Week 6: Infused Classroom- Book Creator Comic Strips

  This week I looked at Holly Clark's blog Infused Classroom and her review of the tool Book Creator's Comic Strips. 

What is Book Creator and its new feature: Comic Strips?

This week in Holly Clark's blog I learned about a tool called Book Creator. While reading her blog I decided to learn more about what Book Creator was before I looked into the comic book feature. Book creator is an app that allows students to use tools to creator digital books with images, video and audio! 
The best part is that teachers can create a free account! Recently, Book Creator has added a comic strip feature that Clark talks about in her blog. Clark suggests that teachers offer creating a comic strip feature to help engage students more in writing summaries. She also talks about the importance of students getting opportunities to share the work they have created! 



Can I use Book Creator's comic strip feature in the classroom? 

I wish I had known about this tool earlier! I am not sure about anyone else, but my students are obsessed with graphic novels! At least in my room, giving students the option to share their thinking via comic strip could engage even my most reluctant learners. 

In reading we just finished the story Because of Winn-Dixie. One skills we work on in this unit is character change. For my lesson I had studnets write a summary about how the main character Opal was at the beginning and how she changed over the course of the story. My students struggle with using text evidence but I think this is where the comic strip tool could come in. Students would need to look for the moment in the story that represented how Opal was at the beginning and moments in the story to represent how she was at the end. They would need to find this information so they could include the setting in their comic strip. Turning this assignment from a written summary to a comic strip could make this work feel more like a fun activity rather than a daunting task. 

Another idea that I got from Clark's blog is that students could use comic strips to retell a story in history. We are currently in a Notable American unit for social students. Right now I have students pulling different photos from the internet and writing what they learned about their notable American. I think incorporating a comic strip into this unit would help with students motivation to research and offer them a unique way to show understanding of who they researched and their impact on our country. 

Can you see yourself integrating comic strips into your classroom? 

Comments

  1. Dr. ThomasFebruary 24, 2021 at 6:29 AM

    Great ideas for implementing BookCreator. I remember when my kids read that book. Is that 4th grade? 5th? I am so old I use to cut comics out of the newspaper, whiteout the dialogue in the bubbles, and copy them on sheets of papers for my students to create their own dialogue as part of a journal activity.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Karissa BachmanFebruary 28, 2021 at 5:21 PM

    It is 3rd grade! But good for all ages!

    ReplyDelete

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