ED 291 Bilingual and ESL Strategies

Comics Activity #3
Hai-Au Tran
I am going to use Scripting activity as instructed in chapter 3 (p.81) in Going
Graphic by Cary. I use some strips from one of popular wordless comic book
for children, Robot Dreams by Sara Varon. It is about friendship between the
Dog and the Robot. I use this activity for English learning beginners with a
small group of three or four students. They are supposed to look at pictures,
do guessing and talk each other to comprehend the graphics. I use
strategies such as fishbowl modeling, narrative template and inference.
Wordless comic is a good way to develop critical thinking and creativity for
both oral language and written language when creating texts. There are two
options for creating texts: caption for a panel or dialogue of characters in the
panel. I provide some word wall to guide description discussion in group
about what they can see in the panels. Moreover, in order to get the class
engaged in the activity, there are two comic strips. One group who gets one
comic strip will act it out and the other group can discuss to describe what
the acting is about. Then the other group takes turn to act it out for their
comic strip. They will discuss and write down upon what they see from
others acting and vice versa. After all they will exchange the strips and
compare to what they wrote and revise it.
I apply collaborative writing and communication within groups to complete
the assignment. I provide enough time for series of sessions: reading
comics, act it out, discussing, writing and revising.