Craft Lesson 2: Inferencing - Learning to Read More than Words

Materials:

Daisy Kutter by Kazu Kibuishi

Photos - Historical, Fun, Nature, People

Purpose: Many authors, particularly in new YA literature, often use more than just words to tell stories. In the world outside of the classroom, students are bombarded with advertisements and media that often has very little words to go with it. Pictures, drawings, photos, advertisements are powerful mediums to communicate ideas, values, thoughts, etc. It is imperative that students begin to learn to "read" more than the words on the page; learn inferencing; learn to dig deeper. These also become powerful modes of communication for students themselves as they begin to learn to effectively communicate their own ideas and beliefs.

How to Teach It: In the graphic novel, Daisy Kutter and the Last Train by Kazu Kibuishi uses a combination of words and drawings to communicate the story. The words tell only half the story; the pictures tell the rest. The pictures often help us make sense of the story and piece together the dialogue to make better sense of the story. This process is that of making an inference. To infer is "to derive by reasoning; conclude or judge from premises or evidence" (www.dictionary.reference.com). To help us understand the importance of this process and the importance of visual mediums in this process, let's take a look at these photographs.

Take one of the photos and show it to the class. Ask them to tell you about the photo. Probe them with questions as to what emotions/memories/thoughts it evokes. Ask them to help you piece together the "story" behind the photo.

"Now it's your turn" (Pass out the photos now).

"What I would like for you all to do now is take a few minutes to study your photograph. After you have studied it for a few minutes, I want you to write about it - no specified length or requirements, just your thoughts. What story does this photo tell? What emotions does it arouse in you? What part of your life or memories does it bring to mind?"

(Give them appropriate time to study and write)

Come back together as a class and ask the students to discuss their photos and discuss the ideas they came up with.

Now do the same with Daisy Kutter. Look at page... What do these pictures tell you about the story? How do these photos help you better understand Daisy's emotions? How do they help you piece the dialogue together?

Bibliography: Kibuishi, Kazu. Daisy Kutter: The Last Train. Irving, TX: Viper Comics, 2006.

TEKS:

• English II Standard 19: The student understands and interprets visual representations
• English II Standard 20: The student analyzes and critiques the significance of visual representations