ELA in Color

 For my visualization project, I am focusing on the elements of a comic. What makes a comic, a comic? How do I read it so that I can understand the story's full meaning? What choices are graphic novel authors making that alter the reading experience? These are the sort of questions I hope my annotated images begin to answer, and I will be using an excerpt from Amy Corzine and John Burn's graphic adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's magnum opus, Jane Eyre , as a starting point.  Here is the link to my first Thinglink creation, which defines and briefly explains the various comic elements that readers should be aware of when reading this edition of Jane Eyre :  https://www.thinglink.com/scene/1654262895548039171 I created a second image which, using the same page from Jane Eyre, provides a more in-depth explanation and analysis of how the previously-identified comic elements are being used by the authors to enhance the reading experience:  https://www.thinglink.com/scene/1...

Introduction The following texts would be used in my urban 10th-grade ELA classroom, after learning from a questionnaire I collected from my students in the first week of school that when given the choice, over 70% of students would choose to read a graphic novel instead of a traditional, text-based novel. Other important information I gathered from this report was that many students reported not reading a book in their free time since elementary school, and 40% admitted that they have never read a whole-class book assigned to them in full. I have used this same questionnaire for the past several years of my teaching, but it has not been until recently- maybe the past five or so years- that students have shown this much reluctance to "traditional" texts, as well as such a strong interest in graphic novels. This year specifically, over half of the books students chose as their all-time favorite text fell in the graphic novel/anime/comic genre. With this data, I am planning my ...

I'm going to start this process by being brutally honest... the only experience I really had reading comics growing up was through the newspaper; specifically on Sunday, when the comic strips were printed in... 😲 c o l o r  😲. Garfield, Pearls before Swine, Peanuts, you name it. And while I grew up seeing some of my classmates checking out Dragon Ball Z and Marvel comics when our English class would take our weekly trip down to the library, I never had the desire to pick one up for myself. I mean, they were for boys, right? My friends and I were perfectly happy with our drama-filled series that had, maybe, a handful of pictures throughout to mark the end of a chapter. Ironically, it wasn't until college that I started exploring YA graphic novels, and let's just say, it's been all love since. Well, maybe I'm getting a bit ahead of myself. But I have come to appreciate the engaging, multimodal experience that graphic novels provide for adolescent readers and, throug...

 Welcome! My Name is Kelly, and I am currently seeking my Secondary English Education degree. I grew up practically idolizing my ELA teachers and having an intense love for learning, so it's no surprise that this is where I landed. I'm stepping into high school classrooms for the first time this semester as a "professional," and while it has been a bit overwhelming at times (I forgot how much high schoolers loved to talk🙀), I am hopeful for the future of my career as both a student teacher and a solo ELA teacher. Education is a dynamic, exciting field that is guaranteed to keep you on your toes, so I look forward to collecting some tools this semester to help me run a successful group of young readers and inquirers.  An image that I think summarizes me as both a professional and an individual was actually created for a previous blog assignment (from Candance herself)! It is a "literacy selfie" that encapsulates who I am as a reader and thinker, what inspire...

 This is marking the end of my previous blog chapter. Next up, ELA Disciplinary Inquiry!

 Okay, maybe the title is a bit of an exaggeration, but...  We have made it to the end of our blogging journey together. Wasn't it fun? Well, if not fun , at least educational? I didn't come into this experience with super-set expectations aside from, quite honestly, hoping it would be more engaging and fulfilling than writing a Canvas discussion post, which we have become very accustomed to as online students. I'm glad to say that my hopes were fulfilled (sorry, Canvas!), and I have assembled some of my posts to prove that professional blogging has a variety of unique, engaging features that I believe we as 21st-century educators should continue putting to practice!  Most Professional :  Blog Post #4: The Magic of Multimodalism   I chose this blog because I think that I kept a very clear, educator-centered focus while writing about multimodal literacy and how some of the new forms of digital media can be of value in today's classrooms. While I still insert opin...