Comics as a Gateway to Stronger Writing
- Preview |
- Resources & Preparation |
- Instructional Plan |
- Related Resources |
- Standards
Overview
Explore how student choices (e.g., vaping) impact health, discipline, and future opportunities. Analyze consequences through real-world examples to promote informed, responsible decision making.
This lesson uses Great Immigrants, Great Americans: The Comic Book featuring Jean Claude Brizard to explore how personal choices shape the future. Through discussion, argumentative writing, and real-world examples, students will examine how discipline and informed decision making impact their lives. The lesson encourages open dialogue on tough topics, helping students understand the consequences of their choices and actions through information text paired reading (examples include vaping) —such as school discipline, health risks, and legal issues—while promoting dialogical teaching, critical thinking, and personal responsibility. By encouraging these processes, the lesson underscores a focus on linking small decisions to long-term outcomes. The comic’s portrayal of youth facing harsh sentencing highlights how poor choices can have lasting effects.
Featured Resources
- Digital or printout copies of Great Immigrants, Great Americans: The Comic Book (Jean-Claude Brizzard story)
- Scope Magazine Opinions: March 2024: Are Vaping Laws Too Harsh or Learning for Justice: Student Protests and the Complexities of Collective Action
- Persuasion Map (ReadWriteThink link below)
- ReadWriteThink: Comic Creator
- The Great Debaters YouTube movie clip: There are 11 clips to choose from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNNMKJ1f9JM
- “So you think you can argue” PowerPoint
Materials and Technology
- Graphic organizer
- Pens, pencils, highlighters
- Scope Magazine template
Printouts
- Argumentative essay template
- ReadWriteThink - Persuasion Map
Websites
This site offers a myriad of article and topic choices related to ethics and law that can expand the conversation and allow students and teachers a range of options to explore and align with Brizard’s story. The linked example focuses on student protests and freedom of speech and can be combined with lessons about historical events and watershed moments like Tinker v. Des Moines to help students explore advocacy, voice, choice, and consequence.
This educational resource presents a balanced debate on whether current vaping laws, particularly those affecting teens, are too strict. The article is designed to engage middle and high school students in critical thinking and argumentation. It includes student-friendly pages that help learners organize their thoughts, choose a side, and gather supporting evidence for their position. This structure is especially beneficial for students who need additional academic support or scaffolding.
The website also features a comprehensive lesson plan that aligns with health education and social-emotional learning standards. It guides teachers through prereading activities, discussion prompts, comprehension checks, and debate preparation, making it a versatile tool for classroom use. The included comprehension questions help assess understanding and encourage deeper engagement with the topic.
Overall, the resource is excellent for developing students’ interest in debate, enhancing their research skills, and encouraging them to explore constructive solutions to the issue of teen vaping.
For readings with text complexity and with links to historical documents and primary sources, CommonLit offers excerpts from founding thinkers like Thomas Hobbes and John Locke to begin next steps in exploring the ramifications of legal consequences and limits of freedom/responsibility.
These documents can be traced to early American history and contemporary examples from the news to align with questions of fairness, ethics, and law.
This website from the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids highlights how flavored e-cigarettes are fueling a youth addiction crisis in the US. It presents data from national surveys.
The site includes expert insights from pediatricians who warn about the serious health risks of nicotine exposure in adolescents. It also outlines the broader public health implications and calls for stronger regulations to protect children. The resource combines compelling statistics, expert opinions, and policy recommendations, making it a valuable tool for understanding and addressing the growing issue of youth vaping.
This NEA Today article explores the ongoing challenges schools face with student vaping. Educators and school staff share firsthand accounts of how vaping disrupts learning environments and affects student behavior. The article includes data from the CDC and FDA’s National Youth Tobacco Survey. School counselors and nurses provide insight into the behavioral and health impacts they witness, such as irritability, withdrawal symptoms, and frequent bathroom visits.
Preparation
1. Teacher selection of a relevant topic for your students.
2. Gauge student knowledge of academic vocabulary terms related to argumentative writing (pros, cons, credible source, primary source, secondary source, claim, evidence, and reason).
3. Assign positions for students to develop claim evidence, reason. Explain that it is not what you believe, feel, or think, but what you can prove.
4. Give students time to research support for their position with facts and statistics. Instruct students to use multiple credible sources.
5. Print the Debate: Research, Write Discuss form from Scholastic (or other relevant content).
6. Engage in class discussion.
Student Objectives
Students will:
- introduce a claim, present evidence and reasoning, written and verbal expression.
- support claim with logical reasoning and relevant evidence.
- use credible sources to build information.
- demonstrate understanding of the topic via written and verbal means.
- use words and phrases to create cohesion among the relationships of claim, evidence, and reasoning.
- organize writing with a structure to clearly communicate a claim, evidence, and reasons to the reader.
Session Introduction and Activities
(Session One)
1. Cause-and-effect mini-lesson
2. Read, analyze, and discuss Great Immigrants, Great Americans: Jean-Claude Brizard
3. Locate the various causes and effects as a class
4. Complete a brief constructive response
(Session Two)
1. Review the comic and lead into a discussion as to why a youth may be expelled from school or experience a consequence of their choices
2. Read an article or infographic on a related topic (e.g., student voice in protest, vaping): Scholastic March 2024 or additional option listed
3. Students are given a position or claim stance to defend
4. Students will begin to conduct individual research on the topic for use in discussion and additional writing steps
(Session Three)
- Students will create an argumentative essay responding to the prompt: Are the laws or consequences related to student choice too harsh?
- Students will publish an argumentative essay linking concepts of legal or justice boundaries to the Brizard comic sequence.
Extensions
- Debate: Divide the class into two groups and allow them to present claim, evidence, and reasons.
- Students present a case trial defending their client, who will sit at an expulsion hearing.
- Scenario: Tableau, acting out a scene that represents part of a story (see examples from “Character Analysis through Comics” plan).
- ReadWriteThink Printing Press to create a visual document to support your claim.
From Theory to Practice
Comics are a powerful medium for engaging students in complex discussions about real-life issues. According to Scott McCloud, students often transition from picturebooks to text-heavy “real” books, which can unintentionally devalue the role of visual storytelling (p. 140). However, as noted in Understanding Comics, “a huge range of human experiences can be portrayed in comics through either words or pictures,” and “comics have become firmly identified with the art of storytelling” (p. 152).
By using the Great Immigrants, Great Americans comic featuring Jean Claude Brizard, this lesson leverages the visual and narrative power of comics to help students explore the consequences of unhealthy choices. Comics serve as an accessible entry point for tough conversations, softening the emotional weight while still addressing the seriousness of the topic.
Work Cited
McCloud, S. (1994). Understanding comics: The invisible art. William Morrow.
Student Assessment / Reflections
- Written essay: Use the rubric (scoring guide) for local state assessment
- Verbal debate: Rubric
Standards
A complete listing of the standards can be found here.
1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.
4. Students adjust their use of spoken, written, and visual language (e.g., conventions, style, vocabulary) to communicate effectively with a variety of audiences and for different purposes.
5. Students employ a wide range of strategies as they write and use different writing process elements appropriately to communicate with different audiences for a variety of purposes.
7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.
8. Students use a variety of technological and information resources (e.g., libraries, databases, computer networks, video) to gather and synthesize information and to create and communicate knowledge.
12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).