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Ninth-grade students with reading difficulties become highly engaged with a text and write much about it in an authentic writing project.
We are a ninth-grade teacher in a Special Education English class (Cheryl) and a teacher educator (Bucky) who know of each other's work through a mutual interest in graphic novels. Here's what happened in Cheryl's class when her students read American Born Chinese and discussed that text in a blog with its author, Gene Luen Yang.
Bucky Sets the Stage: Special Education, Reading, Mandates, Adolescence
Six boys are in Cheryl's ninth-grade Special Education English class at a school specializing in the education of high-needs students in Northern California. Three have Asperger's syndrome; one is labeled as emotionally disturbed; two have nonverbal learning disabilities. Though their disabilities vary, several of them have the shared experience of being bullied in previous school settings, and all have significant difficulties socializing with others. Indeed, only two of the students are friends; the rest prefer to avoid social interaction and lack the requisite skills to interact successfully.
These students also share a commonality with many students nationwide who have disabilities: on average, they read 3.6 years behind their grade level (Blackorby, Chorost, Garza, and Guzman). Typically, these students think literally rather than abstractly, often preventing them from being able to identify literary elements such as theme, symbolism, metaphor, and imagery. Cheryl's students certainly struggle with abstract concepts and inferential thinking. Most do not enjoy literature but prefer nonfiction texts dealing with science or history.
Yet, Cheryl and thousands of educators like her are still responsible for making sure all students are prepared to take state and national assessments. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and No Child Left Behind have mandated it. Finding texts that motivate and engage her students and using strategies that can successfully improve their reading comprehension can be a challenge, but Cheryl has found that the graphic novel is wellsuited in addressing both these concerns and others. This may be due to the graphic novel's inherent ability to provide visual scaffolding. Many students with disabilities may have trouble visualizing what they read. Nanci Bell, co-creator of the Lindamood- Bell Visualizing and Verbalizing strategy, which involves getting students to visualize at the word level, sentence...