12th Night, or What You Will- The Comic!
Visualization is one of the most basic strategies of comprehension, and it is one of the first reading strategies we teach children. Picture books are a useful tool to teach this strategy early on. As children grow, they begin reading chapter books that have less pictures and more words. Finally, students begin reading books that do not have any pictures. By the time they grow to middle school age, they do not have pictures in books. Students instinctively visualize as they read. At times however, text and characters may become very complex. I found that some students were having difficulty following the play 12th Night, or What You Will, by William Shakespeare, due to the play’s language, various characters and intricate plot-line. I assisted students, in my SLS class, in understanding the plot of the play by having them draw comics/stick figures representing what they were reading. We then discussed the comics the students created, allowing them to restate, internalize and comprehend what they had just read. This is a helpful tool to offer students as an alternative to merely reading text without pictures.
