Chip Gets Swimmer Shivers

by Maddie Frost

In Maddie Frost’s graphic novel Chip Gets Swimmer Shivers, Chip faces the worries that come with swimming. The interplay of pictures and words makes Chip’s feelings a starting point for conversations about fear, courage, and how an unfamiliar experience can feel overwhelming.

Big Idea

Courage can begin with acknowledging a worry and choosing a manageable next step. Graphic storytellers help readers experience those feelings by controlling how quickly—or slowly—a moment unfolds.

Discussion Questions

1.What do Chip’s words and the illustrations each tell us about the swimmer shivers? Where do they give us different kinds of information?
2.Which moment makes Chip’s worry easiest to understand? What details help you connect with that feeling?
3.How do other characters respond to Chip? Which responses seem helpful, and what makes you think so?
4.Where did you read quickly, and where did you stop to look closely? How did those changes affect your experience of the story?
5.What might a kind, manageable next step look like for someone who feels nervous about swimming or another unfamiliar activity?

Lesson Plan

⏱ 45–50 minutes📦 A copy of the book, paper, three-panel and six-panel comic templates, pencils, crayons or markers, and chart paper

Learning Goals

Use evidence from words and illustrations to explain Chip’s feelings.
Identify how panels, dialogue, and visual pauses influence reading pace.
Sequence a short comic with a clear beginning, middle, and end.
Revise a scene to emphasize an emotional moment through pacing.
Discuss supportive responses to worry without treating fear as a failure.

Activity Steps

1.Read the book aloud, showing the illustrations clearly. Invite students to identify a moment when Chip’s swimming worries are visible in the words, pictures, or both.
2.Revisit that moment. List only details supported by the book, then discuss which details readers need time to notice.
3.Model a three-panel retelling of the selected moment: establish the situation, show Chip’s response, and show what happens next in the actual scene.
4.Have students draw their own three-panel version, using short dialogue or captions where helpful.
5.Ask students to redraw the same moment in six panels. Keep the event the same, but add small movements, changing expressions, or a silent beat to slow it down.
6.Partners read both versions and explain which feels faster and which makes Chip’s feelings clearer. Students revise one panel based on feedback.

Standards Connections

ELA: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.3 — Describe characters, settings, and major events using key details.
ELA: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.1.7 — Use illustrations and story details to describe characters, setting, or events.
ELA: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.1.3 — Write sequenced narratives with details and a sense of closure.
ELA: CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.1.1 — Participate in collaborative conversations with peers and adults.
SEL: Self-awareness and relationship skills — Recognize feelings and consider supportive responses to another person’s worry.

Pace-Write-Read Study with Pace-Write It!

Chip Gets Swimmer Shivers offers a useful entry into studying how graphic novels make readers feel the passage of time. Chip’s swimming worries provide an emotional focus: a moment that seems brief from the outside can feel much longer to the person experiencing it. During a shared reading, ask students to notice where Frost lets pictures carry information, where words direct attention, and where readers linger over Chip’s response. The workshop’s central question is: How can a writer make room for a feeling? Students can investigate panel sequences, expressions, dialogue, and page layout rather than assuming that more words always mean more detail. Compare a passage that moves through an event efficiently with one that invites closer attention to Chip. Read each at different speeds, then discuss which delivery best fits the evidence on the page. In Pace-Write-Read, students first notice a pacing choice, then try a similar choice in their own comics, and finally test the result with a reader. The guidance below includes both features to investigate and techniques to try; it does not assume the book contains every device listed. Use the classroom copy to confirm particular scenes, wording, layouts, and any chapter divisions before teaching them as examples.

Element	How to notice or teach it in the novel
Pacing	Compare how much story time passes across different panel sequences involving Chip. Ask where readers linger on a feeling and where they move quickly through an action.
Plot	Map the events surrounding Chip’s swimming worries in the order the book presents them. Separate what happens from how much page space Frost gives each event.
Prosody	Read Chip’s dialogue aloud using expression supported by the words and pictures. Try a hurried reading and a hesitant reading, then discuss which better matches the scene.
Word	Start with the title’s word 'shivers': what physical sensation and emotion does it suggest? Find additional words in the book that help readers understand Chip’s experience.
Concept	Explore the distinction between feeling afraid and deciding what to do next. Ask students how the story communicates that idea through specific moments rather than through a general lesson alone.
Voice & Worldview	Notice how Chip talks about swimming and how the artwork presents that perspective. Discuss whether the storytelling invites readers to laugh with Chip, sympathize with Chip, or do both.
Point of View	Distinguish what readers can observe about Chip from what the book explicitly tells them Chip thinks or feels. If thought balloons or narration appear, examine how they change our access to Chip’s perspective.
Setting & Place	Study the swimming-related setting shown in the book and identify details that matter to Chip’s experience. Ask which details establish the place quickly and which deserve closer attention.
Original Characters	Identify features of Chip’s appearance, speech, and reactions that make the character recognizable. Have students retain those features when redrawing a moment at a different pace.
Dialogue	Choose an exchange involving Chip and examine how the speech is distributed across panels. Discuss how an extra reaction panel between lines could change the emotional timing.
Details	Look closely for small visual clues to Chip’s feelings, such as posture, gaze, or movement. Ask which clue would be lost if a reader rushed through the page.
Descriptions	Identify something the illustrations describe without a written explanation. Students can practice drawing Chip’s reaction clearly enough that a caption naming the feeling becomes unnecessary.
Firsts	Examine the first time readers encounter Chip and the first clear presentation of the swimming worry. Discuss what those introductions establish; do not assume the story depicts Chip’s first-ever swimming experience.
Immediacy & Engagement	Find a moment that brings readers close to Chip’s immediate reaction. Ask how framing, expression, or dialogue makes the concern feel present rather than distant.
Story Scenes, Summaries & Structures	Compare events shown step by step with any transitions that move the story ahead more efficiently. Discuss why a writer might give Chip’s emotional response more space than a routine transition.
Tension / Suspense / Surprise	Pause before a consequential moment and ask what readers expect Chip to do next. After reading on, identify which earlier details supported or complicated those expectations.
Flashback, Flash-Forward, Cliffhanger	Check whether the book uses any of these devices before labeling examples. If it does not, students can experiment with ending a practice comic just before Chip’s next action and discuss the resulting anticipation.
Page Turns and Chapter Breaks	Inspect what readers know immediately before and after selected page turns. If the edition has chapter breaks, examine their timing; otherwise, focus on page turns rather than inventing chapter divisions.
Pace & Creativity	Challenge students to retell one Chip moment with fewer panels and then more panels. Compare how these choices change emphasis without changing the underlying event.
Play	Let students use movable paper panels to experiment with the timing of Chip’s reactions. Keep event order understandable while testing where a pause feels most effective.
Performance	Perform a short exchange from the book, including pauses suggested by the pictures. Have observers explain how the performers’ timing affected their understanding of Chip.
Personality	Gather evidence of Chip’s personality from more than one moment. Discuss how the timing of a response can communicate personality as strongly as the response’s wording.
Humor	Invite students to identify a moment they find funny and explain how words and images work together there. Distinguish enjoying comic timing from making fun of someone’s fear.
Pause	Look for a silent panel or a picture that invites a longer look; if neither is prominent, choose a reaction that could become a pause in a student adaptation. Discuss what readers gain by waiting with Chip.
Poetry / Poetic Devices	Say 'Swimmer Shivers' aloud and notice the repeated initial s sound. Search the actual text for other sound patterns or comparisons, without assuming that the book uses rhyme.
Repetition	Look for repeated words, images, expressions, or actions connected to Chip. Ask whether any repetition builds familiarity, emphasizes worry, or makes a later change more noticeable.
Rhythm	Read a panel sequence aloud while tapping once for each panel. Compare that visual beat with the rhythm of the spoken dialogue and notice where they differ.
Punctuation	Choose actual examples of punctuation from Chip’s dialogue and connect them to oral delivery. Students can test how changing a mark changes a line’s tone, while labeling the change as their revision.
Questions	Find any questions characters ask and consider what each question does: seeks information, expresses uncertainty, or invites a response. Also identify an unanswered question that keeps readers following Chip.
Compare-Contrast	Compare Chip’s expressions or responses at two points in the story. Support claims about change—or continuity—with details from both moments.
Objects	Choose an object actually pictured in a swimming scene and discuss its role in the action or setting. Ask whether focusing a panel on that object would clarify the situation or interrupt the pace.
Threes	Check for any genuine three-part pattern before presenting it as Frost’s technique. As a writing experiment, arrange a Chip moment into three beats: situation, reaction, and next action.
Lists	If a list appears in the text or art, examine whether it speeds information delivery or slows readers down. Otherwise, have students make a planning list of observable details in Chip’s scene, not a list attributed to the book.
White Space & Negative Space	Examine the spaces between panels and around figures or lettering. Ask how a less crowded area directs attention and whether it encourages readers to linger on Chip.
Art & Graphics	Trace how expressions, panel boundaries, lettering, and other visible graphic choices guide readers through Chip’s experience. Identify information that would disappear if the story were reduced to dialogue alone.
Interactives & Gamification	Turn rereading into a classroom evidence hunt: students locate a feeling clue, a pacing change, and a useful page turn. Treat this as a teaching extension, not as a claim that the book contains interactive features.
Placement	Study where Chip, speech balloons, and important details sit within a panel. Ask what readers notice first and how that order affects the unfolding moment.
Form	Discuss what the graphic-novel form contributes to the portrayal of Chip’s swimming worries. Compare a comic sequence with a brief prose retelling and identify what each form makes easier to communicate.
Dummy	Make a folded-paper miniature book—a dummy—to plan a retelling of one Chip scene. Test where a page turn should fall before committing to finished artwork.
Passion	Ask students which part of Chip’s experience they most want a reader to understand. Use that choice to decide where their comic should slow down, without speculating about Frost’s personal motivations.

Pace-Write It!

20-minute Pace-Write-It! task: 'Give Chip’s Shiver a Beat.' Minutes 0–3: Revisit one actual moment in which Chip’s swimming worry is evident; name the evidence in the words and pictures. Minutes 3–5: Sketch a shared three-panel plan that preserves the scene’s events. Minutes 5–12: Students draw that moment as a four-panel comic, inserting one silent reaction panel at a deliberate point; they may copy a short line from the classroom book or write clearly labeled adaptation dialogue. Minutes 12–16: Partners read the comics, pausing at the silent panel, and describe what it helps them notice about Chip. Minutes 16–19: Students move or revise the silent panel to improve the timing. Minute 19–20: Each student completes the reflection, 'I slowed the moment when ___ so my reader could notice ___.' No swimming demonstration or personal disclosure about fears is required.

Classroom Activities

One Shiver, Two Speeds

Students choose a moment involving Chip’s swimming worries and create two comic versions: a quick three-panel version and a slower six-panel version. By adding pauses, expressions, and small actions rather than simply adding words, students explore how pacing changes a reader’s understanding of a character’s feelings. Suggested audience: grades 1–3, with drawing, dictation, or independent writing options.

One Shiver, Two Speeds

Create a free account to reveal this guide

Your free account includes one complete guide download — the full teacher’s guide, discussion questions, classroom activities, and the Pace-Write-Read writing workshop.

Create Free Account Sign in

Discussion questions PWR workshop PDF download