Skill Descriptor: Explore the origins of visual storytelling.

Global Competencies: CTPS, CM

Achievement Indicators:

• Examine the history of visual storytelling
• Explain the impact of the invention of the printing press
• Inspect visual storytelling from various cultures
• Determine how the medium of “visual storytelling” has impacted culture
• Investigate why visual storytelling is effective

Skill Descriptor: Research the evolution of visual storytelling leading up to today.

Global Competencies: CTPS, CM

Achievement Indicators:

• Explore the transition from visual story to comic strip, to comic book, to graphic novel
• Investigate the role of comics in counterculture (e.g., EC Comics)
• Examine the Comic Book Code, its creation, and its impact
• Discuss the definition of graphic novel

Skill Descriptor: Demonstrate the importance of pre-planning as an effective way to gather, process, and select information.

Global Competencies: CTPS, CM

Achievement Indicators:

• Create organizational frameworks to manage content, collect ideas and generate new knowledge, and perspectives
• Plan for a story by dividing into manageable chunks
• Draft a cohesive text, making critical choices about what to include or exclude

Skill Descriptor: Determine which moments to include and which to leave out when creating stories.

Global Competencies: CTPS, CM, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

• Consider the purpose, intent, and audience
• Identify the message to be conveyed to the reader
• Discuss exemplars of clear, convincing storytelling
• Understand the different types of moments (e.g., moment, action, subject, scene, aspect, non-sequitur)
• Explore the use of panels in storytelling within various cultural contexts

Skill Descriptor: Select effective distances and angles to share moments with the audience.

Global Competencies: CTPS, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

• Intentionally choose “camera” angles, distance, height, balance, and centering to create a sense of place, position, and focus
• Determine when to panel and not to panel (e.g., bleeding)
• Discern how to use panel layout for impact
• Explore how perspective can be used as an effective storytelling technique

Skill Descriptor: Render the characters, objects, and environments in frames clearly.

Global Competencies: CTPS, ICE, CM

Achievement Indicators:

• Clearly evoke the appearance of characters, objects, environments, and symbols
• Effectively use artistic devices (e.g., realism, abstract, expressionistic, etc.)
• Use devices to impact mood and emotion
• Explore artistic theory used in visual storytelling (e.g., the picture plane)

Skill Descriptor: Select words that add valuable information and work well with images around them.

Global Competencies: CTPS, CM, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

• Effectively create balance between picture specific and word specific panels (when to show and when to tell)
• Communicate ideas, voices, and sounds in combination with images
• Demonstrate understanding of balloons, sound effects, and word/picture integration

Skill Descriptor: Guide readers through and between panels on a page or screen.

Global Competencies: CTPS, CM, ICE

Achievement Indicators:

• Demonstrate understanding of the arrangement of panels, and the arrangement of elements within
• Explore how to indicate the passing of time through panel shape and placement
• Use moment, frame, image, and word in tandem

Skill Descriptor: Critically read, construct meaning from, and evaluate a variety of visual stories.

Global Competencies: CTPS, CM

Achievement Indicators:

• Identify craft moves within independently selected visual stories
• Examine mentor texts from a variety of genres through all stages of the writing process
• Understand the connection between reading and writing
• Evaluate how storytellers make informed choices regarding their stories
• Analyze visual stories to identify crucial choices authors make to provide clarity and enhance meaning
• Describe story elements (e.g., plot, theme, characterization) and how they are expressed in visual and written text
• Explore the role of stereotypes in visual storytelling

Skill Descriptor: Explore a variety of diverse perspectives in visual storytelling.

Global Competencies: CTPS, SASM

Achievement Indicators:

• Determine who is represented in a visual story and who is not
• Consider how the inclusion of different perspectives might confirm, challenge, or extend the message of a visual story
• Reflect on the impact that diverse representation has in understanding ourselves and our world

Skill Descriptor: Collaborate with a community of writers.

Global Competencies: CM, CL

Achievement Indicators:

• Participate in a writing community
• Understand the importance of listening critically and responding thoughtfully to other’s writing and ideas
• Share with, and give effective feedback to, the writing community
• Respect the importance of feedback throughout the writing process

Skill Descriptor: Critically reflect on the contributions of others to formulate and refine understanding.

Global Competencies: CTPS, CM, SASM, CL

Achievement Indicators:

• Consider multiple ways of knowing and being when determining the value and relevance of information
• Examine the use of language to identify ideas, values, and worldviews

Skill Descriptor: Persuade and support ideas and opinions with evidence.

Global Competencies: CM, CTPS, CL

Achievement Indicators:

• Refine arguments by selecting facts, anecdotal evidence, and experiences that consider difference of opinion
• Communicate persuasively, citing evidence free from generalizations and bias