We're working on graphic novels in my 8th grade Foundations II course. This is my class example. I'm way into this, and what's better? My students are blowing me away with their work. Photos of both mine and their finished work to follow.
Character Development Drawings (5 Drawings: Close Up, Full Body, Action (front), Action (back), Action (side))--as you can see I don't have time to finish my examples.
Rough Draft Carefully compose each frame (we refer to cinematic framing: establishing shot, long shot, mid-range, close up, extreme close up--I teach this in the photography unit) Cut your frames apart and work out the sequence.
Transfer to a nice piece of paper using light table, graphite powder, or transfer paper; Ink with sharpie (for details) and India Ink, and add color with watercolor washes (or prismacolor or watercolor pencil)--I also photographed this and tweeked it on Photoshop. We may or may not do the last step in class.
For the student who isn't so visually inclined we read Robot Dreams by Sarah Varon; Write narrative for one chapter of the story; Interview the characters in Robot Dreams (Dog or Robot); Create 10 interview questions for characters of our own invention and interview them; Choose a story style (historical, fiction, myth, fairy-tale, biography, autobiography, non-fiction, educational, etc.); Map out our stories (Setting, Problem, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, Resolution); Cut apart one chapter of Sarah's story and put it back together like a big ol' puzzle; Watch a video documentary on the life of a cartoonist; and, Read from the graphic novel edition of Scholastic Art Magazine (2011?). It's been pretty labor intensive, but I think everything we do is worth it.
I also do a reading of Bob the Dog by Rodrigo Folgueira and Poly Bernatene when we talk about character development and refer to chapters from Illustrating Children's Books: Creating Pictures for Publication by Martin Salisbury (Chapter 4: Character Development). It's a good book. Likewise, I received a grant to purchase a class set of Robot Dreams last year (Thank you Chevron!). We read the first chapter together with the document camera and I assigned readings on which they were tested to complete the book. The questions were designed to guide student understanding of modes of visual communication, identify elements of the graphic novel, understand the plot, and determine an overall message/moral.
I don't have a sequence developed. I pull things out as I see students need them.
