First time presenting at the International Reading Association Convention

Last summer, I submitted two proposals for the 2012 IRA Convention. One was a lively panel of authors of picture book nonfiction called “But Kids Haven’t Heard of That: Why Teaching Unconventional Nonfiction Is Important.” The other was a variation on a popular workshop I give nationwide. It’s normally “The Language of Cartoons”; I renamed this version “Teaching with Humor.”

I’d heard that it’s tough to craft a proposal due to exacting IRA criteria, and I’d heard that the audiences can have high expectations (as they should). For those reasons and more, I was doubly thrilled not only for one of my proposals to be chosen but for the session to be, in my estimation, a whopping success. Incidentally, I guessed wrong on which proposal stood a better chance of getting a yes.

On 5/2/12 in Chicago, I presented “Teaching with Humor.” (Try you again this year, “But Kids Haven’t Heard of It”!).

The room was big—it held at least 200—and I’m happy to report that it was standing room only. People continued to trickle in for a while after I started; eventually some had no choice but to sit on the floor (violation!)—and I even had a few who had no choice but to occupy the seats behind me (at the pushed-back “panel table” that had been alongside my podium). They could still see the screen but when I began drawing examples, they had to relocate and find space in front of the table.

I’m told that it is especially difficult to get a good turnout on the last day, which this was, and I was even more grateful considering my slot was perilously close to lunch.

Here is selected feedback:








Thank you, IRA, for the opportunity, thank you, attendees, for attending, and thank you again, Scholastic, for sponsoring me.

Browning in black and white

Today I ran my workshop "The Language of Cartoons: What's So Funny?" at the all-boys Browning School in New York City. The participants were a small group of 12th graders whose Spanish teacher assigned them to adapt a portion of a Spanish-language novel into a graphic novel(la).

They went in not realizing they speak Cartoon. I went in not speaking Spanish.

They left realizing they speak Cartoon. I left not speaking Spanish.

10 Most Memorable School Visit Moments: #2

Every school I've had the privilege of speaking at has given me a great experience. Some have given me a great story, too.

“The First Time Someone Got It Right”

year: 2008
state: Nevada






My first time in a Nevada city besides Las Vegas brought another first.

At a Reno middle school, I combined my standard presentation with another I do called "The Language of Cartoons: What's So Funny?" It’s not a how-to-draw workshop—I don’t do those. Rather it’s a look at the (visual but also verbal) tricks cartoonists use that add up to a language we all learn without being formally taught—and without realizing it. Think of it as the special effects of the printed page—or PGI (pencil-generated imagery).

I show kids that when we read cartoons, we’re being detectives. The mystery, though always the same, is not always obvious: why is this funny? The clues are the words and the art. How do they work together to give meaning, but not quite all the meaning, letting the reader figure out some of it on his own?

In one segment of this presentation, I sketch various types of word bubbles one at a time and ask the kids what each means. They all know the standard oval speech bubble and the cloudlike thought bubble; many also know (or guess) the shout bubble:

Then I draw this:

And it stumps them. Of course they have guesses for that, too, some of which have been so clever I really should remember them. Yet I did remember that of the dozens of times I’d asked what that bubble means, no one (student or educator) had yet answered it correctly.

Until Nevada.

Jason (let's call him) knew that the slight difference from a shout bubble—the more angled points—makes it a static bubble. It is shown coming from devices that transmit sound electronically—a TV, loudspeaker, cell phone. I told Jason that he was the first ever to give me the right answer.

I went on, I finished, the students left. Then a teacher came up to me and said something to the effect of, "You have no idea how cool it was when you told Jason he was the first to know that type of word bubble." She explained: Jason kept to himself. When I praised him in front of his classmates, it was a huge boost for him.

The teacher was so moved by how this positively affected Jason that tears rimmed her eyes and she said she was about to cry.

For that alone, yet another worthy nominee for Teacher of the Year.

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