After several intense days #notatISTE, and participating in #ISTELive, I’m finally able to go back and catch up on the annual ALA convention (#alaac15) which was also held this week in San Francisco.  (I tried keeping up with both for a while but I just couldn’t do it!)

Sunny Side Up by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm

One story that caught my attention was “Crying Emoji: ALA Annual Recap (Part III)” by Travis Jonker from 100Scopenotes.  The very first picture shows several authors performing readers theater, acting out a scene from Jennifer L. Holm’s and Matthew Holm’s graphic novel Sunny Side Up.  I had seen this done before, I can’t remember where, but I think it was Raina Telgemeier performing one of her graphic novels as reader’s theater.  Somewhere along the line (maybe that was the whole purpose of these presentations) I realized that the graphic novel format probably lends itself to reader’s theater.  I’ll bet that many, if not all, graphic novels could be performed in this way.

Then I started thinking about my students, and my library, and I’ll admit that I don’t do enough to promote graphic novels at my school.  My graphic novels circulate well, but mainly because of the students who already love them.  Most of the teacher’s have a hard time appreciating the complexity and value of graphic novels.  (When it comes time to do book projects, graphic novels are often vetoed as choices.)

So here’s my idea…  I think the students could collaborate to create book trailers reenacting short scenes from the graphic novels as reader’s theater, with accompanying images from the text (no more than one or two pages.)  Of course, I’m a little concerned about copyright, but I do feel like this would constitute Fair Use.  The students could then add music, sound effects and other images to create a finished book trailer to promote our graphic novels.  We are very privileged to have our own television channel and the trailers could be broadcast throughout the day.

Creating reader’s theater style book trailers offers so many opportunities for students to creatively express their love of graphic novels and also helps showcase their value to other students and the teachers.