Objectives of this lesson:
Everyone is familiar with Dr. Seuss. He wrote such greats as The Cat in the Hat, The Sneetches, Lorax, etc. Please look at the following pictures taken from the following website. Do you consider this comics? Is it a graphic novel? What is the difference?
    http://www.tfaoi.com/aa/1aa/1aa291.htm taken from the Springfield Library and Museums Association. Theodore Geisel aka Dr. Seuss did this type of political cartoon during World War II. Do you consider this a comic?
Let's brainstorm. What makes a comic a comic? What makes a graphic novel, a graphic novel? (Students with generate a list on a compare/contrast chart, see attachment below) Are the pictures we saw from Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) comics? Do they tell a story? (Discussion)
For our first exercise, we are going to create a timeline. We will display the timeline on our wall. Find out when graphic novels began and what happened with them throughout history. Each student will be given a poster sized piece of paper with a decade on it, starting with before 1900 until now. Students are to find what happened with graphic novels in this particular decade. They will be paired together and given two class periods to research. Students are required to cite their sources for accuracy on the back of the poster. Poster is worth 15 points.
Answer the following questions on their poster:
Reflection of timeline. Discussion is needed to reach a concensus of whether the timeline has all the information necessary for students to have an understanding. If the teacher and media specialist feel the timeline is complete, then we will assess what was learned by asking the question:
Do the comics of each decade reflect what was happening in history? Why or why not? Explain in a paragraph. (10 points)
Entire lesson worth 25 points.
Time given: 2 days in the media center.
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