobiographical, Haitian immigrants (60's) - MS
• The Circuit - Jimenez - Mexican immigrant memoir in story form - non fiction - 880 - has sequels Breaking Through (750) and Reaching Out (910) which are more directly autobiographical
• Drown - Diaz - Dominican immigrant (male voices) - stories - MS
• Esperanza Rising - Ryan - US/Great depression/Mexican Am. - 750
• First Crossing: Stories About Teen Immigrants - Gallo - short story collection for MS and up
• God Grew Tired of Us - Dau - Sudan and US memoir - pair with Lost Boy, Lost Girl
• Home of the Brave - Applegate - Sudanese refugee in US - poem form - 860
• The House on Mango Street - Cisneros - Hispanic in Chicago - 870
• How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents - Alvarez - Santa Domingo - 950 - MS
• Interpreter of Maladies - Lahiri - Indian immigrants and life in India - 1050 - MS
• The Jumping Tree - Saldana - Mexican immigrants in Texas - racism theme - 770
• Krik? Krak! - Danticat - Haitian immigrants - stories - MS
• The Last Summer of the Death Warriors - Stork - Mexican American - HL640 - MS (terrific pairing with The Round House)
• Little Bee - Cleave - Nigeria immigrant to Britain - MS
• Lost Boy, Lost Girl: Escaping Civil War in Sudan - Dau - Sudan and US - non fiction - 900 - 8th+
• Lupita Manana - Beatty - Mexican immigrant children - 760
• Parrot in the Oven - mi vida - Martinez - Mexican-American boy in Chicago - 1000
• Return to Sender - Alvarez - Mexican immigrant family in Vt. - 890
• The Namesake - Lahiri - Calcutta family immigrates to MA - 1210 - MS
• Native Speaker - Chang-rae Lee - Korean - MS
• The No-No Boy - Okada - Japanese, Nisei experience - 900 - MS
• Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida - Martinez - Mexican immigrant - 1000 - MS
• Two Kinds - Tan - Chinese-American - online - also Tan's "Fish Cheeks"
• What is the What - Eggers - Lost Boys of Sudan (based on a true story) - MS
• When I Was Puerto Rican - Santiago - 1020 - MS
• The Woman Warrior - Kingston - Chinese - creative nonfiction - 800

Storytelling Spirit

spirit - October, 2011

I am not a good flyer.  I trust my iPad to get me through a flight that rises above the clouds.  I dread the dragging, silent minutes when "all electronics must be turned off."  On a recent return trip from CO, I turned to the Southwest Airlines magazine - spirit - for comfort, having exhausted Sky Mall on the flight out.

What a shock and delight it was to find the October issue's cover story to be "The Art of Storytelling."  The article is really about new formats for telling short stories, most of which can be digitally supported or enhanced.

The article can be found online here.  The digital version contains short story videos that obviously did not appear in the print version.  Splitscreen, an award winning short, should be shown to all ELA classes, analyzed for parallel plots, contrast, use of light and shadow, mood and tone.  Students in middle and high school are capable of making their own imitations.  Copenhagen is similarly powerful; it invites thematic discussions and comparison to other works on topics of age, loss, artificiality, love...(see an idea for its use below)

Popplet

QuickMark download

The remaining stories are all contained in a .pdf file that can be downloaded at the end of the online article, or by clicking this link.  The possibilities for class use are endless!  I am especially excited about:

• Using Popplet to create a collaborative "mind-map" story like "Things People Say to My Dog"
• Using Wallwisher to create a collaborative, illustrated story - including video and photo - that appears on the wall as it is written.  What a great way to demonstrate understanding of setting, parallel and intersecting plots, historical events and timelines...
• Using QR code (generate them at Kaywa or QuickMark), paper, and video to create student versions of "Copenhagen" (the .pdf contains a QR code that links directly to the video - cool!) - this can be a poster + cell phone project!  Students will need a QR reader on phones or laptops.  I like QuickMark the best for this. This method can also be used as great book project assignment.
• Using Comic Life or paper to create visual "flow stories" like "First Day of Fall."  Another great flow story - "The Hole" -  can be found at Grammarman.  If students scroll down to the yellow sketch pad, they will find a hidden page that shows how the story was created.  
• Using Prezi (show on iPads with the free Prezi Viewer app) or edu.Glogster (alas,  it seems to no longer be free - in fact, it may have disappeared) to create an album story like "Is Dolly There?"
• Using smart phones to text a plot, like "Star-x-ed Luvrs" - I love the idea of adding photos to the dialogue.  On my iPhone, screens can be captured by holding the power button and pressing Home.  I assume this is a feature on other phones as well.  
• Using smart phones and giffer to create an animated story.  It's easy - I did one!  Claymation rises to a new digital level.
• Analyzing book covers, particularly by genre.  Misrepresentations abound.  Certainly Little Bee has a cover that does not begin to convey its poignancy. 

Who would have thought that an hour in the sky could be so profitable?

Graphic Novels

[Update: check out my Graphic Novels page for book lists.]

Below is a post I made today in response to a serious query on English Companion Ning about the validity of teaching graphic novels as "text."  I got so excited about the topic that I ordered three graphic novels while working on the comment.  My love of the graphic began with picture books - my own childhood books, many of which were saved by my mother and now live in my granddaughter Bea's bookcase.

I believe that my fascination with this genre is also connected to my reading history.  I learned to read in Nebraska and Wisconsin cemeteries, on long walks with my college professor dad.  From him I also learned early to love fantasy (Arthurian) and SF.  From my mother's collection of Horizon magazines I learned the power of myth and image.  Graphic novels, like the best iPad apps, are among today's best tactile and literary venues for showing students different paths to reading and learning.

Learning what?   

• "The need to conduct research and to produce and consume media is embedded into every aspect of today’s curriculum."  (Common Core Standards, Key Design Considerations).
• "Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally." (Common Core Standards, Anchor Standards)
• every single ELA analytical term and method can be visually demonstrated using selected graphic novels - the best of them cover most of the tested content

Comparing texts in different formats is not a new idea - I was doing that with 16mm film long ago - what a pain.  It is now much easier to integrate film media, thanks to YouTube, but graphic media has been more of a challenge to teachers.  The graphic novel, it seems to me, fits the bill for today's teachers, at all grade levels.

Matching graphic text to student in terms of appropriateness is important.  So read the books before giving them to students.

My post is in response to this query (the following discussion is going to be good as well - take note of the post by Karen LaBonte pointing teachers to Scoop.It, which in turn points us at this Book Shelf interview: Graphic storytelling and the new literacies and many more terrific resources for teaching with graphic novels.  Check it out.

You might also want to explore the concept of the picto-essay.  Syncopated: An Anthology of Nonfiction Picto-Essays is a starter collection. These short graphic pieces eyeball an experience (e.g. memoir), place, or time, crossing back and forth from history to "you are there" as only the visual world can.  I would use them along with the web to enrich visual literacy and visual history lessons. Students with drawing-disability can generally create a wonderful product with a digital camera.

[My response to Raef Earl Williams, who writes: "With the pressures of teaching all standards and standardized testing, can you rationalize teaching this type of text year in and year out? "] There is also new pressure to teach creative thinking and textual interpretation, and to have students work in purposeful discussion groups.  I think that the best graphic novels are a legitimate text source for developing higher order skills - including comprehension.  I also agree with you that the power of images is a literacy that should be taught.  One approach might be to compare graphic to text versions of literature.  I did this with Fahrenheit 451. The Gunslinger, The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, Twilight, The Odyssey, and Beowulf (several graphic and comic versions of this are available) are other possibilities  [and, I have since discovered, most of Shakespeare and Mark Twain, many great moments in US history... the concept of compare/contrast is HUGE using this format].

It is certainly possible to study any element of literature through its visual presentation in graphic novels - much as you might study a visual image (painting, photograph, etc.).  [in fact, some concepts might be best introduced or reinforced with graphic novels: irony, mood, point of view, contrast, parallelism - to name a few]

Here are some titles I would love to teach: American Vampire, Vol. 1 (because Stephen King was involved - but there are also a vol.2 and 3 is on the way), Persepolis, Trickster (Native American storytellers and graphic artists), American Born Chinese, Stitches - a Memoir, Shaun Tan (The Arrival, Lost and Found), and (of course - you would have to offer this) Maus.

American Library Association maintains lists of the best YA graphic novels published each year.  The number of titles alone is one reason to attend to them in the classroom.

Since I am having fun imagining this:

• Hark a Vagrant and Wondermark are online sources of excellent, intelligent "shorts" - check out the Hark archives to show kids that graphic is not "dumb." Find a 1-panel short called "The Hole" at this unlikely source: ELL online resource Grammarman (also noted in my post Storytelling Spirit). Grammarman Comic also offers short graphic lessons: comics with errors, worksheets, answer sheets.  And another in the .pdf download from, of all places, spirit - the journal of Southwest Airlines, October 2011.
• There are many comic apps - so your students should have no trouble finding DC and other titles for their smart phones. I use Comics, the reader for ComiXology.com.
• I would probably begin with a study of wordless picture books: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick (there is a collection of short stories - one for each picture - due out this fall), Woolvs in the Sitee, Varmints, and Chalk are four of my favorites, but ask a children's librarian. 
• Inanimate Alice is a terrific graphic puzzle story - a good problem-solving challenge for a visual reader. There will surely be more of these fully digital visual stories in the months to come.
• It would be interesting to have students do some deep thinking about the mood, tone, and content of graphic novels - so little humor, so much violence and darkness (just a study of color across several titles would be fun).

On the "create" end of learning, you might want to have groups collaborate on a graphic story - apps like Comic Life and online tools like Make Beliefs Comix can support the non-artistic.  With middle schoolers, we did work on large pages as well as digital ones.   Have fun!