Final thoughts about the graphic novel/partner reading/writing about reading cycle

As I move on from engaging students through graphic novels, partner reading, and writing about reading, to enriching students' comprehension, I wanted to take a moment and reflect on this first cycle. Here are some things that stuck out to me from notes that I jotted down on my clipboard during January:

1/10/12
Tyshaun raises his hand in the hallway: "When I was reading Jackie Chan a paper fell out and it had like 2 graphic novels that you could order from the website and I wanted to read them so bad." --> To me this shows that Tyshaun was very engaged by graphic novels, to the extent that he wanted to own them. I see ownership here.

1/13/12
During comic book club, Cortez got extremely excited when he started creating his main character: "Oh my gosh, this is so cool."

2/2/12
I noticed during comic book club that when students read Lunch Lady there was a lot more laughter than usual. Students got a kick out of improvising voices and intonation of characters. I think the pictures of graphic novels give students more cues and clues about the action, the characters. I think there laughing means they were understanding the joke, hence the comprehension was there.

2/3/12
Deavion had a strong day in reading today. While we were discussing the Trail of Tears as a whole group, he said that the Cherokee learned a lesson of how when promises are broken people suffer because the US promised to protect the Cherokees but they didn't. When I pushed him further on this, he said that the lesson he learned was "don't trust anyone unless you know you can trust them." Deavion struggles with his speech sometimes, he always passes when it's his turn to share during morning meeting, so for him to be so vocal about the text was very encouraging.

I was also encouraged that Donte actually asked about comic book club and was excited when I told him we'd be having it that day.

I also interviewed Youngan and Alex who were partner reading Diary of a Wimpy Kid. Alex told me it was his favorite book, and that Lunch Lady was his second favorite. I asked him why graphic novels were his favorite genre. He said: 1. they're funny 2. it's like non-fiction because it's stuff that could really happen (interesting parallel here, why do these books seem more realistic to kids?) 3. teaches you stuff (he was referring to the brain teasers, puzzles, etc. that are included in Jeff Kinney books) 4. "I just like comics"
I also noticed that Alex was into the create your own comic book section at the end of the book. He said it was fun because, "It gives you things to do. You can get things from this page and put it into your own story." (yay! reading and writing connection!)
As an addendum, the school book fair this week stocked this same Diary of Wimpy Kid book and 7 boys and 1 girl have already bought it. Jeff Kinney is laughing all the way to the bank!

Clearly graphic novels, partner reading, and writing about your reading has a salient impact on boys' engagement with reading. I'm ready for a new cycle of research that leverages this engagement into greater inquiry and comprehension of their reading.