Connecting to the Past through Interviews: A Comics Project

Activity

Let’s look at a comic and see if we can tell what questions might have been used to get the writer to the final concept! 

Before we get into our interviews, let’s take a look at the Great Immigrants, Great Americans short comic about Jim Lee.  

Step 1: Read the short comic, noting the most important parts that were chosen to tell Lee’s story. You can take notes any way you want, but know that we will be adding to them, so please leave room between your points. 

Step 2: As a class, discuss what students found to be the most important parts of the comic. These can be put on the board as a visual representation. 

Step 3: Now that we’ve read and discussed the important moments, take a few moments to jot down what parts of Jim Lee’s life are missing from the comic. Put those moments into your notes chronologically.

Step 4: As a class, discuss what moments are not told in the comic and add them to the timeline created on the board. 

Step 5: As a class, discuss why these items are not in the comic. Why didn’t they make the cut? What does this tell us about the interviewing process?

Step 6: Now that we’ve had these discussions about how the main ideas were decided for the comic, brainstorm 3–5 questions that the interviewer might have asked Jim Lee to get to these main ideas. Add them to the bottom of your notes. 

Step 7: Share and discuss student questions with the class.   

Selecting and Researching the Topic

Once each student has a story or event to focus on from their interview (for example, a grandparent’s experience in the 1970s during Vietnam or a family business starting in the 1930s), the next step is research. Students should look for 3–4 credible sources that provide background on that historical moment/time. A handout can remind them about trustworthy sources:

• Use reliable outlets. Prefer books, museum websites, reputable news organizations, or educational journals—e.g., National Archives, NPR, Smithsonian, History.com, encyclopedia entries—over random blogs or Wikipedia. At the very least, a “Google News” search is better than a simple Google search.
• Author and publisher check. Look for known authors or institutions. Verify author credentials and publisher reputation.
• Evaluate content (CRAAP test). Check currency (is it recent enough?) and relevance (does it directly address the topic?). Confirm authority (is the author an expert?) and accuracy (are facts supported by evidence or other sources?). Consider purpose/bias (informative versus opinion).
• Check sources crosswise. Find the information in multiple sources. Beware of contradictions or unsupported claims. For example, if one source says “this event happened in 1945,” verify with another.
• Use library tools. Teach students to use school or public library databases, Google Scholar, or fact-checking sites. For internet sources, limit to domains like .edu, .gov, or other well-known organizations.
• Cite sources. Remind students to record citation info for each source. Remind them to always keep a running list of the information they have referenced and/or used.

By the end of research, each student should have a clear understanding of the historical event’s context and details from several references. They can then integrate quotes or facts into their comic script to ensure historical accuracy.

Writing the Comic Script

To help introduce this style of writing, here are some great links for helping students create comic script pages!  

How to Write a Script for Your Comic

Scripting a Graphic Novel

Comic Script Basics (This one is involved and detailed, but it shows how many professionals complete their scripts.) 

Students plan a two-page comic script that tells the chosen historical story. They can write it in either first person (telling the elder’s story) or third person (a narrator telling the story). Key steps include:

• Outline the story. Decide the narrative arc: introduction of setting/characters, key events, and conclusion. Use the Great Immigrants, Great Americans comics as a base for your vision. “What do the stories from the collection that you like do well?”
• Divide into panels. On paper or digitally, sketch roughly 4–6 panels per page. Determine what happens in each panel (action, time of day, setting). Each panel will get a short description and possibly character dialogue or captions.

See below for more info on beginning the discussion on comics.

Remember, unlike television and film, there is no industry standard; if the writing is clear, and the artist can understand the vision, those are the most important things. It helps to tell the students that each panel is like a photograph, and photographs do not move; students tend to want to put too much action into each panel. 

Also, there are plenty of blank comic pages online as well if students are having a difficult time imagining a layout for each page; even Canva has some comic page templates.  

Reading Comics: Terminology and Discussion

Before or alongside writing, teach students how to read and analyze comics. Provide an NCTE comics-terms handout defining key terms. (Handouts are linked here and here.)

Have students practice by discussing the first couple of stories from Great Immigrants, Great Americans: Identify panels, describe transitions, and note how text and image work together. 

Discuss how the writer and artist would have had to work together to create the final product. What was probably difficult about the process? Emphasize that writing the script is like giving the artist the “words and directions,” while the panels convey the visuals. This builds comic literacy and prepares them for evaluating their own scripts.

A great thing to do once the scripts are finished is to have students partner up, read each other’s scripts, and let each other know when something is confusing or needs clarification. As writers, we often think what we wrote makes sense because it is in our heads.