Author: Karina Ramirez Velazquez

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Holy Propaganda Batman! Comic Book Covers and World War II

wonder-womenSensation Comics Jan. No. 13 (Source)

Overall I really enjoyed and found value in creating a document based lesson. This semester I’ve been reading, Lies My Teacher Told Me, by James W. Loewen and a quote that really stood out to me was, “What would we think of a course in poetry in which students never read a poem? (pg. 7).” I kept thinking about this quote throughout this lesson because that’s how high school social studies have been teaching history to students, and I feel document based lessons is an alternative that fixes that problem. It gives students a chance to work with primary resources and challenges them to be the historians in the process. The challenge for me was what primary resources to use, and what questions did I want my students to answer. I am glad I got to use a topic that I am super passionate about and be able to use it as my document based lesson project. The hard part was finding comic book covers that was available to share. Especially because Marvel and DC comics have heavy copyright laws that protect their work. My plan is to use this next year with my students at OPEN School.

What I gained most from this project was the skills of using google and Apple’s book author program. I am already thinking of creating another document based lesson on a different subject just so I can continue to grow my skills in using this program to be a better teacher. My only feed back I would give about this project that it’s a bit difficult for people that may not have a Apple device on hand.

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Group Discussion Reflection

I really appreciated the classroom discussion role play last class. Learning how to facilitate classroom discussion is an important skill to have as an educator. Classroom discussion, I believe, is where the learning really happens. It becomes more meaningful for students as they discuss and learn from each other. It is also a great way to do a formal or informal assessment to see student understanding of a subject.

I am really fortunate enough that at OPEN my CT focuses her lessons on group discussions. I was able to lead a group discussion on impacts of Christopher Columbus to the Taino’s. Students had to read Christopher Columbus letters about the description and interaction with the Taino’s. Students then as a group had to go through the reciprocal note taking, and then answer questions that are given to them as a small group. I also lead a large group discussion of asking students to analyze art from that displayed the treatment of the indigenous communities of European settlers. It was awesome to see the engagement of the students and wanted to understand more from each other.

I hope to get better at leading group discussion, and get more class practice.

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Holy Propaganda Batman!

Action Comic No. 43
Action Comic No. 43.

My intentions for this lesson is to give my students a brief introduction on the start of The Golden Age of Comic books (1939) and after an introduction of the start of World War II in 1939 up until Pearl Harbor. I want students to examine how comic books where use as war propaganda during WWII. I want students to understand who benefited and negatively impacted by using youth culture as a means to tell a story. I also want to connect how we use youth culture to target a minority group during times of war, like 9/11.  My vision and outcome of this project is to ask students to create a meme or comic book cover against or for U.S. involvement in World War II. My essential question would be: What can early comic book covers tell us about U.S. role during World War II?

Here is the link to my google: Click Here!

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Mini Lesson – “War Is Hell” Photograph

The purpose of this mini-lesson is to get our students to put on their thinking HAT’s on (get it? lol, nope, okay I’ll move on. No more puns I promise). This assignment also got us as educators to think of critical questions and to be able to create meaningful assignments/activities for them to be able to think like a historian. I hope that the mini-lesson that I created achieved that goal by looking through one iconic and historical photo taken during the Vietnam War.

My only concern when using Beyond the Bubble assessment model is when you ask students to question the validity of historical events, documents, interviews, or experiences of disfranchise communities whose experiences have historically been questioned or devalued as primary resources. It only perpetuates dominate culture and what dominate culture values in history. Other than that this was a great exercise to practice on creating lesson for our students. I loved participating and getting feedback from my classmates. Collaboration and feedback is the key to growth and community in education.