http://www.makebeliefscomix.com/

Tech Tools: ReadWriteThink’s Comic Creator, Professor Garfield’s Comics Lab or MakeBeliefsComix

On any of these sites, students can pick from a wide range of story elements – characters, expressions, actions, settings and dialogue boxes – to create unique visual narratives. They can use these tools to illustrate any concept or curricular content, such as a scientific process, historical event, personal narrative or literary text. Suddenly every student can access his or her inner artist, and you’ll have material for a great display of student work.

The Learning Network graphic organizers Saying What’s Unsaid (PDF) and Telling a Times Story (PDF) guide students in developing their ideas for graphic narratives. They’re “writable,” so they can be used not only as paper handouts but also on individual computers or an interactive whiteboard.

For example, students might use Telling a Times Story to show their understanding of squirrel behavior or what happens when you lose your cool after reading the Science Times articles on these topics.

Students can also create comic strips as part of the learning process, not just as products. Try printing and distributing hard copies of the “Cartoon ‘Did You Read?’ Quiz” (PDF) at Making Curriculum Pop. It’s a learning assessment in which kids “storyboard” the major ideas they noted in assigned reading.