The Graphic Classroom

For teachers, parents and general comic enthusiasts alike:

Even talk of verb conjugation and debates over prisoner intimacy rights can be funny when the tools fall into the right hands. In this case, those hands belong to Stephan Pastis of Pearls Before Swine.

I recently began a a comic strip unit with my after school creative writers. We started with a template created by Jenny Traig and Todd Pound to inspire the superhero mindset.  Some questions to consider when creating characters and backstory include:

Personality traits
Greatest strengths/ weaknesses
Sidekick
Arch enemy
Love interest
Mission in life
What is in her/his refrigerator?
If he/she went to a karaoke club, what song would he/she perform?


How to Write a Comic can be found in the 2005 826 Valencia publication titled: Don't Forget to Write: 54 enthralling and effective writing lessons for students 6-18.

I also came across two great sites that might be really useful if you don't already have a good collection of resources in this highly authentic and fun literacy genre.

This site offers great suggestions for graphic novels to be used in in schools: http://graphicclassroom.blogspot.com/

And this site would be really fun to let kids use during computer time: http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/Comix/

Enjoy!