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Teaching Comics to Kids

Submitted by John Baird on November 2, 2007 - 07:41

One question some people ask me: what do you teach kids in the Create a Comic Project? On November 20, 2007, I'll be celebrating the upcoming one-year anniversary of the Create a Comic Project with a workshop at the Human Services Center. The preparations for this workshop allow me to give an example of my teaching method.

For the past couple weeks, I've been working on the lesson plan for the 2 hour workshop. I start with the basics: how to read the comic, panel order, not cramming too many words into dialogue bubbles, etc. These are easy to illustrate, though critical for a child to follow along with later lessons.

A more complex point I like to make is connecting words to images. While it seems obvious that words and images would go hand-in-hand with children, many kids don't bridge the two by default. This is often because they focus so intently on what to write, they forget the broader context.

One way to remind them is to go through an example of exactly how what they write can affect the whole mood of a scene. I find when it's made clear, the students will pay more attention to both halves of comic composition.

To illustrate how I approach this topic, here's a example using the template (from Jellaby by Kean Soo) above:

First, I ask the students for a context on what's happening. It's also best to have students describe it rather than telling them, because sometimes they can interpret scenes in a way you never thought of. If they're told by the instructor how to see the images, they'll take that word as gospel and that shuts off any further inquiry on their part. This is part of the power of the Socratic method.

After I get a description of what's being shown in the image, I then ask them to try and explain it. You have a girl reading something, followed by her classmates glaring, and then she gets nervous. What was she reading? And how would that affect why her classmates are glaring at her? I let the students make suggestions, encouraging everyone to participate. Then I give each student a comic of their own to experiment with.

That's a sample of some of the material I teach the students. Let students provide the answers and follow up with hands on practice of the concept. Repeat this for your major lessons and the kids will begin to understand how to create comics.