Dog Man Rescues Reading Identities

 

A giggle broke the silence of room full of reading 4th and 5th graders. The culprit looked around for a friend to share the joke with. His neighbor looked up from his book, leaned over the first student’s book, and they whispered and giggled together for a moment before returning to their own books. 

The first time this happened, I briefly wondered whether I should insist on maintaining strict silent reading protocols. Then I thought, what do I do when my husband and I are sitting around in the evening reading and I come across a funny passage? I giggle. He looks up. I share it with him. He smiles. And then we both go back to reading. It is polite reading behavior to not interrupt other readers—unless there is a reading tidbit so marvelous we can’t refrain from sharing. That's what readers do.

This past winter, Dog Man graphic novels transformed a handful of English language learners in my 4th and 5th grade ELA class into avid readers. At least into avid Dog Man readers—which is a significant start. They suddenly looked forward to reading time. They passed their copies around to each other. They shared their reading. They had inside jokes from their reading. It was truly remarkable.

The students themselves started the movement. So when I passed the class on to another teacher this spring, and the 5th graders graduated into my 6th and 7th grade ELA class, I gifted the elementary classroom a set of the first six Dog Man books. I read them first, and brought them in on successive days. The teacher said the students looked forward to them.   

One morning before the school day started, a 4th grader knocked on the door of the teachers’ office where about 8 of us have desks and shouted in to his teacher, “Do you have any Captain Underpants books?” “No, I don’t,” she answered. The student responded, “Does Mrs. Essenburg?” No—but I’m happy to be seen as a probable source of interesting reading material!

What about the students that graduated into my 6th and 7th grade class? Are they limited to Dog Man? No. Some of them still enjoy Diary of a Wimpy Kid now and then, but they've naturally matured as readers. Halfway through the spring term when we made reading ladders and I demonstrated with the Dog Man books being the easiest books I’d read and Putin’s People being the hardest, there were a lot of nostalgic “Oh, remember Dog Man!” responses, but not a single student clamored to read one. The students who enjoyed it last year have now moved on to Peter Brown’s Wild Robot books, The Ranger’s Apprentice series, and Alan Gratz’s historical fiction. 

Meanwhile, I recently subbed in the 4th and 5th grade social studies class for a few days. They were working on posters summarizing a part of their study of Alexander the Great that had interested them. One 4th grader directed me to a particular portion of the cartoon images that illustrated his poster. He said, “I learned to draw that fist from Dog Man!” When he pointed out how he’d also used the common Dog Man misspelling of “supa” for “super,” I said, “Yes, I see how you’ve patterned your poster on Dog Man, and do you think your social studies teacher will understand that?” The student thought for a moment, then erased “supa” and replaced it with the accepted dictionary spelling. A teachable moment for considering the importance of audience. 

I’d long agreed with the thinking that graphic novels are “real” reading, that it only takes one “home run” book to create a reading identity, and that while a student who enjoys reading Captain Underpants may one day enjoy reading Hamlet, the student who doesn’t read, won’t. Now I’ve seen it in action. If in addition to educating students about the importance of reading, modeling a reading life, providing time for reading, and conferring with students about reading, I work to provide a wide range of reading choice--something (maybe even Dog Man!) to grab each student's interest--students will grow into a reading identity. And when that happens, they grow in vocabulary, writing, knowledge of the world, empathy, and so many other good things.

What books have you found for igniting a student's identity as a reader?