How would one use Comics as a Teaching Tool?

Tarotreader3 · Post by **Tarotreader3** » Tue Jan 25, 2005 11:42 pm

that is pretty awesome. I only wish that someday I can use my private army of children to act out my comic strip =)

Chibiartstudios · Post by **Chibiartstudios** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:09 am

I am so calling CPS on you. I mean child labor is SO illegal. I tried to get a part time job at 15 and couldn't get shit.

...Stupid laws...

Leko wrote:Comics would be an ideal way to keep kids interested in boring things like grammar.

Well, I don't find grammar boring, but a lot of kids do. ^_^ And if you use comics, kids will think you're cool, and you'll be the most popular teacher on the campus and all the kids will hang out in your classroom before school starts and during lunch and get food all over your carpet and give you headaches and...

...Wait...

I hate gramer... You there! Make me a comic about gramer! Do it! NOW!

Seriously though. There are some things that are just easier to understand in comic form.

Dutch! · Post by **Dutch!** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 3:28 am

I'm assuming the gramer word is spelt incorrectly to be ironic.

And as for an army of children...I wouldn't call them an army. Yeah, the kids'll generally do what I tell them, but they're not stupid enough to follow blindly. I often get the 'Mr V's talking shit again' look...

Warren · Post by **Warren** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 6:43 am

Dutch! wrote:And as for an army of children...I wouldn't call them an army. Yeah, the kids'll generally do what I tell them, but they're not stupid enough to follow blindly. I often get the 'Mr V's talking shit again' look...

That's why I'm training mice to do the theatre version of MY strip.

Tarotreader3 · Post by **Tarotreader3** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 12:50 pm

I find that if you have young kids (7+8) they wont be able to perform very complicated tasks, but they'll follow blindly. if only there was a way to combine the williness of one, with the abilites of the others. we'd have a army of super childen (not unlike star-treks euginics wars)

Dutch! · Post by **Dutch!** » Wed Jan 26, 2005 10:01 pm

Oh, they sure as eggs won't follow you blindly! They're not bloody dumb! They're bloody cunning little bastards some of them! As cunning as a shit house rat!

But they're more fun and generally better to talk to than your average teenagers.

Which is why I don't post here as often as I could, eh?

Leko · Post by **Leko** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 5:55 pm

Children are indeed very savage.

When I was in preschool we made clubs to exclude people and start wars with them. It often turned into all-out battles for domination of the playground.

I'm convinced that early childhood is practice for possible future tyrranist regimes and uprisings, not unlike the Revolution spacejam type thing that appears to be dying out currently.

Rkolter · Post by **Rkolter** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 6:42 pm

mcDuffies wrote:http://www.reasonedcognition.com/

*blush*

I wish I had advice on how to do teaching comics - my own influences were Mr. Wizard, Billy Nye the Science Guy, thirty years of exposure to science magazines and scientists with quirky humor, and an unhealthy love affair with learning stuff.

The best advice I can give is to be sure to explain each part of the whole of your issue. If you want to explain why a duck's quack must in fact echo, start by explaining what an echo really is. If you're going to explain why not to put metal in a microwave, start by explaining how the microwave works.

Of course, as a teacher, this should be second nature to you. I wish you the very best of luck. If you come up with some comics that are successful in the classroom, be sure to let me know and I'll link to you.

Dutch! · Post by **Dutch!** » Thu Jan 27, 2005 11:15 pm

Not when dealing with ten year olds. At that point, you need to explain things, and then for the hardest explanations that these easy explanations rely on, you sometimes just have to say 'because that's what an echo is.'

Kids at that point don't want to know the intricacies of how sound is altered to echo. They just want to know that it returns to you and bounces off the hills. It's more magical. Kids still like that. Wait until they're well into high school before you start pulling down those walls...by that stage the rest of the world has started doing it for them.

On a side note, I don't use the comic strip to teach the kids, per se, as in 'read this and it will explain why this happens', except for a few exceptions *obligatory comic lesson number one*

I use it to show them 'hey, look! You can do comics to write stories and practice spelling and learn paragraphs and dialogue and talking marks and punctuation, and story development, and jokes, and crap on and on and on. And the best bit is that at the end of the day they'll STILL THINK THEY'RE DOING ART!!