From telling personal stories to summarizing historical events to illustrating creating writing over the years I’ve shared a bunch of ideas for using comics in classrooms. And I’ve shared a bunch of tools for creating comics (resources linked at the bottom of this post). While I enjoy the process of creating comics, I am not an expert cartoonist. To learn for an expert cartoonist take a look the Museum of Modern Art’s new four-part How to Make Comics series.
MOMA’s How to Make Comics series addresses four topics. Those topics are:
- What are comics?
- What are the elements of comics?
- How to make comics? Where to begin.
- Ideas, Activities, and Resources for Making Comics
I found the section on elements of comics to be the most interesting of the four parts. In that section there is an excellent explanation and example of how the words and pictures in a comic should compliment each other.
The last part of the series that features ideas, activites, and resources for making comics includes a new-to-me resource on the South Portland, Maine’s school library website. That page is loaded with information for teachers interested in using comics in their classrooms. It was there that I found the Big Think video How Comic Books Can Make Kids Smarter.
Tools for Making Comics in Your Classroom
H/T to Open Culture for the MOMA series link.