Summer Reading Club for the Rhetoric Stage: Graphic Novels

Summer club. The WTMA Summer Reading Club is designed to keep rhetoric-stage students engaged in reading and discussion over the summer break. Students will come together with their instructor and peers once a week to think and talk about that week’s reading. The summer reading club is designed to follow participants’ interests, and, therefore, student input will shape individual sessions, with the instructor serving as moderator for the academic discussion. 

This course is meant to foster a student’s love of reading. There are no formal written assignments — class attendance and participation is the only requirement (in addition to reading the texts).  Students who participate in all 8 sessions will receive a WTMA Summer Reading Club t-shirt. Participation credit is earned by attending the live class or by watching the recording of a class and then completing a discussion board response based on a prompt given by the instructor. You may find these prompts under “discussion board” on our course Blackboard page. 

After Week 1, several students will be assigned each week to serve as discussion facilitators for our meetings. When it is your week to serve as one of the discussion leaders, you should bring with you two open-ended questions about the text to ask your peers.

Please note: This course is designed for high-school students. Several of these readings contain images, scenarios, subjects, and themes that younger and/or more sensitive readers may find upsetting or unsettling. While these texts are appropriate for mature high school students, students and parents should be aware of the complexities and intensities of these readings in advance. If you have any concerns we encourage you to check the texts out at the local library before enrolling your student.

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Summer Reading Club for the Rhetoric Stage: Graphic Novels Information




  • Club meets once per week for 50-55 minutes.
  • Club cap: 20 students.
  • Designed for students in grades 9-12.

Course Materials




  • Click here to purchase the club texts.
    • Glass Town: The Imaginary World of the Brontës, Isabel Greenberg
    • Monet: Itinerant of Light, Salva Rubio
    • DJANGO, Hand on Fire: The Great Django Reinhardt, Salva Rubio and EFA
    • Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery”: The Authorized Graphic Adaptation, Miles Hyman
    • H.G. Wells: The Invisible Man, Dobbs and Christophe Regnault
    • Anya’s Ghost, Vera Brogsol
    • A Game for Swallows: To Die, To Leave, To Return, Zeina Abirached
    • On a Sunbeam, Tillie Walden
    • What It Is, Lynda Barry
    • A Girl Called Echo, All 4 Volumes, Katherena Vermette 


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