About Comics in the Classroom

Reach Reluctant Writers and Readers with Comics!

The comic strip-making workshops are a way to reach students with many different learning styles. The comics form lends itself to any subject and any artistic manner. Cartoon character exploration appeals to even the most resistant child. In its more than 100 year history, the comics medium has been used to tell stories ranging from comedy and satire to action and adventure to topics as serious as those of family histories, self-identity, and war.

Creating comics develops organizational and critical thinking skills, from connecting ideas to conceptualizing, executing, and editing an entire project. Making comics is writing! When kids make stories in pictures, they're learning to write!

Learning to write with comics uses skill sets of the entire brain including:

1. The ability to pay attention
   
2. The ability to extract information
   
3. The ability to communicate ideas and emotions clearly
   
4. The ability to use both words and images.
   

Additonally, comic strips in the classroom have great potential because students often are already interested and engaged in this medium as readers and may have a fair level of visual literacy and sophistication.

What Classes are Best?

English and art classes are the most obvious match for Storyark workshops, because we teach both drawing and writing skills, but the Storyark curriculum can be applied to a wide variety of subject matter. In social studies, students adapt historical events to the comic form. In science classes, students can present a scientific study in a visually exciting way. We can work with teachers to adapt the Storyark exercises to their particular needs.

StoryArk Cartoon Workshops Provide:

1. Students with critical thinking, planning, organization, and language skills.
   
2. Teachers with a learning tool they can employ in many different contexts (history, language arts, even science, math, and standardized test preparation)
   
3. A way of meeting curriculum agendas using a different approach to learning that students find fun and exhilarating!