Using Online Comics to Encourage Reading, Writing and Storytelling for ESOLStudents

Bill Zimmerman, USA

Bill Zimmerman is a journalist and prize-winning newspaper editor, for many years created an interactive, syndicated Student Briefing Page for Newsday newspaper to teach young people about current events. That feature was nominated twice for a Pulitzer Prize. At Newsday, Zimmerman also created a series of comic books to teach history and current events to young readers. He also has written 16 books which are aimed at helping people find their writers' voices. They are featured on his other web site: www.billztreasurechest.com. Zimmerman's work has been featured on the Today Show, PBS's acclaimed Ancestors Series, in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, and such magazines as Family Circle, Parents, Esquire, Business Week, and Essence. E-mail: wmz@aol.com.

When I was little, the best day of the week was Sunday mornings when my father got up early to shop and would bring back home jelly donuts and an armload of newspapers with their glorious color comics sections. The comics were paradise to me - I'd spend the morning going over each strip, following the adventures of my favorite characters. I'd look at the beautiful illustrations and try to spell out the words and stories in the balloons. This is how I began to read, and the comic characters became my friends and family.

I never gave up my love of comics and throughout my career as a newspaper editor and author I have worked with closely with cartoonists to draw in readers to the written words offered in my news stories and books. I began to think that it would be an empowering experience for people to be able to create their own comic strips and tell their own stories, and I regarded the Internet as the perfect place to try out this idea. As a teacher of immigrant and literacy students I also thought the comics would be a fun way of having students practice their language skills and have some fun and delight in doing so. So, after much planning and programming I launched a new web site - www.makebeliefscomix.com -- where people of all ages can create their own comic strips.

My thinking is that by giving students a choice of fun animal and human characters with different emotions -happy, sad,. angry or worried -- and blank thought and talk balloons to fill in with their written works, they can tap into their creativity to tell stories and create their own graphic stories.

Our best educators understand that playing is learning. Teachers in many countries have begun using this comic strip game to encourage youngsters to practice language, reading, writing, and communication skills. For those who teach young and old how to read and write or to learn English as a second language, an online comics site can be an invaluable tool in achieving these objectives. A teacher, for example, could put together a comic strip with characters and blank thought or talk balloons, print it out, and ask students to fill in the balloons with words and narration.

Better yet, a student can choose his or her own characters and develop stories on their own or with a partner. Some educational therapists have begun using the online comics to work with deaf and autistic people to help them understand concepts and communicate. Parents and children in family literacy programs can create stories together, print them to create comic books or email them to friends and family. Others find the site a resource to be creative, calm down and have fun - something that is needed as students struggle so mightly in class to master a new language.

In recent months I have been conducting workshops both for students who are learning English as a second language and with those who as struggling to be literate. Generally, in showing students how to use the site, I will create with them as a group a comic strip that incorporates their ideas and suggestions. We'll choose a subject for example, such as going on a date, going for a job interview or deciding what we want to do this coming weekend or maybe where we want to go on a vacation. Then we'll create a story together, using one or two characters in each panel. The characters become surrogates for ourselves.

In my opinion, it is important for the teacher to start a group comic strip and elicit help from the class in choosing characters, scenarios and coming up with words from the students to fill the dialogue and thought balloons of the characters. Working together like this becomes fun, particularly as the students begin to see the stories emerge on the computer screen. This helps engender confidence on the part of the students that they can do this activity, particularly after they see the teacher struggling to type in the words and navigate the site. In so doing, the teacher also reveals that she is learning, too, from the process, and that she needs the students' help for ideas. By doing so, she demonstrates that no one, including the teacher, knows everything. We need each other to solve problems.

In starting a group comic, I might ask the students to choose two characters and then start a dialogue in one of the talk balloons, asking the students for suggestions, and then I'll ask for more dialogue for the other character to speak. Then we'll try to move the story along by moving to a second panel. Later, when students begin their own comic strips, I encourage them to work with a partner to help each other along and gain confidence in their creative skills. I continue to walk around the room from terminal to terminal to help the students along and answer their technical or language questions as best as I can.

In making comic strips, we have an easy, fun way to practice sentence structure, to use new vocabulary, to engage in make-believe conversations, to work individually or collaboratively, to tell stories about our lives and the problems we face as well as practice creative writing. The animal and human characters, in fact, become surrogates for ourselves and by writing dialogue or thoughts for them, students can ''use'' these characters to express many of the things that are on their minds. A teacher can use the comic strips also to reinforce the teaching of new vocabulary words and encourage students to incorporate in their dialogue new words that you have taught in the lesson for that day.

Teachers can also create strips with their students in which they deal with issues that the students are grappling with, such as finding a job or visiting the doctor or interacting with their child's teacher. Can't you also imagine a strip, for example, in which a student chooses a character surrogate who is having an interview for a job and have another character represent a potential employer. Couldn't the strip deal with some of the issues or questions that come up in an interview, such as telling the prospective employer why the applicant is a good prospect for the job, or talking about her previous job and educational experiences.

Or, how about a strip in which a character rehearses the words and scenario of seeing a doctor to deal with a physical ailment. One of my students, a mother who worries about her teen daughter, created a strip in which she dealt with the problem her daughter had been encountering at school in dealing with other students who harass and intimidate her. In other instances, educational therapists who work with children with Asberger's disease, a form of autism, have used the comix to create scenarios in which students are shown appropriate behavior in social situations, such as meeting someone new. The strip might show characters saying hello to one another and introducing themselves to each other, something that some children have difficulty in doing.

On the site I also include subject prompts to give students writing ideas, such as: Travel to a Mysterious Place, A Day at School, Write a Love Story, Finding Your Courage, Making Wishes Come True, and A New Fairy Tale.

Some other ideas for comic stips: Make believe that your animal characters can talk to each other or read each other's thoughts. They can joke and have great adventures together. Or, imagine they could could tell a beautiful love story. How would it go? How about comic strip retelling a favorite fairy tale?

How about a comic strip in which a character writes a poem or sings a song to another? Or make believe a character could say the words to heal all people. What are the words your character would use? How about a comic strip in which characters throw the most fun party in the world. Where would it be? Whom would you invite? Or, maybe your party turns into a disaster. What happens?

Or, what if your characters could be bold and brave for a day. What great deeds would they do? Make believe your character could pass on a message to another, and that character passes the message on to another, and so on. How would the original message keep changing?

After completing each comic strip, students then print it out. This is a very important part of the whole process because students take pride in knowing that they finished and accomplished something. The strip represents their effort to tell a story in their new English language and this provides them with a very encouraging, enabling experience - that they can cope and create. Students can also color the printed comix and use it to create their own comix library to which they can keep adding additional stories that either continue, or serialize, previously created comics or start new ones. The online site also allows them to email the strip to a friend or relative. They can also use the comic strip to create personalized greeting card stories for family and friends and to celebrate special times in their lives. Wouldn't you like to receive one on your own birthday or when you're in need of cheering up?

I hope you will try out makebeliefscomix.com with your students and send me feedback on the experience of creating online comic strips. What improvements would you make for your students.

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