Lesson Plan: Pix Volume 1: One Weirdest Weekend

Review

If a story were to stand in for an amusement park Pix: One Weirdest Weekend would be on the front gate in great big neon letters. 

“Welcome to Pix: One Weirdest Weekend, where your life becomes a superhero’s adventure!”

Pix (Emaline Laurel Pixley) is not only a teenager, but also a superhero.  Her friends are not jealous, either.  In fact, they helped her make her costume and even help her play the superhero role.  Mature, thoughtful teenagers this graphic novel offers a rollicking, up-and-down, backwards and sideways adventure full of frogs, dragons, superheroes, TV stations, a dog named Bonus, and more.  Much, much more. 

It’s an exciting adventure just to recommend it.     

Language Arts Elements of Story

Plot: When an extremely extraordinary student finds out she has superpowers her family and friends are in for the greatest set of adventures imaginable. 

Major Characters: Emaline Laurel Pixley, Regie, Risa, Seth, Cherry, Laura, Ron, Noah, Bonus, Narrator, Monah, King of the Fairies, Michael Felix, Wyndra, Magic 8-ball, Frog, Suzy, Red Dragon, White Dragon, Uncle Ellis, Rabbit, Bear, Noah’s Mother, Monkey, Prince Lorne, Prince Lorne’s Uncle

Major Settings: Car, TV Station, Ron’s Office, the Sky, Pix’s House, Kitchen’s Sink, Noah’s House, Restaurant, Neighborhood

Themes: Teenagers, Superheroes, Princesses, Powers, Relationships, Technology

Lesson Plan Recommendations Using the Common Core Standards for Middle and High School Readers

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.11-12.3

Analyze the impact of the author’s choices regarding how to develop and relate elements of a story or drama (e.g., where a story is set, how the action is ordered, how the characters are introduced and developed).*  **

* The number(s) referenced above corresponds to the number used by the Common Core Standards.

** A 12th grade Reading Literature standard is used because it encompasses reading skills inherent in 12th grade classrooms and below, an aspect which aligns well with teaching this graphic novel in either setting.
 

Lesson Idea for Middle School and/or High School Readers 

Directions: Using the two columns below ask students to identify six major characters in the story.  Next, ask students to find a representative and/or significant quotation for each character.  In the top column, students draw six character’s, one for each block.  In the bottom column, students randomly arrange all of their identified quotations from the story. 

From the top column to the bottom column, it is important that students DO NOT align character drawings in the same order they identify their quotations.

When students are done drawing and writing significant quotations in the two columns they can turn their papers in.

As the educator, your job is to collect all of these papers and then redistribute them to other students in the room.  It is the second student’s job to “align the characters with the quotations by drawing arrows from the top column to the bottom column and/or vice versa.”