Comics in Speech?

I have some middle school students that are pretty tough to please.  They gag at the sight of worksheets, they groan if someone is reading aloud. They grunt during writing activities.  In short, they already know their deficits with language, and getting them to work on something that's already difficult? No easy task.

A number of them are working on inferring information, and have been for a while.  While the typical, "answer questions about a story" produces eye rolls and moderate compliance, the idea of reading comic strips? Highly motivating.

Of course, like any other SLP, I like to preview my material and make sure that I will have things to talk about with a comic.  My go-to comics include:

Zits

Daddy's Home

Peanuts

Dennis the Menace

Pearls Before Swine

Rhymes with Orange

I use these in a few different ways.  One way I will use them is pretty straightforward: the students answer inferential questions after reading the comic strip.

I will also occasionally "block out" a response for prediction or a whole frame to infer what happened between two panels.

My biggest challenge to students comes when I read a comic without letting them see it.  I ask if they can tell how many characters are in the scene, tell them how many panels are in the picture, and then have them draw it.  The drawings obviously don't have to be artistic masterpieces- stickfigures work fine.  But I do make them include what they think the facial expressions are, how close they think the characters are standing/sitting, and a rough estimate of their best guess on setting.

My approach has been influenced by Stick Writing on a very basic level.  Unlike Stick Writing, I am not really using it really to retell a story or develop a story, but to help some of my very concrete thinkers to make connections.  However, like Stick Writing, I use it for a quick visual rendition for my students who struggle with writing their thoughts, and stress the importance of including characters, a setting, and other relevant information with quick sketches.  Plus, doing it on the whiteboard gets them out of their seats and moving around a bit.
 

Here's an example.  What's in green is what I wrote for the student.  In black is the student's work. This student happens to have lockers in his house, so he interpreted that it's taking place at home.  In the first panel, he is playing video games, and the mother yells from somewhere else in the house. In the second, he is pulling stuff down the hall to put in the locker. In the last frame, he's proud of himself and showing off his muscles. 

Here's the original comic

Using comics this way also gets more language overall from my students.  It breaks the mold of me being the only one to ask questions, and it encourages them to talk to each other, which is great for my kids that have goals in social language, as well.  Plus, the conversation that's sparked when they compare their comics with the real one are pretty impressive.  Most of my Middle Schoolers have at least some sort of carryover goal (artic or syntax), so longer passages of conversation is a great way for me to figure out what skills may need brushing up.

I am always a fan of saving time, so if you are interested in some of the comics I use, I made a quick powerpoint that you can get here.

Do you have any other ways to use comics in your groups?

Explaining my job

As part of one of his classes, my husband recently had to give a presentation on Speech Language Impairment as an eligibility for IEPs.

You can imagine that he jumped on the topic once he saw it, because he figured he'd have the inside scoop.

I'm pretty sure the parrot explains how our conversation went.

I was credited in his presentation as being a "professional source", and he asked me questions about how I choose my assessments, what I look for, how I qualify students, and what that means for a Speech Language Impairment as a primary or secondary disability.  He also asked what I would want teachers to know. Oh boy, what an opportunity! Where to begin? Not to finish sentences for students who stutter (pet peeve!)? Making sure students with processing disorders can see your face when you are talking to them? The connection between speech, reading and writing?  I decided that I needed to start at the beginning: I don't just work with kids who sound funny.

In my current district, we are not involved in the STAT/Problem Solving Meeting unless a student is already being seen by us and we ask to be involved.  Technically, the meeting is held outside of school hours (starting 15 minutes before our contract day starts), so we are not seen as integral members of the team that need to be paid extra to be there.  Instead, I might not know a kid is having difficulties until I get to a domain. And even then, if I don't have a chance to screen the kid first and ask the teacher, they will say, "no, speech sounds fine."  When I get to the meeting, parents and teachers say the student doesn't follow directions in the classroom and looks at them like they don't understand novel directions.

It's taught me to always screen a student before I walk into a meeting.

More importantly, it's taught me that I have to continually educate people on what areas I play a role in, how that translates to the classroom, and the training I have that can help the team servicing a student.  I am lucky to have a very involved principal, so I've started my effort there. He is the type of administrator who not only knows the names of almost every kid in the school, but he has a nice way of suggesting people do something without actually ordering them to do it.  The result is that if he says, "why don't you ask Speech to screen him?", the teacher will do just that.

It's my first year in this district, and I came from a district with more "across the board" policies. We all used the same screening forms, same referral forms, and even the same "permission for RtI services" forms.  The idea was to present as a united front and develop a standardized way of measuring who needed services.  The nice thing about the referral forms was that it made teachers think about language skills more than they seem to in my current district.  As the Common Core creeps up on us, we are working on creating many of the same relevant materials. 

This year has been a year of testing the waters. I started with the principal and special education teacher in my elementary building, and I definitely feel like I am making headway.  Not all buildings have such great staff, though, and some of the speech paths worry that if they introduce new things, it will be received poorly.  We've gone back and forth about whether using one of our School Improvement afternoons to present would be a worthwhile cause.

So how about you? What do you do to educate people on your job?  If you could tell teachers one thing, what would it be?

Superbowl Ads

Working on inferring with your students? How about figurative language?  We all know that ads are chock full of clever ways to get us to buy things.  And what better time of year than now to talk about ads with your students?  The Superbowl is the ultimate commercial experience, right? I mean, as long as you screen out all the inappropriate ads.  Here's some of my favorites that I've been working on with my students (some of these were leaked last week, so my middle schoolers got an ad preview!)



Oreo Whisper Fight: 

Mercedes "Soul"

My students loved figuring out who the "evil" character was, and were eager to share the clues they used to figure it out (yikes, those nails!).  They also felt really proud when they could state why the main character turned down the deal with devil.

Tide "Miracle Stain"
The great twist at the end makes it a funny commercial that my students really like.  Also a great commercial to talk about superstitions/signs.

Milk Mustache Campaign:
My students that knew "The Rock" did better with this than those that didn't, but it was a good chance to talk about how your previous knowledge can influence an inference (say that 10 times fast!). 

Toyota "Wishes"
 Understanding the idiom "spare tire" is essential in this commercial, and it was a great chance to see if my students could pick up the context clues to gather the meaning. 

Hyundai Team
As you can imagine, this really resonated with my middle schoolers.  Great ad to talk about exaggeration, and what they are really implying about the space in the vehicle. 

Sketchers Cheetah
Another good one for exaggeration, and determining what the advertisers are trying to say about the shoes.















Obviously, there are more ads out there, but these were just some of the highlights from last night.  If your try it with your older students, I'd love to hear how it goes!

Friday Fun: Lion, Beaver, Otter or Golden Retriever?

I've mentioned before, but my husband is taking a class for his school license. In addition to the school counselors institute he's involved in, he is taking a weekly class about teaching for special populations. It is a class that's required for a number of different programs, and he happens to be the only counselor in the class.

Since it is still early in the semester, they have been doing some icebreaker stuff.  This week, they did a personality assessment by Dr. Gary Smalley and Dr. John Trent.  It's a quick assessment that assigns you an animal to describe the type of person you are.

You can take it here for free. If you plan on taking it, do that before you keep reading. I don't want you to skew your results. 




OK, so you've obviously taken the time to figure out which animal represents you, right?  And if you scrolled down to page 3, you've probably read about the characteristics.  My husband broke them down in a bit more simplistically: Lions are leaders, Otters playful, Golden Retrievers are the people pleasers, and Beavers are the diligent workers.  The descriptions on page 3 of that link are a lot more detailed, giving pros and cons.

I found this interesting, because the professor made a point after the class took the assessment to talk about different school professions, and where they tend to fall. 

My husband falls as a golden retriever-otter (his responses were equal).  Apparently many counselors are golden retrievers. So well played there, dear.

The professor asked where the class thought SLPs fall.  My husband said his gut instinct was Beaver, and then he thought I might be tied with a lion (how's that for opposites attracting?  ;)  ).  According to the professor, he was spot on.  Most SLPs fall in the beaver category, but some of us are also lions, as are many administrators (which makes sense).

I don't put all my stock in this, of course, because I think these can usually be generic enough to fit anyone, and we all have a slightly skewed perception of ourselves anyway.  But we all do have to admit, being an SLP does take a certain level of attention to detail, problem solving, personal relations, and a healthy dose of passion.

So, where did you fall?  I think about all the SLPs that I talk to that love data collection and get excited about ways to organize their caseload and paperwork.  Most of us have goal areas for our students memorized within the first few weeks of the school year, and we are all about measurable outcomes.  I could definitely see Beavers.  I also think about the number of SLPs who go on to be administrators, and can see Lion, too.