Katie Monnin's new, innovative resource, Teaching Reading Comprehension with Graphic Texts: An Illustrated Adventure, is now available for purchase on the Capstone Classroom and Maupin House websites. In this engaging professional book, written in graphic novel format, Dr. Monnin shows K-12 teachers how to read, understand, and teach the unique vocabulary and anatomy of the graphic text format alongside traditional, print-based literature and content-area selections. Graphic texts are not only loved by students, they address today's reading standards for teaching multi-modal texts that combine print and images. Now you can make the most of the graphic text-driven format in your reading program today!

Register for the AASL graphic novels webinar with Katie Monnin

From ALA.org:

 KQ Webinar: Aligning Graphic Novels to the Standards

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 | 7:00 p.m. ET/6 p.m. CT/5 p.m. MT/4 p.m. PT

Register Now

Presenter: Katie Monnin
One of the most exciting opportunities facing today’s teachers and librarians is how to dualistically teach contemporary literature to both the standards and the real world applications students face each and every day in a more and more diverse literacy world. Fortunately, graphic novels offer one possible answer. Deemed by contemporary literacy scholarship to be one of the most viable and popular contemporary literary formats, graphic novels can be aligned to both the standards and the real life applications facing today’s students. This webinar will focus on how to not only align graphic novels to the Common Core State Standards, NCTE/IRA Standards, and the AASL learning standards, but also to the real world, contemporary reading and writing literacy realities.

Katie Monnin is an assistant professor of literacy at University of North Florida in Jacksonville. She has presented nationally at conferences on teaching graphic novels in the classroom, image and print-text literacies, and new media. Katie is co-editor of Florida Reading Quarterly. Her book, Teaching Graphic Novels, was a finalist for the 2009 ForeWord Education Book of the Year! She was selected to be a judge for the 2013 Eisner Awards.

Note: Webinar is open to AASL members and eCOLLAB subscribers only. Registrations will be accepted until 10:00 am on Tuesday, February 12. A seat in the webinar is guaranteed to the first 100 attendees. As a webinar registrant, you will receive follow-up correspondence from AASL.

Katie Monnin named one of six 2013 Eisner Awards Judges!

Maupin House is proud to announce that author Katie Monnin is one of six comics experts selected to judge the 2013 Eisner Awards, which take place at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Katie is the author of Teaching Graphic Novels (2010, a finalist for ForeWord's Educational Book of the Year Award), Teaching Early Reader Comics and Graphic Novels (2011), Using Content-Area Graphic Texts for Learning (2012), and Teaching Reading Comprehension with Graphic Texts (2013). According to the Comic-Con website, "The Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, considered the 'Oscars' of comics, turn 25 in 2013. The most prestigious of the industry’s awards, the Eisners are given out at a gala ceremony on the Friday night of Comic-Con International: San Diego." There are more than two dozen awards categories for both creators and works, and the judges choose the nominees to appear on the 2013 Eisner Awards ballot.


Comic-Con International is "a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of and appreciation for comics and related popular artforms. primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contributions of comics to art and culture."

To read more and browse bios for all six judges, click here.

A mighty book list from A Mighty Girl

A Mighty Girl is "the world's largest collection of books and movies for smart, confident, and courageous girls." It's no surprise that this collection includes graphic novels featuring girls and women--one of the largest compilations, in fact, of nearly 60 graphic novels. Learn more about this collection by reading A Mighty Girl's blog post, "Clever Mice and Resilient Chicas: What Mighty Girls Can Learn From Graphic Novels."

Let them wear capes: The benefits of superheroes in kids' lives

We've all heard the negative superhero stuff: too much violence, stories not based in reality, and scary villains. But Heather Turgeon at parenting website Babble.com brings up some of the lesser-heard positives when it comes to the presence of superheroes in kids' lives:

"In the world of superheroes, anything is possible — and this idea does more than make for a fun afternoon. All that dreamed-up play is great exercise for the brain; it boosts skills in executive functioning, or the ability to plan and focus. And more symbolic play in preschool has been found to correlate with higher reading abilities in early elementary school. One recent study even found that wearing a Superman cape and hearing about his fantastic abilities (one of them being his 'patience,' for the purpose of the study), made children better able to wait and delay gratification."

There are so many great comics and graphic novels to choose from these days--including many for younger kids. So go ahead and let your kids wear their capes to school, role-play at home, and choose a comic for bedtime reading. And, hey, let's remember that non-fiction is often scarier than fiction! As long as you're helping them make age-appropriate choices when it comes to both books and movies/TV, their imaginations can fly high.

Graphic Novel Giveaway on Carol Baldwin's Blog!

Today, Carol Baldwin, author of Teaching the Story: Fiction Writing in Grades 4-8, is giving away THREE great books on her blog. Now is the time to learn more about choosing and using graphic novels at home and in your classroom. Carol is giving away two of Katie Monnin’s e-books (Teaching Graphic Novels and Teaching Early Reader Comics and Graphic Novels), as well as a personally autographed copy of the new book,  A Parent’s Guide to the Best Kid’s Comics: Choosing Titles Your Children Will Love, by Snow Wildsmith.

Hurry though. Giveaway ends on June 4!

Katie Monnin helps teachers explain the U.S. Constitution

Dr. Katie Monnin, respected authority on how to use the graphic novel format alongside traditional literature to teach to the standards, wrote the teacher's guide to a new graphic novel on the U.S. Constitution coming out soon from Round Table Companies. Read more about it on The Huffington Post!