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Comic Strips in Your Classroom

Today I was sitting in a Field Trainer’s Training for Thinkfinity.org (more on that later) and saw an online comic strip generating tool. It is not entirely unique, there are a number of resources in this area:

We had a very brief brainstorming moment on ways you could use a cartoon strip generator in a classroom. In less than five minutes we came up with a number of ideas, and I added a number more off the top of my head. I think if a person thought about it very long they could think of a new way to use a comic strip in their classroom in a new way each day of the school year. Here are a few to get started. Chime in via the comment tool if you have other ideas!

  • Have students make a cartoon that supports what they learned about a topic.
  • Pre make some single panel cartoons with characters, but blank dialogue boxes. Pass them out to the classroom and have students fill in the bubbles to show their learning of a class session.
  • Support Big 6 writing ideas with the six panel strip.
  • Have students create a three panel cartoon that concretely illustrates a math equation
  • Pre-make 3-5 strips, print them out, have students cut them out and arrange them in the correct order to support the lesson you just covered.
  • Have them create a 6 panel strip that illustrates a story. Print the panel, use it as the visuals for a writing project.
  • Have students create a 3-6 panel strip that illustrates a historical event.
  • Have students create a 6 panel time line of their own life.
  • Create a page with 5 panels (one for each day of the week) of a character speaking into a blank text balloon. At the end of each day have students write in a key learning for that day to include in daily journals.
  • Multi-panel strips to illustrate a food chain for science units
  • 2-panel strips to illustrate cause and effect scenarios for science or writing or health. Or pre-make one of the panels. Have students illustrate either the blank cause or the effect.
  • Have a multi-panel strip that is a time line of events from a history lesson. Leave some of them blank or only partially completed to have students fill in the blank.
  • Have students create “Things I know about _______ ” strips as a pre-lesson scaffolding tool, or a post-test after a unit.

Variations on the themes listed above could produce a never ending list of ideas… have fun!

Posted in My Thoughts.