Teach Week Grades 2-5 - Get Students Engaged - Build Your Graphic Novel Collection Today

Aug 27, 2026

Teach Week for Grades 2–5 explains how to integrate graphic novels into daily classroom instruction to boost engagement and literacy. The materials outline benefits for reading comprehension, fluency, confidence, vocabulary building, and critical thinking, emphasizing how panels, text, images, and word balloons convey meaning and support analysis. Activities guide students to read, discuss, compare visual and written storytelling, decode literary devices, and share creations through an Artists Alley showcase.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryExam

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Week

Benefits of Graphic Novels

How to Draw Stacey From

Read and Discuss

Share and Celebrate - Artists Alley

TEACH WEEK GRADES 2–5 GET STUDENTS ENGAGED! ✓ Learn how to incorporate graphic novels into your daily curriculum ✓ Get creative and have students write and draw their own panels and comics ✓ Inspire students to share their creations and knowledge with others ✓ AND MORE!!! BUILD YOUR GRAPHIC NOVEL COLLECTION TODAY Many educators have reported great success when they have integrated graphic novels into their curriculum. Teachers are discovering that graphic novels—just like traditional forms of literature—can be useful tools for helping students critically examine aspects of history, science, literature, and art. Find a graphic novel for every reader at [scholastic.com/teachgraphix](scholastic.com/teachgraphix)[ ](scholastic.com/teachgraphix)with downloadable resources and activities! Twins Art © 2020 by Shannon Wright. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/ or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. [www.scholastic.com/teachgraphix](www.scholastic.com/teachgraphix) TEACH WEEK BENEFITS OF GRAPHIC NOVELS Graphic novels do not and aren’t intended to replace other kinds of reading—it’s not an either-or choice. Engaging in multiple book formats encourages readers to think critically about how stories work across different types of storytelling. Graphic novels can be any genre and tell any kind of story, just like their prose counterparts. The format is what makes the story a graphic novel, and usually includes text, images, word balloons, sound effects, and panels. The benefits of including these texts in your classroom go far beyond getting kids excited—using graphic novels can increase and support reading comprehension, fluency, confidence, vocabulary building, and critical thinking. With graphic novels, your students can compare how they receive and comprehend information through written narrative versus wordless visuals. They can analyze how information about character is derived from facial and bodily expressionsand about meaning and foreshadowing from the pictures’composition and viewpoint. These books require readers to be actively engaged in the process of decoding and comprehending a range of literary devices, including narrative structures, metaphor and symbolism, point of view, the use of puns and alliteration, intertextuality, and inference. Reading graphic novels can help students develop the critical skills necessary to read more challenging works, including the classics. Use the following questions, prompts, and activities with your students to get them involved in learning more about graphic novels! HOW TO DRAW STACEY FROM BY GALE GALLIGAN 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 Twins Art © 2020 by Shannon Wright. DOG MAN © and TM/® Dav Pilkey. The Baby-Sitters Club Art © 2019 by Gale Galligan. SCHOLASTIC and associated logos are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc. TEACH WEEK READ AND DISCUSS In groups or individually, choose a graphic novel to read and analyze, using the following questions as prompts for discussion or written response: • Graphic novels typically contain some or all of the following: panels, word balloons, sound effects, motion lines, narration, and background colors. Find examples of as many of these elements as possible in this book. • How do you read a graphic novel? Panel by panel? Pictures first and then text? Text first and then pictures? There is no single “right” way. Compare your approach with a classmate’s . • Find examples in the story of an exciting moment, a tense moment, and/or a funny moment. How does the artist encourage the reader to turn the page? What’s different visually when the page is turned? How does the dramatic pause before the page turn and the visual shift once you’ve turned the page affect your sense of what’s happening in the story? • Find a page in your graphic novel where not all of the panels are the same size. What effect do various sizesand numbers of panels per page ha

FAQs

How do graphic novels support reading comprehension and critical thinking in Grades 2–5?

The materials explain that graphic novels strengthen reading comprehension, fluency, confidence, vocabulary building, and critical thinking by requiring students to decode and interpret multiple literary devices across text and images.

What classroom approaches are suggested for reading a graphic novel?

Students are encouraged to choose books and use discussion prompts to consider how to read panel by panel and whether to look at pictures first or text first, noting there is no single right way.

What kinds of activities help students engage with graphic novels beyond reading?

The document includes prompts for analyzing story moments, panel size and pacing, perspective, and how elements like speech bubbles and white space contribute to meaning, plus an Artists Alley event to display and celebrate student work.

Aug 27, 2026

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