Research Project ACTIVATE!

Great news! We got the Creative Reading class title approved. This resolves a problem that none of you were aware of, because I never mentioned it, but believe me when I say that this is a good thing. So far this year the name "Creative Reading" has not appeared in my electronic gradebook or class roster, because it was not an officially approved course title. It always just said TEMP CLASS ONE YEAR, or words to that effect. Now that the class title has been approved, students will be able to get the correct class name on their transcripts. And since it's official, other schools could theoretically add Creative Reading class. Wouldn't that be exciting?

But you are not interested in that. You are wondering how our research project is going. On Friday each student chose a significant comics creator from a list I gave them. I won't share the list, because as soon as I passed it out I noticed some glaring omissions and I'm embarrassed by it. Let me just say that it included cartoonists, artists, writers, and even a couple of editors, and if I get a chance to do this class again, I'm going to cut out the editors. Anyway, students chose names, and we went to the computer lab to begin research. And yes, I let them go to Wikipedia. It's a useful starting point.

Last night I filled a suitcase with graphic novels so I could take in examples of comics by the creators the students chose. Today they looked at the comics and continued to do research online. They are going to use their research to write a short essay and then present their findings to the class. 

One of the cartoonists on the list was Osamu Tezuka, and one of the books I took in was this one:

Hurray for Astro Boy!