Group+Teamwork+&+Individual+Reflections


 * Group Teamwork.**

The four members of our group, Claire, Tom, Dave and myself (Steve), work togeather to produce the finished product you see before you. After a few initial meeting to nut out what ideas we had and to discuss the text as a whole, we decided to split the wiki into VELS levels and each produce some ideas for a particular level. From that time on we worked individually to produce our own year levels page and only coming together very briefly to find out how each of us were travelling.


 * Personal reflections on the text:

Steve Watling:**

I must admit straight from the outset that reading comics is not something that I enjoy doing, in fact, I don't actually remember one example of actually reading a comic as a whole. That being said, I was a little worried about this book. My personal experience reading this book I must admit hasn't really changed my idea about comics, I still don't really enjoy reading them, they are just not for me, I guess. But, this doesn't stop me from saying that the book is a really valuable resource for teachers, as comics as a whole is a brilliant topic for children to participate in. It inspires their imagination and allows them to use that imagination in a creative and constructive manner.

As the book is a step by step guide to what a comic is as a whole and talksabot all the issues that may arise in the classroom if this topic were to be used. I believe it would be really handy to have a few copies of it floating around the room for the students to look at and read through while they are creating their own piece of art.

Overall, I found the book to be interesting and worth while studying. Reading the book has and creating this wiki has made me look deeply at a topic which I possibly would never have thought of teaching in the past, but most certainly will look at doing in the future.


 * Claire McCarthy:**

I'd have to say that at start when I found on the list that i got give comic books, I was a bit apprehensive about that because I was never really heavily into them growing up. You were more likely to find me reading some sort of fantasy model. I used to read the comics in the paper a bit and used to love Footrot flats, but that was as far as I went with that. When I thought about it a bit more, I figured it would be a good interdisciplinary tool to use, especially as a bridge between the arts and literacy (written as english in the VELS).

In the book that we used 'understanding comics,' it has a lot about the structures of the comic book and how it's set up within the contexts of history and other books, so it's pretty open for interpretation of how we could possibly take things out of it to use as a resource in the classroom. In creating a wiki from this book, it has brought me to take a closer look and really study the use that comics could have in the classroom. It has been worthwhile doing this because in doing so, I have been able to see how versatile a book like this really is, and how it could be used acroos the spectrum of our teaching. More than the others, I thought of the link between art and literacy because of the se up of a comic, but could easily go into the other areas and considering i was doing my part of the wiki on VELS level 1 and if I have noticed anything about this level, it is that they are very visually inclined at this age, and you often need something bright and colourful to get their attention with (and something that you can relate back to their lives or interests), and bringing a comic book which has that colour and visual tools in it can really grab their attention.

In the book, it really does have that break down of wha comics are and what forms are used in them to make them so apealing to the masses, even having the history in it with the possibly origins of them is amazing. I had no idea that there were so many components to a comic book before I did this wiki, and I am glad that i did now because it really has opened my eyes to how it could be a very useful tool tomuse in the classroom. I may have thought of using this in the past, but only really to do with the visual arts, but now i can certainly see using it in different areas across the curriculum.


 * Tom Mangan:**

When finding out that we were given comics as out theme for litracy I was excited thinking about all the movies I had seen that were based on comics. Although I had never really thought about using a comic in the classroom, after this in-depth study I have descovered that there are many different ways comics can be incorperated into the curriculum. Comic books can incorperate learning from different subject areas which make them a great resource for any teacher. Although I had occasionally read comics I had never developed the full understanding that this book was able to instill in me. There is a lot more that goes into a comic book then meets the eye, I had never thought about all the pre-work that goes into a comic to make the reader understand the plot, and intend of each individual slide.

Through out this assignment I have gained the knowledge of a great resource I will be able to take with me when I begin tro teach. This assignment has really helped me to open my eyes to the possibility of using a resource as a mulit-discipline based teaching tool.


 * Dave Myers:**

Understanding Comics was a great book to base a unit of literary studies on. Like the rest of our group members I was a bit unsure what to expect from this book but once I started reading it I really got into and enjoyed it. It is a good book because it talks about complex ideas but explains them really well. We all came up with lots of ideas for how we could incorporate comics into literacy lessons probably the hardest part was narrowing down what areas we wanted to focus on. Comics in the classroom can be great fun. Most children have got an interest in comics whether it be on the T.V or in magazines, therefore I think it is a really good medium to develop students literacy skills. All in all a great book I highly recommend it, check out the wiki for more info!

Introduction to Understanding comics