Humanities
The integration of graphic narratives into 8–12 teaching has shown to: improve student fluency and comprehension; illicit increased critical thinking and analytical skills from students; support the reading of English language learners (ELL), beginning readers, and struggling readers; increase student motivation and buy-in to a given topic; and increase problem solving and student recall. Through this inquiry-focused unit, students will research and create graphic narratives exploring and building historical narratives.
This project’s purpose is to demonstrate how history is a story created by consensus of information. Using a graphic narrative medium is an accessible way to introduce students to representing historical narratives. Graphic narratives are often used to introduce heavy topics in a digestible and approachable manner accessible to many age groups and reading levels. As the graphic novel is a pop culture medium, it meets youth where they are at, offering a familiar and fun mode of learning. This project allows students the opportunity to build their own historical narratives by choosing events they believe to be historically significant, interpreting different perspectives, and accounting for their own bias when researching information. It supports student development in research; use techniques from graphic narratives; engagement with different social groups and perspectives; writing accurate and powerful narratives; and interpreting data from primary sources.
Learning Objectives
Students will be able to:
- evaluate credible sources when gathering information to supplement their testimony.
- apply the knowledge obtained from these sources and their testimony to present a clear historical narrative.
- work collaboratively with peers and contribute in a meaningful way to their project.
- assess the significance of people, places, events, phenomena, ideas, or developments within a decade, and present them in a clear historical narrative.
- infer and explain different historical perspectives on people, places, events, phenomena, ideas, or developments.
- creatively present a historical narrative.
Guiding Questions
- Why create historical narratives?
- How do we create a historical narrative?
- What evidence do we need to build an effective historical narrative?
