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 For Ages 11–14
Comics and Graphic Novels
Whether children and teens are reading for pleasure or as part of their school experience, comic book adaptations provide a fun and meaningful way to process, respond to, and remember what they're reading. Instead of creating traditional book reports or writing summaries, get “graphic” by creating a comic book or cartoon adaptation of the major scenes from the books.
Time
Varies according to the project the child chooses. A 3-page comic book adaptation might take 60 to 90 minutes to create, from planning to finished product. A cartoon may take less time.
What You Need
Why This Is Helpful
Children of all ages can learn about comic scripting techniques and how to adapt a traditional book to a comic book or cartoon. They can recall and share important knowledge about key literature without using the traditional book report, which allows some variety while still asking them to recall typical information about the books that they read.
Here’s What To Do
- Working together, choose a book (from the library, the child's collection, schools reading lists, and so forth) and read the book completely.
- After reading the book, ask readers to pick what they see as the most important scene or scenes in the book. They will turn these scenes into a comic strip or cartoon.
- Before beginning their comics, invite the readers to explore the following resources to get an idea of the comic book creation process:
- After learning more about the process, begin creating a comic adaptation or cartoon based on the scene(s) selected.
- Some children, especially those with artistic talent, will be able to work better starting out with illustrations and then adding the words.
- Others might want to craft a script first, then illustrate it.
- The Comic Creator might be helpful here as it allows users to choose pictures and add text to it.
Visit the Comic Creator Tool Tip Sheet for suggestions on how to use the tool. Even if the child wants to create a hand-illustrated comic book, the Comic Creator can be used as a storyboard or rough draft of the different panes of the comic.
- If you use the Comic Creator, be sure to print out the comics as necessary. Various pages can be assembled into a comic book using some old-fashioned cut-and-paste (or digital work).
- Ask children to repeat this process for as many books or scenes per book as they think are necessary to show the main parts of the book they read.
More Ideas to Try
- Ask children to pair up with a partner to create their comics and cartoons, if possible. Try to pair up children based on their strengths.
- After the comics and cartoons are complete, put them together in an “anthology” style graphic novel.
- Purchase a comic book together and challenge children to use the exact same page and panel layout as the comic book does.
- Many comic book shops have “quarter bins,” where each comic book is 25 cents. Ask your vendor to help you pick comics appropriate for the ages you are working with. Another idea is to ask your vendor if they have anything left over from “Free Comic Book Day.” If so, you might be able to get as many comics as you need for free.
- Ask children to find a variety of comics written by various writers and drawn by various artists. Invite them to try to recreate their own comics and cartoons in that same style.
- During the school year , encourage children to share their comics and cartoons with their classmates.
Glossary
Comic book
A book or magazine in which stories are told through a sequence of drawings and character speech.
Script
The written part of a comic book or graphic novel, play, movie, or television show, including dialogue.
Graphic novel
A book that uses drawings and dialogue to tell a story but is longer than a traditional comic book.
This activity was modified from the ReadWriteThink lesson plans “The Comic Book Show and Tell” available online at http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=921
and “Book Report Alternative: Comic Strips and Cartoon Squares”
available online at http://www.readwritethink.org/lessons/lesson_view.asp?id=195.
Clipart copyright 2008 JUPITERIMAGES, and its licensors. All rights reserved.
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