I am a teacher in a low-income/high poverty school district. My students are faced with several challenges out of the classroom. With all the challenges my students face, I want to make their school year a year to remember.
My students love to play sports, have a passion for reading, and love new, innovative items in the classroom.
Many of them are being raised in single-parent households or by grandparents and are part of a free and reduced-price lunch program. From the minute they walk in the door of my classroom, I focus on being consistent every day to make it a great day. I may not be able to control their home lives, but I can certainly control their experience during the school day. I want them leaving with a smile every day so they love school and want to come back.
My Project
Graphic novels are a great way to teach visual literacy. To read a graphic novel, much less a wordless one, many essential literacy skills are required, including the ability to understand a sequence of events, interpret characters’ nonverbal gestures, discern the story’s plot, and make inferences. Through graphic novels, students can develop inference and literacy skills that apply when interacting with photos, paintings, and other people.
Additionally, for dyslexic readers, those visual cues offer a lifeline.
The multiple cues within a graphic novel, including the illustrations that readers can explore for context clues, and the emphasis (bold, italic, large font) throughout the text allow students to understand the material without relying solely on the text. Moving beyond words supports the specific learning needs of some students and builds a new set of skills in all readers.
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As a teacher-founded nonprofit, we're trusted by thousands of teachers and supporters across the country. This classroom request for funding was created by Mrs. Sutt and reviewed by the DonorsChoose team.
