Soundwords: Graphic Story Telling

Soundwords was an Erasmus+ funded project involving six countries and nine institutions, which took place in September 2017 – February 2020. Its aims were to:•promote social inclusion•develop an artistic aesthetic approach via the vehicle of the Graphic Novel•enhance the literacy and artistic skills of students•provide easily used tools for teachers to downloadThe project was led the Board of Education for Vienna. It involved more than 60 colleagues from Austria, Germany, Italy, England, Malta and Spain who represented all phases of ed¬ucation with students ranging from age seven through to college and university level. In excess of 2500 student hours were used. Against an agreed brief, each country worked in their discrete institutions coming together ten times over the two years to exchange information and insights, work on the collective out¬puts, and finalise on-line materials.The output of the project was on the one hand a guideline – the “Compendium of Implementation”, and on the other hand a booklet – a graphic novel, the “Europe Graphic Novel”. The “Compendium” is a guide to the implementation of social inclusion, oriented towards the example of teaching and learning behaviour, for the example of the graphic novel. The “Europe Graphic Novel” is a tutorial on how to develop a graphic novel, which was created with pupils in the practical part.We chose the vehicle of the Graphic Novel in all its creative forms (graphic story telling, children books, comics, multimedia approaches, illustration, cartoons) because:•It aids reading development, especially for reluctant readers•It supports development of self-expression and the creative extension of linguistic development. •It is an ideal vehicle for the development of universal human values. •Young people find the combination of pictures and words easier to understand, develop and utilize their visual literacy•Evidence shows that complex and difficult issues can be successfully transmitted via narrative and graphics•It has the potential to combine digital and analogue techniques•It utilises young people´s love of films, of comics, of artecraft forms and support: development of their creativity.The Graphic Novel format has the potential to be a key learning tool for all the students of all ages and abilities throughout the European Union.