History for the Reluctant Reader...Yes! Even Boys Will Read!
My students need 31 copies of two different graphic novels relating the history of Dr. Martin Luther King (1 novel) to Mahatma Ghandi (1 novel) for a total of 62 novels.
I am always telling students that, "What we do today can cause change in the future" and inevitably I always hear- "right!"...especially from boys who hate to read and are only in the media center to waste time, get out of class, or to find the 'comic novels' -aka- graphic novels!
I have the distinct pleasure of approximately 480 students in a middle school setting and before you go- WHAT!
I am the media coordinator aka- the book nut- in our 'country' school of kids.
We have a mixture of students- migrant worker kids, middle class kids, country kids, and low income kids- but all of the students love to read- except my boys who I struggle with to keep them interested.
My Project
I would like to work with a class and use Graphic novels, which I have found some success with in the past when it comes to reluctant readers- aka- the boys- do a comparison/contrast between the graphic novel of Dr. King's life with that of Ghandi's life and their belief in nonviolence.
This would be a unit discussing the influence of others in history and can be tied into how we influence society today. I would make this discussion/pair/share activity and end it with a written activity.
Students need to realize that what we do in our lives may directly or indirectly effect others.
By reading these two novels and through discussion of the material in them- compare/contrast activity and other writing activities- students can see the relation between the cause and effect- how one person's life can cause change in another.
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