It's All a Tesseract!

"A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel," adapted and illustrated by Hope Larson, is the beautifully written and illustrated novel based on the infamous book (and now movie) about a young boy and girl who, with the help of some powerful women, venture out to find their missing father.

Graphic novels are fantastic for readers who struggle with endurance and those who need additional picture support in order to comprehend. However, they are also highly powerful for use in writing instruction. Caryn Wilkinson, the author of "Graphic Novels: A Scaffolding Strategy for Young Writers," discusses the use of graphic novel spreads in the storytelling of young writers.

"A Wrinkle in Time: The Graphic Novel" pg. 228-229

Many students are able to retell a story verbally, but struggle to write it. I plan to use Caryn's strategy:

1. Have students look at the images and tell the story to their partner while they visualize what is happening.

2. In order to get their partner to visualize what is happening, they must use strong details, dialogue, onomatopoeia, etc.

3. After both partners have had a turn, they return to their writing notebooks and use the verbal story they just told to write, with detail, the piece of the story they would like to tell.

For these pages specifically, I chose them because they are not full of text. I want students to practice telling the story without many words. The spread does, however, have onomatopoeia, and shows one brief moment (like Caryn discussed in her article). I would want the students to use the pages before this to get context, but then use this page to practice adding detail to their stories with their partners, as listed above. Students learn from their peers, so small group story telling will be a highly effective strategy for students who are building their independent writing skills.

Last semester we talked a lot about mentor texts, especially connected to poetry. This is a very similar concept. Through teaching poetry through mentor texts, I learned just how much I believe in this strategy! The students modified the structure, but overall were able to focus more on using strong vocabulary and details, because the structures were laid out for them. The same is true for students who get a chance to orally rehearse their story before they write it down.