Michael Stephenson: (Graphic) novel ideas

Hello again everyone, and welcome back to my OTIR blog. Some term this, eh? Time’s been flying by over the last couple of weeks, but in the midst of Standard Grade folio madness and bottomless piles of prelim marking, the Adaptation unit I mentioned last time has been rolling along nicely.

In this post, I’d like to say a wee bit about the following:

• what’s been happening in class over the last couple of weeks
• some useful resources we’ve made and found
• the brilliant CPD session which John and Sandra of metaphrog delivered here at Inveralmond on Wed 10th March.

The Adaptation Adventures of 2Y2

We’ve been getting stuck right into the Grant/Kennedy adaptation of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and I can’t recommend this book enough – it’s the most I’ve enjoyed reading a text with a class in ages! The second years are enjoying it too (I hope… maybe I’ll post some of their comments here next time!) On that note, anyone out there working with comics in the classroom just now? It would be great to hear about any other texts and approaches that are working well.

We’ve been reading the text very much as an adaptation, and trying to understand the creative decisions that have been made in recreating Stevenson’s original as a graphic novel. A brilliant starting point was the website for Edinburgh’s Unesco city of literature reading campaign: there are loads of fantastic resources on Jekyll & Hyde gathered here, but my favourite is the activity which gives pupils a few pages of the graphic novel and asks them to adapt the text of the original to fit the speech balloons. It’s a real challenge and a brilliant introduction to how narrative works in comics. Thoroughly recommended as a stand-alone activity, too – the resources are free to download and print as pdfs.

As well as looking at adapting the language, we’ve been getting to grips with aspects of artwork, page design and comics terminology.

I found Scott McCloud’s ‘Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art’ really useful as a guide for me, but came across a couple of really useful resources online, too:

Comics and Visual Literacy – from Duke University

Graphic Novel Comic terms and Concepts -  National Centre for Technology in Education

Great fun learning about ‘bleeds’ and ‘gutters’ and the kids made some cool posters illustrating these terms. When we tried applying some of these to the text itself, it was nice to see them bringing in their skills in ‘reading’ images from their work in Art – working with comics is a great way to make cross-curricular links and bring different forms of literacy into English class. At the same time, I felt like a lot of the stuff I’m more comfortable with as an English teacher – characterisation, setting, plot etc – is still there and up for discussion: it’s just that comics artists and writers evoke these in different ways.

I’ve posted some of the resources I made for this work under the titles ‘Utterson’s Dream’ and ‘Meeting Mr Hyde’ both here at SBT and on the OTIR glow group – feel free to try them out, improve them and let us know what you think! If anyone has resources along similar lines it would be fantastic to see some sharing going on in the glow area.

Actually, I’ll drop a quick plug for the ‘graphic novels’ glow group while I’m on – WELL worth a look if you’re keen to get into comics in class!

Anyway, after all this work, the class were ready to try this adaptation lark themselves. We’re making our own comic versions of 6 key moments from the novel. At time of writing, the class are split into groups, with each group member taking responsibility for a specific role: writer, illustrator, editor, inker, letterer and colourist.

The Adaptation Collaboration powerpoint I used to set this up is also available here and in the glow group.

The groups have chosen a moment from the original Jekyll & Hyde novel, prepared a script and planned the layout for their adaptation. Great opportunity for teamwork, creative problem solving and general chaos!

By the next time I post, I should be able to post some of the finished work… but why is ‘To A Mouse’ suddenly scurrying around my head?

Adaptation CPD with metaphrog

Renowned comics creators metaphrog - John Chalmers and Sandra Marrs - delivered a fantastic event to teachers from far and near here at Inveralmond last Wednesday.

I won’t say too much about the content just now, as I know there are plans to post some extracts and hold online follow-up discussions in the near future (watch this space!) but I will say this was one of the most enlightening and entertaining CPD sessions I’ve attended.

John and Sandra’s expertise and enthusiasm were an inspiration. Although they gave a real insight into technical aspects of comics design and explored how meaning and impact are created, they were very clear that over-analysing risks knocking the fun out of comics – a really important message, I think! We were able to look at comics adaptations of Jekyll & Hyde as well as such texts as Coraline, Kafka’s Metamorphosis and Auster’s City of Glass among others. I’m sure I’m not alone in coming away with:

• an enhanced understanding and appreciation of the creative and collaborative process involved in producing comics
• increased confidence in relating various technical aspects of comic design - layout, colour, line style, narrative structure, etc - to the intended impact on the reader.
• a broadened understanding of the range of comic adaptations 'out there' and of the capacity of the form to offer unique and valid insights into existing texts.

Probably the highlight of the event for me was hearing about metaphrog’s own experience of adapting Edwin Morgan's The First Men on Mercury. You can view and download the adaptation, as well as teacher’s notes and an interesting ‘making of’ feature, at www.metaphrog.com. I love this resource and it was fascinating to gain an insight into the creative process involved in its production.

The poem really seems to suit the comic form, with its emphasis on (cosmically confusing!) dialogue. Any other ideas out there for a poem that might work well as a comic? A strong narrative and powerful visual appeal could be important too, I suppose… get in touch with your ideas!

See you in the glow group, and back here soon,

Michael