1. HOW TO USE A COMIC STRIP -MAKING WEB SITE
TO ENHANCE YOUR TEACHING AND TRAINING
By Bill Zimmerman
Creator, MakeBeliefsComix.com
HOW TO USE A COMIC STRIP -MAKING WEB SITE
TO ENHANCE YOUR TEACHING AND TRAINING
By Bill Zimmerman
Creator, MakeBeliefsComix.com

2. From early childhood I have always believed that learning should be fun
since that has been my own experience. When I was a kid, I began learning
how to read while looking at the beautifully drawn cartoon characters in the
Sunday funny pages. I was challenged to decipher the white balloons
coming from the characters mouths or above their heads. I knew
instinctively that if I could begin to understand what the black printed letters
in the balloons meant, I could better understand what the amazing stories
were about. And with help from my parents, I began sounding out the letters
which made words.
In a short time I became a good reader.
I never forgot the pleasure of reading comic strips and joke books and when
I grew up I began working with cartoonists and illustrators to create art for
the newspaper I edited and for the books I began to write. I knew that
comic illustrations would provide a way to draw in people to read and
understand complicated material. I became interested in using the computer
as a tool to generate comics. And a year ago, I launched a web site –
http://www.makebeliefscomix.com -- to empower teachers, trainers and
students to create their own comic strips.
As a teacher in ESOL and literacy programs, I understood that enabling
struggling students to write and tell stories by building comic strips online
would be a way of strengthening their emerging English-language skills and
make the difficult job of learning English a much more enjoyable experience.
If students are having fun they can accomplish anything they want in
learning.
The MakeBeliefsComix.com site works this way: Users can select from 15
fun characters with different moods -- happy, sad, angry, worried. The
characters are a combination of human and animal characters with human
characteristics. The characters are meant to be inclusive and are of various
skin colors and types, including one who is in a wheelchair. All are friendly
and engaging so that users will want to play with them and create words for
them in the blank talk and thought balloons to make their characters talk
and think. There also are story ideas and prompts provided to help users
create graphic stories.
This site can be used by educators to teach language, reading and writing
skills, and also for students in English-as-a-Second-Language programs to
facilitate self-expression and storytelling. A teacher or corporate trainer, for
example, could use the strip to practice dialogue spoken by characters. And
with computer literacy so emphasized today in ESOL and literacy programs,
the very act of encouraging a student to create a simple comic strip online
also provides a way for students to become more comfortable in using the

3. computer. As they learn to negotiate the site and move characters and
thought balloons around, they are also improving their computer skills.
Some educational therapists also use the site with deaf and autistic people
and trauma victims to help them understand concepts and communicate.
Teachers can create scripts to help people practice certain situations, such as
greeting someone, or interviewing for a job, or talking with a teacher about
their children’s problems. Some teachers use the strips as storyboards to
help students more easily understand books that their students may be
reading in class. One teacher in Australia told me, for instance, that she
created story boards with the site to help her students better understand
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. Students reading a book might use
MakeBeliefsComix to extend the story by writing about a character whose life
and adventures continue after the book is closed, or even to write a different
ending. Better yet, they can use the online comix-maker to write their own
story.
Educators who are teaching new vocabulary might have students create a
comic strip in which the characters use the new words that have been
learned that day in class. Having to write sentences for characters to speak
also provides a way to practice sentence structure and learn grammar.
Students who have been assigned a book to read might create a comic strip
or strip series summarizing the book’s ideas.
Parents and children in family literacy programs can also create stories
together, print them to create comic books or email them to friends and
family. Generating strips also becomes a tool to help parents and children
work jointly and communicate effectively in creating something new. Others
will 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.
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 a
group comic strip incorporating their ideas. This becomes a great class
collaboration. We’ll choose a subject for example, such as going for a job
interview, or making conversation with a friend, or going on a date, or
deciding what we want to do this coming weekend or 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
and can be used, too, to help students work out problems or situations that
are troubling them in their lives.
I might then start a dialogue in one of the talk balloons, asking the students
to choose a character and for suggestions for dialogue, and then I’ll ask for

4. more dialogue for another character to speak. Then we’ll try to move the
story along by moving to a second panel. Later, when students start their
own comic strips, I encourage them to work with a partner to help each
other along. Such collaboration gives students more confidence and ideas in
creating a story, and in working together the students improve their
language skills as they come up with words and ideas for the characters to
say and execute.
I remember working with a group of Chinese and Hispanic students who
were first learning English. Working together, they worked collaboratively at
the computer site for almost three hours at one session until they had fully
shaped and completed their comic story. Just the experience of having to
talk together and create make-believe dialogue for the characters enhances
communication skills. There also are story prompts included on the site to
give students ideas for themes, 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.
In making comic strips, we also have an easy, fun way to practice sentence
structure, to use new vocabulary, to engage in make-believe conversations
that allow students to practice speaking, to work individually or
collaboratively, as well as to practice creative writing and
After a student completes her comic strip, she is encouraged to publish or
print out copies to keep of her work. This validates her creative writing
effort. The site also allows her to email a copy to a friend or relative. The
students love seeing the finished comic strips and can keep in their portfolios
to look at and enjoy their hard-earned effort to create something new.
Students like showing their families and friends what they have created.
The creation of the comics, thus, becomes an empowering experience for
many students and reinforces the learning they have accomplished.
And I have yet to see a frown or a tear shed in the language learning process
of creating and working with comics.
(Bill Zimmerman is the author of 18 books used in many educational
programs to encourage people of all ages to discover their writers’ voices. A
journalist all his life, he created and edited a nationally syndicate Student
Briefing Page for Newsday newspaper in New York which was twice
nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He is also the creator of two web sites:
http://makebeliefscomix.com and http://www.billztreasurechest.com, where
excerpts from his books can be found. He welcomes your comments and
feedback at wmz@aol.com.)
(Note to editor: You are welcome to use characters or cartoons that you
might create with MakeBeliefsComix.com)