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"(Our son) has not put these books down since I purchased them. He takes them everywhere with him and won't get into the car without a few in his hand." The Breteys |
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Archive for the ‘literacy’ Category
Chester Comix for smartboards!
Written on Tuesday, December 6th, 2011 [permanent link]Now you can have your whole class read a Chester Comix page together. ( visit Dedicated Teacher! Whoo hoo!)
That was always the goal. All of the Chester the Crab history adventures that you read began in 1999 as a comic in the Daily Press newspaper in Newport News, Virginia. The newspaper sold classroom subscriptions at a discount and raised donations from area businesses to get many copies of the paper in front of students. It was a great way to promote literacy — after the kids read Chester they could then turn to the sports or movie sections or scan the photos. But of course newspaper paper is fragile, so teachers would laminate the Chester pages to keep them bright year after year. (I STILL meet teachers who have held on to those laminated newspaper pages all these years later.) We had a great product but a clunky delivery system.
I knew other teachers in other states would also love to teach with Chester. Not only was newspaper paper too temporary, but sending newspapers through the mail was too costly. So in 2003 I got permission from the Daily Press to put Chester’s adventures into book form. I kept the books paperback to hold the cost down. FINALLY I had a more durable format so I could ship these stories to Texas and California and South Dakota!
I still plan to keep the books in print for all the museum bookstores that carry Chester Comix and all the parents who want to see their kids reading on the couch. But the Great Recession in 2008-09-? also made it clear that fewer and fewer schools would have money to buy class sets of printed books of Chester tales.
As I’ve gone into schools to give my Author’s Purpose talks, I’ve kept a close eye on the rising use of smartboards. In the past year I became convinced that enough classrooms had them to make it worth my while to convert Chester’s stories into a digital format that can be showed on those boards.
Right now it’s just the stories. No hyperlinks, no sound, no bells or whistles. I hope to add those soon. But for now you can put 27 bright and funny books about American history in front of your whole class and read them together. Have fun!!!
Posted in Author's Purpose, History Teacher, literacy | 2 Comments »
Reading — still a dirty word
Written on Sunday, September 11th, 2011 [permanent link]First, the good news: Last weekend I was at an annual gathering of college friends, debating the future of education with one of the people who made the Kindle work. He’s looking for his next big project, so he was brainstorming either campaigning for a convention to rewrite the U.S. Constitution OR remaking the U.S. public education system. (He thinks BIG!) It was thrilling for me to talk about what works and what doesn’t and what can be done in this new century.
But I kept pinning the discussion to reality — the things I’ve learned from my 12 years of working with educators to make comix they can use in the classroom. And unfortunately, some of that reality kept hitting me between the eyes at my booksignings this summer. For way too many boys in my target audience, it is still a badge of honor to say:
“I don’t read.”
I mean it. These 8- to 12-year-old boys that I talk to don’t act sheepish about it. They say it matter-of-factly or even aggressively — “I don’t read!” They say it like they are proud of it. They say it like saying “I like to read” would get them kicked off the football team or laughed at as they chat with friends over the XBox.
The funny thing is that a lot of these boys DO read. They read magazines they like. They process plenty of text info on the games or websites they visit. They text with each other on phones. They even read history comix starring a blue crab. But they can’t ADMIT that they like to read. It’s a sobering thing for me to hear from them after all the focus put on boy reading in the past decade:
* All those celebrity reading posters in the library
* all the emphasis placed on literacy by the No Child Left Behind federal law
* all the cool NEW ways to read (such as the KINDLE!)
* the awesome Boys Read effort
* and all those thousands and thousands of Harry Potter books!!!!!
Maybe these preteen boys are pushing back against all these efforts — the more Mom or the Teacher pushes reading, the more the boys resist?? There’s a lot of reasons. There are a lot of distractions these days! We’ll end with good news. I continue to hear great things from parents and teachers about how much reluctant readers love my books once they read them, but I’ve taken to cautioning a buyer at the point of sale. Don’t force the books, I urge. Leave Chester Comix lying around the kitchen table or in the bathroom or stuck in the seat net of the minivan. Let the boys choose to read in a quiet moment when no one is looking.
Really. I don’t mind Chester being in the bathroom!!! 😉
Posted in literacy | No Comments »
The Power of Reading . . . Testimonials
Written on Thursday, September 16th, 2010 [permanent link]No, no — there’s NOT a lot of money in selling history comic books. It’s a niche business. I had good friends this summer brainstorm with me ways I could be the next “Diary of a Wimpy Kid.” But I’m not just doing comix — I am committed to doing comix that boost reading and a love for American history. I can’t jump to a superhero book or a pure comedy comic because I actually care about my content.
So testimonials keep me going between bank deposits. I hope it’s fun for you to see different testimonials pop up in those explosions on the right side of my web pages; my webmaster Brian Korte has done a fantastic job making those work. But more and more testimonials to Chester Comix are popping up elsewhere — such as the website for the Homeschool Buyers Co-op.
The Co-op has sold my books for two years now and was the push behind the publication of my Homeschool All-Stars hardcover comic last holiday season. Its community has been great to me. Seeing all that warm feedback gathered in one spot is humbling. And reinforcing. I’ve never had time or resources to do a proper study to measure the impact of my books in the classroom, but I’ve had so many teachers and parents and kids say the same specific things that I know the books work for reluctant readers.
My favorites in a beautiful list:
“My boys, 9 and 12, enjoyed reading it. It’s funny and the author inserts other characters with side comments that my boys find hilarious. As for me, I love that it is historically accurate and entertaining at the same time. It brings history to life! What a rare find.”
“They have all the flavor of comic books (colorful and funny), but they are also chock full of historical information. When we get into historical discussions, my kids will say, “No, remember it was the…” and they really remember the facts as well as the fun!”
“As a historian, I’m always on the lookout for things that might make my kids like history. I was reluctant to try these unseen, but am so glad I did. I figured these might be useful when my boys got older, but at 3.5 and 7, they’re both completely in love with the Chester Comix series. There must be something seriously compelling in the art, because I can’t imagine the three-year-old is understanding a word I read him of the ideas behind the Constitution! But for less abstract ideas, they really can absorb something even at this young age. Nothing warms a historian mom’s heart like hearing kids discuss Rosa Parks or argue about the Mayflower. We hope the author will do many more! We bought a second set to give away.”
Posted in Author's Purpose, History Teacher, literacy | No Comments »
