The Value of Comics in the Classroom - Grades 1 to 5

First-, second-, third-, and fourth-grade students have begun a unit on "sequential narrative drawings," popularly known as comics! At the present moment, students are engaged in the process of creating fictional fantasies of magical heroes, evil robots, menacing monsters, talking cats and dogs, Pokemon, and school supplies that come alive to reveal their unique jokes and one-liners. Some children began with "character development," in which students inventively decided a character's personality, environment, unique abilities, and appearance.

The comic to the right exemplifies how the children followed three basic rules for creating comics. The children were asked to 1) draw characters large so they fill up most of the space in the square, 2) write words neatly and larger than necessary, and 3) press lightly with a pencil so that once the comics are ready to be "inked" it will be easier to erase the drafting lines.

Other students began the unit by looking at photocopies of comics in which the text words were missing from the speech bubbles. The children were asked to interpret the body language, facial characteristics, and expressions of the characters in order to determine what new words would be appropriate in the spaces.

In the comic to the left, one student thought that it would be appropriate to write "Can someone help me?" He found the expression on the Elf character, drawn by James Kochalka, to appear serious and as if he was pulling hard and was unable to get the flower out of the ground. Other students reported that "What a beautiful flower," or "I will give this to my friend," would be appropriate to write into the bubble.

What the children most likely don't recognize yet is that they are developing a variety of skills in the process of creating characters and sequential drawings. Students are engaged in contextual composition, plot, setting, character, and language arts development. Students are, in essence, visually outlining the key moments in a story to depict, planning ahead, and engaging in role-playing situations. As the children continue to develop their skills and read exemplary comic books, I will ask them to begin depicting real life events, struggles, or stories from their own lives. The comics will become personal narratives drawn in large-scale frames.

I plan to engage students in the process of comic creation for an additional four weeks of the semester as I have witnessed the joy it brings to students, the creative power of spontaneous role-playing situations, and the strong incentive it provides to children who may otherwise struggle to develop reading, writing, spelling, and spatial compositioning skills.

Now more than at any other time in history, images are playing a major role in children's ability to understanding the concepts of our culture. The average individual is bombarded with an influx of over 10,000 images to interpret and process daily, and it is my mission as a visual educator to aid children in the process of deconstructing, interpreting, and evaluating the purpose and meaning of imagery in our society.



 

 

Posted at 3:28 PM| Permalink