ELA TPE c

The candidate understands how to make English-Language Arts comprehensible to students and the need for students to use all forms of language as tools for thinking, learning, and communicating.

What is this?

I created this mini-project of creating comics about social justice issues in collaboration with Joli Weber for our 12th grade intervention ELA students during our placement at St. Helena High School. It includes two UDL lesson plans introducing the project and analyzing a mentor text, a brainstorming sheet for planning the comic, a rubric for the project, a presentation notes guide and grade breakdown, instructional slides for the lessons, and one student's final draft of the project as an example.

Why did I choose it?

I chose this project because it deals with an unconventional kind of storytelling for students to both analyze and participate in, demonstrating that unexpected forms of language can be valid tools for thinking, learning, and communicating. The students had just finished reading a graphic novel depicting police brutality, and this project was their response. Graphic novels and comic writing were useful for this class because the visuals accompanying the written text helped the students to more easily understand and express the stories and ideas shared. 

What did I learn?

Creating and assessing this project emphasized to me that there are many ways for students to show their learning, and written expression is not always a reliable indicator. When the students presented their comics to me, the things they shared orally and the visuals they had made showed me that they deeply understood the content, even though their writing capabilities were not as strong. I was also able to learn the sorts of things the students cared about, since I had limited time to get to know them otherwise and they had free choice on their topic.