Graphic Novels

Why do this project?

When you hold a graphic novel in your hands, you’re holding artist blood made ink. – Molly Chabapple

Traditionally, graphic novels have been politically charged and have now become a vital part of contemporary culture. Many of the books children love have taken on the multimodal nature of graphic novels. Children are reading them and also watching them come alive on the big screen.

This project is all about narrative writing. Historically, the narrative themes that tend to inspire graphic novels have included good versus evil, strengths and weaknesses, revenge, betrayal, haunting back-stories, understanding one’s self and saving the people and the things we love. They are universal themes which have been sources of great writing for centuries.

What will be new and interesting for you and your class is the concept of using pictures to do some of the story-telling for you. You will begin to appreciate how much readers enjoy learning about characters through the images that graphic novelists create. Graphic novelists consider their characters with real care and attention, just as more traditional narrative writers do. The hope is that, as a result of undertaking this writing project, children will consider their characters in more detail in their future narrative writing too.

This class writing project provides you with:

+ Comprehensive teacher notes: