Learning Learning History History ThroughThroughGraphic Graphic NovelsNovels

What is a Graphic Novel?• Any book written in a picture-panel format.

Panel from the Pulitzer Prize winning Maus, by Art Spiegelman.

Why Graphic Novels?

• Outstanding for visual learners and reluctant readers.

• Not for everyone, but an option for some.

Panel from Rick Geary’s biography of J. Edgar Hoover.

Classroom use

• Supplemental reading

• Book reviews

• Class use of excerpts

• Have on hand for students to read during “down time”

Panel from Zinsmeitser’s Combat Zone: True Tales of GIs in Iraq.

A brief overview of some Graphic Novels:

Panel from Satrapi’s Persepolis.

Collected works

• Compilation of many individual cartoons.

• Very useful for classroom use!

Panel from the Big Book of Thugs.

Women in Science

“Big” Books

Pass example from

Big Book of Thugs

Historical Fiction

• Fictional stories set within a time period.

• The stories refer to actual events.

• Captures the “feel for the times.”

Panel from Shanower’s Age of Bronze.

Low Reading Level: DK Graphic ReadersHistorical Fiction set in Ancient Greece, Rome, China and Egypt

Low Reading Leveland

High Interest

Battle of Thermopylae

(Spartans Fight the Persians)

Advanced Readers

The Trojan War

Anti-semitism in the US (20’s)

The Great Depression

Includes local references

(Lakewood as a resort

community).

Jews Fight Back in the Warsaw Ghetto

Fighting WWII

Effects of the Atomic Bomb on Japan

Civil Rights

Police Action in Vietnam

Genocide in Rwanda

Non-Fiction

• The following titles portray actual events.

Non-fiction: Rick Geary’s“Treasury of Victorian Murder”

The Beast of Chicago

The Holocaust

Making the

Atomic Bomb

History of the FBI

• Find out why the FBI and CIA didn’t readily share information!

Iran in the 1970s

September 11th

Investigative Journalism

• Drawn and written by journalists.

• Includes first-hand accounts of war-torn areas.

Panel from Sacco’s Palestine.

War in Yugoslavia

Conflict between Israel and Palestine

War against the Taliban

• Decidedly “left-wing” in tone.

Persian Gulf War II