Comic Books!

Grade: 4/5 ELA Lesson Duration : 1 hour

Overview of lesson

This lesson will be an introduction to the genre of comics. We will discuss a brief history, different formats, and
types of comic-style literature. We will learn about how the images and lettering (including sound effects and
speech bubbles) can aid communicating the intended message. At the end we will start brainstorming for their
paragraph of the week, which will have a prompt related to the lesson. This will introduce them to a genre of
literary text that is not often discussed in classrooms, and will show them the value of all and any forms of
reading. It will also demonstrate the ways in which comic artists support enjoyment and communication of ideas
differently than traditional authors.

Alberta Program of Study: Goals and Objectives

GLO /GLE
Learning Outcome: Students examine how text
genres, forms, and structures support and
enhance communication.
SLO/SLE
1. Understanding: Text genres, forms, and structures can
support the enjoyment and communication of ideas and
information.
2. Skills and Procedure: Engage with a variety of genres
of literary texts.

Learning Objectives

1. Students will appreciate comics as a valuable form of literature and name some benefits of the comic form.
2. Students will be able to analyze short comic strips using art and text to identify the message, as well as
make inferences about context and content.

Guiding Questions

1. Why might someone choose to read comics over a regular book?

2. Why do comics count as reading, even if they have less words?
3. What skills do we work on when reading comics that we might not in chapter books?
4. How do the pictures and fonts help the author and artist communicate their message?

Resources

https://bookriot.com/comic-book-myths/

Material and Equipment

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  Smartboard
 Cue cards (for quick-write)
 Laptops (for paragraph of the week)

Lesson Procedures

Introduction (about 10 minutes)

 We will start the lesson with a quick-write. We will be doing an “I am” poem. I will ask them if they remember the
conversation they had on Friday about what we want people to remember about us. They will write a sentence
beginning with “I am” while keeping in mind this type of introspective point of view. We will discuss some
appropriate examples and less appropriate examples, and how to improve our sentence with detail, adjectives, etc. I
will write my line up on the board but remind them to do a line about THEM. They will have 5 minutes, then we
will go around the classroom and say our sentences in order to make the poem.
 This quick-write is not related to the comic lesson, it is just an activity to get them writing and practicing printing.

Body (40) min

 We will do their fluency cards- which will take about 5 mins, then when they Assessments/Rational
are ready, we will go to the front of the class.
 I will introduce the topic of comics- I will ask them who knows what a comic -At the end of the discussion
is, who enjoys reading comics, who thinks that comics count as reading? (just piece, I will ask them the
a quick show of hands) Then we’ll talk about what they enjoy about comics, guiding questions I’ve come up
why they would choose them, why they do or don’t like them.
with to see what they say. This
 We will briefly talk about Rodolph Topffer, the father of modern comics. We
will both consolidate what I’ve
will also talk about superhero comics, originating during ww2, and how they
taught them and act as an
are one of the most popular types of comics even today.
assessment of what they learned.
 Next we will take a look at a page from a manga comic. We will talk about
what we notice in the page in terms of emotion, plot, etc. How even though -Their participation in the
there are no words, we can still see kind of what’s going on. We can follow discussion throughout the power
the characters feelings and motion in the panels, and we will do a quick point piece will show if they
see/think/wonder about this page. understand or not so much.
 After analyzing the images, we will talk about the text. First someone will -Their paragraph of the week
read out “I can’t believe it. Homework already. I just got back to school.” will give an individual
Written on a blank slide in times new roman font. Then, someone else will assessment of their opinion on
read the same phrase but as it is written in a Calvin and Hobbes comic (with comics. Hopefully they will be
the pictures hidden). We will compare how they were read differently, even using some of what we learned
though they said the same thing. We will discuss how we knew that they
today in their paragraph.
sounded differently (size of font, slant, exclamation points, bolded, etc.). We
will make predictions about what the character is feeling, then reveal the
picture to see if we were right.
 We will combine the knowledge of pictures and text to analyze a small
Garfield comic. We will talk about why the artist used different fonts and size
texts in different speech bubbles, and we will also discuss what the pictures
tell us that the words don’t (Jon is upset, Garfield thinks it’s funny).

 Consolidating and Closure: ( 10 ) mins

 We will discuss why comics count as reading. Some topics I’ll guide them to
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(if they don’t come up with them themselves):
o Readers use inferencing skills when they look at the pictures, they
have to use their brains to decode what the pictures mean.
o Lots of comics are longer than regular chapter books, and so they
have a similar amount of words
o There is lots of unique vocabulary in comic books
o Just like ‘regular books’, comics come in different levels of difficulty,
just like we saw with Garfield and the French novel converted into a
comic strip. They also come in hundreds of different genres, just like
traditional books (babysitters club, bones, amulet, Calvin and
Hobbes, etc.)
o Comics are about storytelling, and they still have all the elements of a
regular book (characters, plot, conflict)
o They’re fun! Reading isn’t supposed to be a chore, it is supposed to
be enjoyable, so we should be able to pick a book that we find
interesting.