Worth A Thousand Words by Meryl Jaffe

Worth A Thousand Words by Meryl Jaffe

Use graphic novels to teach visual and verbal literacy

While our kids today are communicating outside the classroom in abbreviated text bursts with visual icons, teachers are required to teach them to critically listen, think, and read and write complex texts. Graphic novels are a uniquely poised vehicle we can use to bridge this dissonance between student communication skills and preferences with mandated educational goals.

Worth a Thousand Words details how and why graphic novels are complex texts with advanced-level vocabulary, and demonstrates how to read and analyze these texts. It includes practical advice on how to integrate these books into both ELA and content-area classrooms and provides an extensive list of appropriate graphic novels for K-8 students, lesson suggestions, paired graphic/prose reading suggestions, and additional resources for taking these texts further.

• Provides research to back up why graphic novels are such powerful educational tools
• Helps you engage diverse student learners with exciting texts
• Shows you how to make lessons more meaningful
• Offers advice on implementing new literary mediums into your classroom

Perfect for parents and teachers in grades K-8, Worth a Thousand Words opens up an exciting new world for teaching children visual and verbal literacy.

MERYL JAFFE, PHD, is an educational consultant, teacher mentor, and an instructor at The Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, where she teaches critical reading and visual literacy to talented middle school students worldwide. Her passion for using, reading, and integrating graphic novels into curricula has given rise to her online column Using Graphic Novels in Education as well as the booklet Raising a Reader! How Comics and Graphic Novels Can Help Your Kids Love to Read!, published with the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund.

TALIA HURWICH is a former Middle School language teacher, and assistant librarian at a private school in New York City, as well as a former ELA instructor and curriculum mentor with The Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth. She is currently a doctoral candidate at NYU, researching graphic novels, games, and multimedia in the classroom and their effect on students' literacies.