Five-Week Plan
A five-week sequence from visual grammar and closure to a drafted and tested comic page.
Open resource →
Year 9 HEAP • English
Graphic Novel
A five-week unit on visual grammar and narrative depth. Students learn how panels, gutters, layout, colour and words create meaning, then plan and draft a short comic of their own. The packet is generic, public and free of school-specific material.
What this packet is. It contains 16 public resources, including this overview. Students move from visual grammar and closure to page layout, colour, character design, word-image relationships, narrative structure, close analysis and comic planning. No copyrighted comic pages or panels are reproduced. Success criteria are formative and labelled as such.
Unit outcomes
- Explain how panels, gutters and closure shape a reader's understanding of sequence.
- Analyse layout, colour, light and character design and connect them to meaning.
- Explain how words and images reinforce, complement or contradict each other.
- Build a short comic with a clear dramatic question, character conflict and visual motif.
- Write a panel-by-panel script and thumbnail a readable page.
- Draft, test and revise a page in response to specific feedback.
The five-week shape
| Week | Focus |
|---|---|
| Week 1 | Visual grammar. Explore line, shape, colour, space and symbol; analyse panels, gutters and the reader's work of closure. |
| Week 2 | Page and character. Design a reading path, choose a palette, build a character through silhouette and expression, and balance words with images. |
| Week 3 | Narrative and analysis. Shape a beat sheet, analyse a page from observation to claim, and track conflict and motif across a text. |
| Week 4 | Plan and draft. Write a premise and beat sheet, script four pages, thumbnail the layout and draft one finished page. |
| Week 5 | Refine and present. Revise after peer feedback, present a page and its choices, consider representation and transfer the analysis to an unfamiliar page. |
Public resources
Outcomes and Skills
Formative outcomes and success criteria for reading, analysing and making graphic narrative.
Open resource →Visual Grammar
Line, shape, colour, texture, space and symbol, and how each makes meaning in a panel.
Open resource →Panels and Gutters
The frame, the gap and how panels control time, space and attention.
Open resource →Closure and Inference
How readers connect panels, fill gaps and build a story from what is not shown.
Open resource →Page Layout and Reading Path
Grids, tiers, splash pages and the order in which the eye moves across a page.
Open resource →Colour and Light
Palette, contrast, saturation and symbolic colour, and how light directs the reader.
Open resource →Character Design and Expression
Silhouette, costume, posture and facial expression, and how design tells the reader who a character is.
Open resource →Word and Image
Captions, dialogue, sound effects, lettering and silence, and how text and image combine.
Open resource →Narrative Structure
Beats, turning points, page turns and the shape of a short comic story.
Open resource →Analysing a Page
A step-by-step routine from panel observation to a claim about the whole graphic novel.
Open resource →Planning a Comic
Premise, character, conflict, page plan and thumbnails for a short graphic narrative.
Open resource →Drafting and Feedback
Thumbnail, pencil, ink and letter, then test the page with a reader.
Open resource →Teacher Notes
Pacing, differentiation, sensitive content and practical setup for the five-week graphic novel unit.
Open resource →Sources and Provenance
What this packet is built from, what is linked rather than copied, and what it deliberately leaves out.
Open resource →Planning and support
Read the teacher notes for text selection, pacing, differentiation, sensitive content and materials. Differentiation is built into the teacher notes rather than published as a separate student page. The sources and provenance page records what is public, what is linked rather than copied, and what the packet deliberately leaves out. Differentiation is built into the teacher notes rather than published as a separate student page. The sources and provenance page records what is public, what is linked rather than copied, and what the packet deliberately leaves out.
No assessment instrument. This packet does not publish confidential class briefs, scores, bands, weights, task numbers, due dates or test papers. It is a teaching and formative-feedback resource. Teachers keep their own school instruments offline.
Last reviewed: October 2026. Counts on this page match the public HTML pages in this folder.