Soundwords: Graphic Story Telling Erasmus Project

Project Title

Soundwords: Graphic Story Telling

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for school education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2017

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Inclusion – equity; Intercultural/intergenerational education and (lifelong)learning; Integration of refugees

Project Summary

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 download

The 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.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 217860 Eur

Project Coordinator

BILDUNGSDIREKTION FUER WIEN & Country: AT

Project Partners

• L. Artistico Liceo F. Arcangeli
• Allgemeine Sonderschule
• Pädagogische Hochschule Wien
• The CoED Foundation
• MALTA COLLEGE OF ARTS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
• UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI MODENA E REGGIO EMILIA
• Escola Vida Montserrat