A Word About Multiple Intelligences

The comic strip making workshop is also a way to reach students with many different learning styles. Comics inherently speaks to a multitude of Howard Gardner's "Multiple Intelligences." Merely by its storytelling nature, a student can make a story about any subject that he or she is interested in; cartoon character exploration appeals to the learning tendencies of any child.

How comics can relate to the specific Multiple Intelligences:

Verbal/Linguistic: What are some of the things your character says or thinks? There is no limit to what words can do in a comic. In fact, some artists have made comics using almost nothing but words.

Visual/Spacial: Cartoon drawings are naturally visual. Placing the characters in sets and backgrounds encourages spacial learning.

Mathematical: Comics has a long history of formalism, which has always involved mathematical arrangements of panels. In workshops, we experiment with sizes and patterns of panel arrangement.

Kinetic/Bodily: What is your character doing? Cartoonists across the globe will attest to the physicality of drawing their characters. We frequently make the faces our characters make, and get in their positions in order to draw them.

Interpersonal: Who are your characters friends? We play many collaborative games.

Intrapersonal: What is your character's moods? What does he or she think? Comics has a rich history of exploring the Intrapersonal.

Naturalistic: Where is your character placed? Explore his or her natural surroundings.

Musical/Rhythmic: Comics are a very rhythmic storytelling. We use repetition of panels and encourage the innovative and abstract stories that result.