In an effort to battle the idea of book deserts and making sure my classroom library includes all types of books, I have been excited to start graphic novel book clubs this year! This mini-project only takes one week of instruction per class that I teach, and it does not take up the entire day for instruction or work. When I wrote a grant in the fall for 100 graphic novels, the mission was simple: use more graphic novels as mentor texts and create small graphic novel book clubs to kids who can share the joy in talking about the same books that they are reading. We see kids naturally want to form book clubs because reading is social, and it makes it so the act of reading can also be less scary. If I am a struggling reader, I find it less intimidating if I have someone else reading with me. Reading is not meant to be an independent experience. Book clubs can be set up in a variety of ways considering materials, time, and accountability. This post outlines how I conducted my mini-project with my sixth-grade students and the considerations that were made for including graphic novels in choice reading time.

Today's research quick post is about comics and graphic novels. I am a comic fan. Graphic novels, comic books, images and words put together on the page...you name it. I like it. Yesterday, I picked up Marvel's Black Panther for library day today. The appreciation I have for Coates' writing and the illustrations in this text are nothing short of a work of art. Amazed. However, the whole time I was reading today I had a bugging/nagging/tingling feeling in my mind about my struggling readers that may gravitate to this genre, but may not understand the words. Considering that the ever popular Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series by Jeff Kinney is a 950 Lexile (Above 6th grade level), many of my students are reading around the 3rd-4th grade level range. Yet, they are able to make sense of these images with the pictures. They beg for these books to the point where the small graphic novel section is always checked out. Why? And why is this section sometimes scary in education?