Hacking Graphic Novels: 8 Ways to Teach Higher-Level Thinking with Comics and Visual Storytelling (Hack Learning Series)

Shveta Miller uses her expertise and classroom experience to communicate strategies for incorporating comics and graphic novels into your classroom instruction at any grade level. She has given practical examples of mini-lessons and activities that you can start on day one. This book addresses improving inference skills and encourages re-reading and close-reading. Shveta also gives strategies or "hacks" to help educators address any "push back" that they might encounter among parents, students, co-workers, and/or administration when implementing each strategy. Even if you have no experience using or reading comics or graphic novels, this book will help you start to implement various reading strategies to help with reading comprehension and encourage student engagement.

This book will make you a better teacher and a better reader, whether you're interested in graphic novels or not. It's a tremendously smart, insightful text, and especially helpful on the subject of how to generate lively conversations among students, how to push past superficial readings and get through to moments of connection and discovery. Useful for elementary to college to MFA students, in that it's really a primer for how to think about the experience of visual storytelling. It's also a quick read!

Shveta Miller does such an excellent job of breaking down some of the (many) ways graphic novels can work in the classroom environment. She shows you how to teach students the proper way to comprehend the visual medium, how to think, process and understand complex ideas as well as how to engage and empower other teachers around you to use visual texts in their classrooms. This is a must read and a must have!

This book has become my go-to resource to recommend to anyone interested in using comics and graphic novels with students. I love that Shveta Miller gives you things you can do tomorrow, while also providing in-depth ideas for the long term. And everything is adaptable to any students of any, from kindergarten to adult. My copy is full of flags and highlights! --Tracy Edmunds

Incredible, incredible book! An essential resource for anyone looking to incorporate graphic novels and/or comics in their classroom, library, and teaching. There are so many fabulous ideas in here — I cannot recommend it enough!

Fantastic addition to the Hacking Education series! It presents real, practical, and tested strategies on using comics and graphic novels in the classroom and includes sample work from students of teachers who have found success.

This book is great for presenting new ways in which you can use comics in the classroom.

A must read for educator’s looking to introduce comics into their classroom AND those who’ve been using them for years!

Shveta V. Miller's 'Hacking Graphic Novels' is an essential resource for any educator. Following years of experience in teaching graphic novels, Miller explores the benefits of the medium in great detail while offering an array of practical strategies, advice and lesson ideas to support educators.Whether considering how graphic novels can (and do apply) to school curriculums, overcoming pushback or providing visual examples alongside in-depth analysis of the format: Miller's prose retain a lightness of touch which is invaluable. I have often found that informational publications contain dense walls of text which require time and energy to unpack, yet that is not the case here. As one who has worked in education, Miller knows the value making information accessible for students and educators alike.The book also discusses the value of creative approaches to graphic novels, encouraging students to get involved in the process and explore how creative choices can impact on public perceptions. One example discusses the use of silhouettes, where students were met with an image of a head with large hooped earrings. When students were asked to draw what the character might look when visible, many created a full-figured Latina stereotype. For the students, their perception of large hooped earrings had become inextricably linked with a lazy cultural stereotype -- opening the door for discussions on stereotypes, identities and assumptions based on minimal information. It is one of many wonderful examples in the book which examine the ways in which we are all socially conditioned by imagery in media, and how graphic novels can teach us to critically navigate these realms.'Hacking Graphic Novels' should be in the library of every educator. Given the success of Dav Pilkey's Dogman series, a new generation of readers are growing up with the power of graphic novels. There is no better time to get involved in teaching them, and with Shveta V. Miller's book: you have the perfect place to start.

Shveta Miller's book will help any teacher to discover the power of graphic novels and how they can be used in the classroom for developing observation, critical thinking and expression. The author relates the experience of different teachers that worked on graphic novels with their students: this helps the readers to have practical examples of how to introduce graphic novels in their classroom.