[etni] Back-to-School Fun: Students Create Biographical Comic Strips to Introduce Themselves
- From: wmz@xxxxxxx
- To: etni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:37:06 -0400
FUN BACK-TO-SCHOOL-IDEA:
STUDENTS CREATE BIOGRAPHICAL COMIC STRIPS TO INTRODUCE THEMSELVES TO CLASSMATES
AND TEACHER
Looking for a sure-fire fun activity to break the ice with your students at the
beginning of the new school term and to learn more about them? Then encourage
them to create a biographical comic strip about themselves and their families
or one summarizing the most important things about their lives that they are
proud about?
They can do so by drawing the comic strip by hand or by doing so online with
the free online comic strip generator, MakeBeliefsComix.com, which was selected
by Google and UNESCO as among the most innovative sites to encourage literacy
and reading for students of all ages.
At the site, students can select a cartoon  character to represent
themselves.  They then can fill in blank talk or thought balloons in which
they write about themselves, talk about their families or special hobbies and
talents, or about where their families come from.   After students complete
their strips, encourage them to exchange their comics with classmates to learn
more about each other. Students can also create comic strips that  summarize
what their individual interests are to help a teacher learn more about them. Â
The idea of creating biographical comic strips is one of 21 ideas to be found
at http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/How-to-Play/Educators/ that show how
comic-strip making can be put to use for encourage writing, reading and st
orytelling by literacy and English as Second Language students.
Students also can use the comic characters as surrogates to talk about and
examine their lives, their problems, their challenges and anxieties.  A
student, for example, could create a comic in which the characters reflect on a
particular experience, such as dealing with a school bully or with a
problem  at home or with a friend.  The process of creating the strip
provides a way for a student to think through and resolve these problems.Â
Other things a teacher can do with the online comic strips is to have students
create stories with new vocabulary words that are being taught or to practice
language structure and conversation. They can even practice new foreign
languages they are learning by writing their text in the languages they are
studying.  In addition to English, the site accepts characters and accent
marks from languages such as Spanish, Latin, German, Italian, French,
Portuguese.
MakeBeliefsComix.com was created by journalist Bill Zimmerman who has authored
more than 15 books to help people of all ages find their writersâ??
voices.  He teaches writing to immigrants at the College of Mount St.
Vincents Institute for Immigrant Concerns in New York City.
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