Comics: learning and having fun

Are you looking for a way to motivate reluctant readers, engage urban youth, develop the comprehension skills of second-language learners, or teach visual literacy to elementary level students? Have you considered comics? That's right, comics! More and more teachers are finding that once-maligned comics, and their big brothers graphic novels, can be effective tools for teaching a multitude of literacy skills to students with a variety of learning needs.

According to Stephen Cary, a second language learner specialist and author of Going Graphic: Comics at Work in the Multilingual Classroom, "Comics provide authentic language learning opportunities for all students….The dramatically reduced text of many comics make them manageable and language profitable for even beginning level readers."

The following comic was made by my second grade students (7 years old)using the software Pixton. They loved to play with the characters, and then creating the text became easy. This was the first step, at the second part of the lesson they were asked to reproduce the story in a text.
My artist's names are: Samuel Carvalho, Mariana Terra, Rebeca Andrade, Milla Barra, Douglas Sá. Enjoy their work:
Pass the mouse over the picture and ckick on the arrow to roll the strip.