Project Objectives

• Research, understand, and be able to discuss a civic engagement issues of your choice. 

• Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences using effective techniques, relevant descriptive details, and well structured event sequences. 

• Integrate information in various formats, including the visual format of a graphic novel. 

Project Objectives

• Work effectively and respectfully as a group

• Use AI, graphic design software, and other relevant technology in a safe and legal manner.

• Formulate questions and present an understanding of information literacy, specifically: 

  • • Students will be asked to use the STIC Model to assess the reliability of research resources and information.

    • Students will be expected to demonstrate an understanding of applicable copyright issues.  

Overall Project Objectives: 

• Seek, produce, and share information.  

• Appreciate and respond to creative expressions of information. 

Students will create a rubric for assessing their classmates' graphic novels during Phase 3 of the project. They will use that rubric to provide respectful, actionable feedback on their classmates' work during Phase 5.

Teachers will assess how well the students collaborated, how effective the graphic novel was at supporting/teaching about the social justice issue, and if the objectives were met. Teachers will also pay close attention to the peer review activity to ensure comments are respectful, actionable, and not destructive. In our opinion, students at this age should not be allowed to edit another group's work directly. However, if teachers choose to do so, teachers should monitor students' behavior closely to ensure that students use this capability appropriately. In all cases, teachers should observe intragroup interactions to help students develop skills for editing group projects in a respectful and constructive manner. Teachers will add their observations to a shared Google doc at the conclusion of each phase of the project, in preparation for making their final assessment at the end of Phase 5. 

• Assess relevance, credibility, timeliness, and comprehensiveness of information found during research

Gr 6. Reading Standards for Informational Texts 

Key Ideas and Details (p. 51)

3. Analyze in detail how a key individual, event, or idea is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated in a text (e.g., through examples or anecdotes).

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas (p. 52)

7. Integrate information presented in different media or formats (e.g., visually, quantitatively) as well as in words to develop a coherent understanding of a topic or issue. 

Gr 6. Writing Standards 

Text Types and Purposes (p. 58)

3. Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, relevant descriptive details, and well-structured event sequences. 

3a. Engage and orient the reader by establishing a context and introducing a narrator and/or characters; organize an event sequence that unfolds naturally and logically.

3b. Use narrative techniques, such as dialogue, pacing, and description, to develop experiences, events, and/or characters.

Production and Distribution of Writing (p. 59)

5. With some guidance and support from peers and adults, develop and strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting, or trying a new approach. (Editing for conventions should demonstrate command of Language standards 1–3 up to and including grade 6.)

6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce and publish writing as well as to interact and collaborate with others; demonstrate sufficient command of keyboarding skills to type a minimum of three pages in a single sitting.

Research to Build and Present Knowledge (p. 59)

8. Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources; assess the credibility of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and providing basic bibliographic information for sources.

Next, the students will break up into groups to brainstorm what civic engagement might look like in a middle school setting or within their own communities. (These groups are temporary and are not meant to be the same groups the students will be assigned to for the main portion of the project.)

When we start with our "wondering" questions it can help focus the direction the students want to take.

After working in their groups, students will complete a short self assessment and do preliminary research to find a social justice issue they feel passionate about and want to study further. 

The students who picked the same topic will be divided into groups of 3-5 people. Every student should have a group, so some may need to modify their social justice issue selection.

To get the students thinking, unit coaches may choose to remind students about the YouTube video from SIPDC trainer on "Equality, Equity, and Social Justice" in case they would like to rewatch it.

Students will work with their groups to dive deep into the civic engagement/social justice issue of their choice. 

• What is the issue?

• Does it affect them? Someone they know? 

• Who benefits from the way things are now, and why? 

• Who is harmed by the way things are now, and why? 

• Is there a better way?

At the leaders' discretion, students may be invited to use Chat GPT or Google Gemini to ask questions such as "list five ways discrimination impacts my community" or "list five things middle schoolers can do to improve sustainability of their local school." 

Students will work together, under the guidance of one of the unit coaches, to research the issue using ChatGPT, Google Gemini, and more traditional print or electronic library resources to determine its impact on their daily lives or the daily lives of members of their community, and identify possible solutions.  During this phase, students will be asked to use the STIC method of evaluating information gleaned from online sources to assess the quality and reliability of the information they find. Using the STIC method is particularly important whenever students use generative AI technologies, which are known to hallucinate and provide plausible but inaccurate information. 

The artifact from Phase 1 will be a description of the civic engagement issue they are interested in, a summary of its impact on them and/or their community, and 1-3 potential solutions for addressing it. Students will also be invited, but not required, to add 1-3 interesting resources about their topics to the Learn about Social Justice Room to share with their classmates. 

In Phase 2, students will be jigsawed into different groups. 

After watching the following interview with Shannon Hale and her illustrator LeUyen Pham on how they work together to create graphic novels, the students will work with their groups to analyze the components of a graphic novel, the steps involved in turning a nonfiction narrative into a graphic novel, and to experiment with the Book Creator software that they will use to create their novels in Phase 4. 

Ideally, most students will walk into this unit already familiar with graphic novels from their free choice reading. Those that are less familiar with graphic novels from their previous reading may benefit from the resources on the Learn about Graphic Novels page. Unit coaches may also invite the class to browse a selection of nonfiction graphic novels to fuel their work during this section. (The Resources for Teachers page has suggestions for graphic novels to use during this phase.)

The artifact of Phase 2 will be a short list of 3-5 elements students believe are important to consider when creating a graphic novel. 

In Phase 3, students will come together as a class to share insights about graphic novels, the software, and ideas about creating a nonfiction narrative. 

The artifact from this Phase 3 will be a student-devised rubric for assessing the quality of the graphic novels developed in Phase 4. This rubric will be based on the lists students created in Phase 2, but the class as a whole will work together to come up with a final rubric. 

During this phase, unit coaches will guide the discussion to ensure that the student proposed rubric includes major components of the California teaching standards. 

Once all groups have finished their graphic novels, the original groups will be randomly reshuffled. Students will be asked to present their graphic novels to their new group. The new group will then evaluate the graphic novel according to the student-created rubric and offer feedback. Whenever possible, students should include in their evaluation an assessment of the accuracy of the AI translations done at the end of Phase 4. 

At the end of Phase 5, students will rejoin their original groups and share with them what they have learned. Students will revise their graphic novels using the feedback from their classmates. 

Unit coaches will observe these interactions and assess the students on their ability to appreciate and provide respectful, actionable feedback on each other's work. Unit coaches will also assess how well the students collaborated, the effectiveness of the resulting graphic novel, and whether the students made effective use of reliable information uncovered in their research.

All of the finished novels will be published using Book Creator. Students will be issued a copy of every group's graphic novel. Students with family members who speak languages other than English at home will be issued a set in that second language as well. The library will include complete set of graphic novels in a special electronic collection in their OPAC for patrons to check out in the future. 

To close out this project, families will be invited to a Socratic seminar-style gathering, at which students will present their graphic novels and answer questions about their chosen civic engagement topic, the narrative in their graphic novel, or the foibles (if any) of the AI translations. Was the meaning of the text preserved across the languages? Are the choices the AI translator made reasonable ones? Why or why not? Parents and students are invited to talk about the perils and pitfalls of translation, AI or human-powered, in this dynamic evening exchange, to be held in the library.   

At the end of the project, students will be asked to write a brief reflection essay about their experiences in this project. What worked well? What didn't? What would they do differently next time? What did they learn that surprised them? Finally, do they have any advice for students who may participate in this project next year?  

If time and schedules permit, the teacher librarian associated with this project could arrange an author visit from an author / illustrator partnership, such as Shannon Hale and her illustrator LeUyen Pham, or a solo graphic novelist such as Gene Luen Yang, to talk about the publishing process and other aspects of a career spent writing, illustrating, and publishing graphic novels. Ideally, the selected author will have just published a new graphic novel appropriate for a middle school audience. 

Scheduling constraints may preclude associating this visit directly with this unit, however, ideally it would take place within a few weeks of the unit. To make it worth the author's time, the visit may need to be open to the entire student body, however, the unit coaches should set aside some time in advance of the visit to work with their students to develop questions to ask during the visit. 

The idea for this unit came from a teacher librarian and a 6th grade Social Studies/English teacher who co-taught a variant of this unit at Shala's middle school in Northern California. Students in that class wrote their graphic novels about information literacy, but we decided that this basic idea - of using graphic novels as the basis for a project-based lesson - could also be used to explore civic engagement issues in a manner that makes the material immediately relevant and relatable to middle school learners. 

As a project that requires research, writing, artistic, and technical expertise, the creation of graphic novels provides opportunities for students of all abilities to contribute from their strengths and benefit from the contributions of others.  

The lesson that Shala observed followed a traditional bird unit pattern of research-write-present. We transformed the lesson into a deeper learning experience by adding the following:

• Sections exploring the topic of civic engagement in a manner that expressly invites the students to consider issues of interest to them

• Groups for the main project created based on shared interest identified through a student self-assessment process

• Temporary jigsawed group assignments for the purposes of completing specific subtasks

• An invitation for students to write their own rubric for evaluating graphic novels 

• Opportunities to use AI to brainstorm ideas for civic engagement projects 

• A second opportunity to use AI to translate the finished graphic novels into a second language used by a classmate at home

• A peer review cycle

• The addition of a Socratic seminar for students and their families to be held in the library at the conclusion of the project

• The Big Think / Interact with an Expert 

• Reflection exercise 

The unit can be delivered online using Zoom or other videoconferencing tool with the capacity to break students into smaller groups where they can work collaboratively in Google Docs, Google Slides, Padlet, Canva, or Book Creator, while making use of the library's electronic resources. It can also be adapted for use in a blended or face-to-face classroom using the library as a collaborative working area.