Comic strips allow students to represent their understanding of content knowledge in creative ways. It also helps students visualize a text helping in comprehension. This type of text can also be use to help with a reading skill students struggle the most, making inferences. Comics teach children to infer from the illustrations first then read the text and realize that not everything you read is literal.
Below I will evaluate different sites that allow the creation of comic strips and give ideas to implement in the classroom or library.
Make Beliefs Comix
Make Belief Comix has been voted Great Websites for Kids by the American Library Association and the Parent's Choice Foundation. The best part of Make Beliefs Comix is that it does not require the user to create a login, so students can start creating immediately. The site also offers great ideas by actual users and an entire section is dedicated to students with special needs. It is very easy for students to create their strip, all it takes is to click on the character, balloons, objects, background, and words they want to include. After the student is done with his comic strip, a print or e-mail option is conveniently located on the same page. The variety is not extensive, but enough for students to be creative. The characters are diverse, featuring people of color and people with
Pixton is all about pre-made templates making it easy to create a comic strip by simply clicking and dragging actions to create and customize using the basic mode. To edit, a row of options a row of options will appear at the bottom. Students can even upload their own photos. When finished, the students can publish to the website (public), link it, email it, print it (paid only), or download it (paid only). The variety surpassed my expectations, specially for popular novels, poems, and plays. The multiple characters and settings makes it easy to create a story plot. A monthly fee has to be paid to use the advance mode which contains more options, but watching a full tutorial video is recommended since there is ton more features.
The teacher can assign a simple activity that is already provided to introduce Pixton to students. The website has an extensive library of subjects and specific activities that can be search by topic or subject. Educators can request a lesson plan from Pixton which includes activities and a rubric for each. Information about grade level, difficulty level, key vocabulary, and common core is provided for each lesson. I used a pre-made lesson from Pixton to create a character trait map from a favorite novel of mine.
ToonDoo Spaces has lots of great features and is design for teachers and others who need a safe online learning environment. ToonDoo lets the admin monitor students activities and best of all there is no risk of inappropriate content. The program is easy to use, the characters can be plop into a scene and be manipulated fairly quickly. The site offers a limited pool of characters, but each comes with different expressions to choose from. The program is user-friendly, so students won't have trouble creating their multiple panel comics. Students can easily save their work to their drive, publish their work online, keep it private, email it, or print it.
Voki is speaking characters or avatars to make the class more engaging and fun. Voki lets you record your own voice for up to 30 seconds with the free trial or you can type a text and get it translated in over 30 languages using a female or male voice of your choice. A great option to give simple instructions to limited English speakers. Is very easy to customize your appearances and the background. In the free account the user can share their Voki by email and though social media. To embed and to record more than 30 seconds it requires the upgrade version. Voki is available online and also as an app.
Click on this link to see my Voki I created to help me give instructions as students walk in, then click play on the Voki to hear my voice.
Ways to use comics for learning:
- Showcase their knowledge in any subject
- Help with reluctant writers to communicate a story
- Help creative writers reach their full potential
- Identify story elements
- Teach punctuation for dialogue
- Teach outlining skills
- Use of content vocabulary
- Teaching literary terms
- Teaching inferencing
As a librarian, sharing this resource with the teachers will bring more creativity to the classrooms. In order to get the word out about how to use comics in the classroom I would have a professional development to introduce the comic sites and give teachers the opportunity to create one on their own. During planning with the teachers is also a good place to share ideas of how comics can help teach certain content or skill. I think posting comics created by students in the library into the library website, around the library, and around the school will help promote the implementation of comics in the classroom. With the comics, I would also create a screen cast for each different site with information to help the teachers get started and link the video to a QR code so teachers can easily access it.
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