Adolescent+Writing

Adolescents and Writing
Writing Many of our students are engaging in creative and informational writing outside of the classroom. We need to tap into their creative source and bring it into the classroom and keep it as authentic to them as their outside literacy practices. There are also layers of writing and publishing to connect. This page is a work in progress. However, some solid types of writing are presented as an extension to reading graphica. Graphica gives adolescents an opportunity to engage in more familiar types of writing supported into the classroom with an added twist of using technology to publish their writing. Here, there is a focus on writing journals, collaborative writing, and writing comic strips.

New Literacy Writing and Graphica
Blogs and Dialogue Journals: Start with the process of journaling. Journaling over a book read and then engaging in a book club discussion has become a favorite lesson and activity for teachers to help meet multiple state standards, assessments, and NCLB. Instead of the traditional journal notebook and pencil, teach students how to [|blog] and take responsibility for publishing public works. Sometimes, there is a disconnect, because of the rapid email turn around response time, between writing something and thinking about sending it publicly. There are sites such as [|www.edublogs.com]that tailors to educators and classroom blogs; however, there is a fee. A classroom blog can also be set up with a gmail account ([|www.google.com]), and keep it locked for only students in the class. Wikisites such as wikispaces.com is still available for educators and education purposes. Teachers may set up discussion boards for dialogue journals between peers or between the teacher and peer. The main difference between the traditional dialogue journals and the e-format for journaling is the rapid turn around rate in which the writing may tend to become more quick-writing of ideas than a dialogue. Hence, it's important to allow computer revising and editing of posted journals.

Graphica and Personal Journals. //Diary of a Wimpy Kid// series is a great mentor text for teaching about writing personal journal entries. The readability level of the text is a 5.6 and the text complexity structures have an average 5.6 grade level. There are also other personal diaries that have gained popularity in graphica form. Reading and using the graphic novel as a mentor text will help adolescents focus on keeping a good personal journal. Diary of a Wimpy Kid also has wonderful Tier 2 vocabulary words that students can incorporate into their personal journals. Graphica and Vocabulary development will be discuss more in-depth on the adolescent vocabulary page.

Graphica and the Double-Entry Journal
Type 1


 * Choose a variety of quotes from a character’s thought bubbles or speech bubbles and write it on one side of the journal
 * Have students write personal reactions /responses to the character on the second side of the journal
 * Encourage students to answer as if they were having a conversation with the character.
 * Choose quotes from a panel that is meaningful and on the other side write a reflection about the text and surrounding panel
 * Option * Turn reflections into online blogs

Graphica Journaling Type 2


 * Have students choose at least 3 spoken or thought bubbles from the main character in a 2 page panel spread.
 * Have students evaluate the character's actions and attitude toward another character (s) using visual context clues and words
 * Write the evaluation on the second side of the journal.
 * Turn reflections into online blogs.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Tucker, S.J. (2013 3rd). Graphica Journaling in Graphica literacy strategies for the classroom.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Graphica Writing (Tailored for Comics / Mangas/Animes)
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There are genres within graphica itself such as romance, mystery, and science fiction, each appealing to its own adolescent following. In collaborative graphica writing it is important for the students to decide what genre will be written, because like most genres, there is a certain formula followed, especially in manga. Adolescents are venturing into the online publishing world and writing revised plots to a series, original plots, or creating original mangas. The students engaged in manga writing understand the formulaic writing in which visuals play an important role in conveying textual meaning.Students who engage in manga online writing most likely are already followers of anime and manga series. All the online sites are public and writers have a peer following, as well as comments for suggested revisions and editing. Most of the writers also have a peer personal editor to help with the editing piece.

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students may also engage in collaborative writing. As with original story writing of mangas by the individual, students need to decide upon the character(s), and if they will write using known characters from anime and manga or write an original manga. As far as publishing, there are many online websites publishing students' graphica. Two sites are [|www.fanfiction.net] and [|www.theotaku.com], both which have student editors, reviewers, and online readers, which actually follow original writer's storylines. Collaborative writing engages students more deeply in the writing processes: pre-planning, planning of language, drafts, revising, editing, and publishing.

Pre-Planning Guide: <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">•Choose your genre <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">•Choose your characters <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">•Choose your setting <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">•Choose your conflict <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">•Choose your publishing site

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">`Bennett, S.J. (2009). Graphica literacy strategies in the classroom (in progress).

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Creative Writing- Comics
<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Create your own Comic Strip

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">Students can learn how to pull important characteristics and meaning and illustrate what has been read by creating their own comic strip. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">There are a few online resources for students who are more comfortable creating the comic online versus trying to draw their own illustrations. <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> [|www.bitstrips.com/create/comic];[|www.readwritethink.org/MATERIALS/comic/]; <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;">[]; <span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> []

<span style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"> Some of the online comic strips are easier to use than others. Some require a username and password for students to use. Bitstrips,in my opinion, is the easiest to use. Pixton now has a site for educational use.