Stan Mack and Susan Champlin Teach The 4th Graders About Writing And Drawing A Graphic Novel

The fourth graders are going to be creating and learning about graphic novels this month.  We will be reading lots of graphic novels on our shelves and eBooks that we have in our collection.  

Also, we will be connecting with authors and illustrators who create graphic novels.  To kick off this project we invited our friends, authors Stan Mack and Susan Champlin to visit the library.  

They visited with our first graders a few weeks ago....You can read the post here, Stan Mack and Susan Champlin Visit Our First Graders As We Read "10 Bears In My Bed" On Their iPads.

                            

Their graphic novel Fight for Freedom is based on history of the United States.  This ties in nicely with the fourth grade social studies curriculum.  

Stan and Susan showed off the book and got the fourth graders very excited for what they were going to hear, see, and learn.  This is their first visit with authors who write graphic novels.  

Before they started we talked as a group in more detail about the graphic novel they would be creating and I referred to this conversation throughout the Skype.  

By taking a look at the library, technology, and digital citizenship curriculum and CCSS, there are several different standards that this project will meet.  

Not only will they be using eBooks for research and creating a multimedia presentation by choosing a Web 2.0 tool,  the fourth graders will be creating a graphic novel with the theme of digital citizenship. 

As we brainstormed ideas, the fourth graders came up with some really fun and interesting ideas.  They will also be working with a partner which made them happy too. 

When their graphic novels are finished, they will also be publishing and sharing them online.  

Stan and Susan gave the students a little background on graphic novels.  Stan told them that he loved reading comics when he was little and showed them the classic Tintin.  

They talked about doing research as you are writing a book such as visiting the location where the story takes place.  

We will be doing a lot of creating first using a storyboard so it was helpful for the students to see how they did this for their graphic novel.  

They loved listening and seeing pages from Stan and Susan's graphic novel.  To hear the specifics from them made the book come to life.

They also talked with the fourth graders about including things like maps and lists of characters.  We really liked this idea and will be including these items within the graphic novels created at Van Meter too.

It was a wonderful visit and we all learned so much.  It was the perfect way to kick off this new project.

We are happy that Stan and Susan had fun too.  They will be Skyping in with the other 4th grade on Wednesday.

Thank you Stan and Susan... We can't wait to show you the progress of the graphic novels and share them with the two of you.