An Outbreak of Witchcraft (Group 8)

@thenovl

 An Outbreak of Witchcraft by Deborah Noyes

Reviewed by your names:

Alyssa Ward, Emily Wright, Jennifer Truong, Joey Torres, Natalie Veik

The Trial of George Jacobs by Tompkins Harrison Matteson

  • Joseph TorJoseph Torres

Review:


Deborah Noyes's graphic novel, An Outbreak of Witchcraft, Illustrated by M. Duffy, chronicles the events of the Salem Witch Trials, which took the town of Salem, Massachusetts, by storm. Noyes utilizes compelling visuals and historical details to retell the history of Americas infamous historical event. Published in June 2024, the 256 page graphic novel delves into how paranoia and superstition catapulted the persecution of twenty innocent individuals accused of witchcraft.  Noyes and Duffy capture how the tight-knit and highly religious Puritan community descended into madness by the flurry of accusations brought by a few teenage girls, leading to public executions. By using historical records, preserved court documents, and various personal accounts, Noyes offers a chronological retelling of the events. 

The graphic novel is divided into four sections. Prior to each section, they provide readers with a few pages of information that tell the reader what event each section is going to revolve around. This format allows for a dual style of reading, using regular novel formats and a graphic novel retelling. The prefaces before each chapter allows for readers who are unfamiliar with the event understand the history, context, and tensions as to why the events were happening. With M. Duffy’s illustrations, her art style shows a somber feeling in her panels. Through the use of cool dark or cool tones, they emphasize the haunting feeling of the silhouettes hanging on the tree. They capture the confusion and terror on the faces of the defendants, and the overwhelming feeling of loss in the face of the judges and the young girls who were the accusers. The novel also includes a gallery of everyone in the novel, divided into three sections;”The Afflicted”, “The Accused”, and “Witch Hunters And Men In Power”. The gallery is useful in allowing readers to keep track of the characters in the novel since it covers a large sum of individuals. An Outbreak of Witchcraft is a fantastic novel that captures readers attentions with its engrossing storytelling combined with historical information. 



    An Outbreak of Witchcraft is a graphic novel that can be applicable to various high school and middle school subjects. For English Literature classes, it can be helpful in understanding works such as The Crucible by Arthur Miller. Illustrating the Salem Witch Trials can help students who are visual learners grasp the timeline of events and people involved, as the illustrations make it easier to distinguish between the various historical figures. Additionally, An Outbreak of Witchcraft is based off the original court documents and is non-fiction, while many other books about the Salem Witch Trails, like The Crucible, have taken creative liberties. Therefore, An Outbreak of Witchcraft is also a useful resource for history and social studies teachers. It does an excellent job of showing how social and political pressure can cause members of a community to turn on one another. It also shows how racism, sexism, ageism, and religious discrimination can make certain members of the community more vulnerable to scapegoating and violence. The story shows how power dynamics can shift and how fear can be manipulated for ulterior motives. An Outbreak of Witchcraft also delves into the psychology and trauma of some of the accusers and the community, so it could be useful for a high school psychology or sociology class. An Outbreak of Witchcraft would also be a great resource for an art class to learn how to tell a story with minimal prose. Most of the story was conveyed through illustrations which helped tell the story through facial expressions, clothing, and visual cues, like colors and perspective. It could help art students understand how to convey subject's emotion and motivation through composition and visual design elements. An Outbreak of Witchcraft is a very quick read that can be utilized in team teaching curriculums, as lessons from the book can be adaptable to various school subjects.
Witch Hill by Thomas Satterwhite


Biography:Deborah Noyes was born in Carmel-By-the-Sea on September 13th, 1965. She is the author of numerous fiction and nonfiction books for young readers and adults. A few books she has written are at The Magician and The Spirits, 10 Days a Madwoman, and Tooth and Claw, and of course An Outbreak of Witchcraft. Not only is she an author, but she is also an editor and photographer. She also has been involved in editing short fiction novels which include The Restless dead, Gothic!, and Sideshow. Now that we know a bit about the types of books that the author has written, her audience, and what she has edited, it is clear that she has an interest in supernatural elements and themes in books. This is evident with the title of her own work and even by looking at a few of her covers from her own books. In her book, The Magician and The Spirits, it has supernatural elements and deals with ghosts.The Magician and the spirits is also a non-fiction book. Both books, An Outbreak of Witchcraft and The Magician and The Spirits focus closely on Supernatural elements and she does it in a captivating way. A way to get the reader's attention to learn about the historic past or people. This technique of Engagement helps with targeting her audience and keeping them interested. Although The Magician and The Spirits is not a graphic novel, it still has some elements of the genre along with the format of a novel. Not only is she into these types of elements, she is also very passionate about being an editor as previously mentioned. Noyes expresses her gratitude towards her editor role and with candle press, which is a Publishing Company.



Instructional Resources:

1. Provide the name and then hyperlink it: Follow with 2-3 sentence description of what it is and how it can be useful for teaching the book. 

2. What Really Happened in the Salem Witch Trials - This video provides a brief overview of the Salem Witch Trials. It delves into the history of how the trials initially began, which gives more insight into Puritan society and how prevalent these trials were in New England. This video will introduce the larger themes of An Outbreak of Witchcraft to students before reading the novel. 

Teacher Resources - Salem Witch Museum This site gives viewers an in-depth look at the history of the Salem Witch Trials. There are several videos which include the historical background as well as lesson plans for students to engage creatively and think critically about this subject material. This resource will help students understand the witch hunts in a historical manner, and this context will provide a deeper understanding of how the graphic novel expresses these real events within a fictional narrative.  

3. Religion and Literacy in Colonial New England | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History      This is an educational resource for understanding the importance of religion and education in Puritan society. The Puritans placed a major emphasis on literacy within a biblical framework, and this site provides information on the prioritization of religious education over secular education. Students will be able to learn more about Puritan society and how the rigid social structures were so reliant on Christianity, which contributed to the occurrence of the witch trials. 

4. Salem Witchcraft Trials Research Guide | Congregational Library & Archives - This guide contains an article with more historical background on the trials. It provides information on how witchcraft was viewed by Puritans and why this fear was so heavily played upon during the witch hunts. It also includes the stories of the accused as well as the results of their trials. The research guide can further communicate to students that there were numerous victims of the Salem Witch Trials and how the fictional characters they are reading about reflect real people's experiences. 

5. The Salem Witch Trials | TeachingHistory.org - This brief video and transcript explains the Puritan concept of the devil and why it is such a crucial aspect of the trials. It also explains how a witch was classified in the eyes of the Puritans, and how the vast majority of these accused 'witches' were women. Students will learn how God and the devil were an integral subject of everyday life for the Purtians, which connects to the intense fear and hysteria seen in the novel. 



Tours the area, walking us through buildings involving the witch trials

Cotton Mather a prolific writer discusses the witch trials and separates fact from fiction

Virtual tour of na exhibition involving artifacts and documents from the trials with a librarian. Goes into the history of a few individuals such as Tituba 

 

Instructional Activity:

GRADES: 11/12   

Preview: 

Students will be able to identify themes within An Outbreak of Witchcraft and form an understanding of how this fictional narrative expresses and reflects upon the historic events which took place in colonial New England, as well as the levels of oppression people in this society experienced based on the subject of race and gender. 

California Common Core Standards:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RL.11-12.2: Determine two or more themes or central ideas of a text and analyze their development over the course of the text, including how they interact and build on one another to produce a complex account; provide an objective summary of the text.


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).

 

 Resources and Preparation:

An Outbreak of Witchcraft by Deborah Noyes
Worksheets/activity sheets from online resources
Cut up 30 slips of paper (or more depending on class size 
    write the name of a character in the book on each slip of paper
    put the names in a hat, or bag


Instructional Plan:

  1. Warm-up (Day 1: 20 minutes)

    1. Watch an Introductory videos (What Really Happened in the Salem Witch Trials & The Salem Witch Trials | TeachingHistory.org)

    2. Homework: read until Part II (page 66)

  2. Lesson (20 minutes)

    1. Lesson on Start of Salem Witch Trials 

    2. In-class read: (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/salem-witch-trials & Religion and Literacy in Colonial New England | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History)


  1. Group work (20 minutes)

    1. Group discussion Questions

      1. What was something you found interesting about the articles and videos?

      2. Why do you think the Salem witch trials started? 

      3. What led up to the Trials?


  1. Warm-up (Day 2: 10 minutes)

    1. Class Discussion on Part I of the novel

      1. Things they noticed, art style, etc.

    2. Homework: read until Part III (page 132)

  2. Lesson (30 minutes)

    1. Accusers and Accused https://guides.bpl.org/salemwitchtrials/accusersandaccused

  3. In-class discussion


  1. Warm-up (Day 3: 25 minutes)

    1. Video interview (5:50-13:50) (https://youtu.be/_3U-qfCcvPQ?si=NxZRuxyjqLgbXRND)

    2. Class Discussion of Part II of the novel

      1. How are the illustrations helping develop the story?

      2. What was a scene that stood out to you

    3. No homework.

  2. Lesson: (30 minutes)

    1. How is Cotton Mather and his different fictional personas similar to 

    2. Can you think of any fictional adaptations of the Salem witch Trials?

      1. How do they compare to the real events?


  1. Warm-up (Day 4: 20 minutes)

    1. Class discussion of Part III

      1. How are the events of the novel related to the history we were learning?

  2. Lesson

    1. Read the last Part of the novel together in class

    2. Final thoughts on the novel as a whole

  3. Ending Activity

    1. Worksheet 

  4. Instructions/homework

    1. Students will randomly pick a name of a character from the novel, and do a powerpoint presentation (1-2 minutes long) about who their character is (accused, accuser, minister, etc) and how the Salem witch trials affected them and what role they played.


  1. Introductions (Day 5: 10 minutes)

  2. Presentations (50 minutes)

    1. Student presentations for the entire period

Bibliography

Matteson, Tompkins Harrison. The Trial of George Jacobs of Salem for Witchcraft. 1855, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem.

Miletich, Patricia. “Religion and Literacy in Colonial New England.” Religion and Literacy in Colonial New England | Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/lesson-plan/religion-and-literacy-colonial-new-england. Accessed 11 May 2025.

Noble, Thomas Satterwhite. Witch Hill (The Salem Martyr). 1896, New-York Historical Society, New York.

National Geographic. (n.d.). Everything You Need to Know About the Salem Witch Trials. Retrieved May 8, 2025, from https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/article/salem-witch-trials.

“Teacher Resources.” Salem Witch Museum, 21 Feb. 2024, salemwitchmuseum.com/teacher-resources/.

the NOVL [@thenovl]. "The Salem Witch Trials are my roman empire, and if you're as fascinated by them as I am, you'll absolutely devour this graphic novel! ⁣#anoutbreakofwitchcraft #thenovl #graphicnovels #bookstagram"Instagram, 13 June 2024, https://www.instagram.com/p/C8KrUm9Nh3-/?img_index=1. 

Biography works cited

Cyntern. “Author Interview: Deborah Noyes on the Creative Life & A Hopeful Heart.” Cynthia Leitich Smith, 3 May 2021, cynthialeitichsmith.com/2021/05/author-interview-deborah-noyes-on-the-creative-life-a-hopeful-heart/. 

“Deborah Noyes.” – Jill Grinberg Literary Management, jillgrinbergliterary.com/book_author/deborah-noyes/. Accessed 5 May 2025. 

Noyes, Deborah. “A Hopeful Heart: Louisa May Alcott before Little Women.” Google Books, Random House Children’s Books, 6 Oct. 2020, books.google.com/books/about/A_Hopeful_Heart.html?id=DTfPDwAAQBAJ&source=kp_author_description. 


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