Alternate Storytelling
Use Book Creator to engage students in a collaborative comic book project with a partner class!
Ages 8-10 / 60
min Activity
Objectives
- Take turns writing and illustrating a story with their partner class to create a comic book together
Supporting Research
When students participate in collaborative writing exercises with their peers, researchers have found that this generative experience promotes their writing, problem-solving, and social skills. Educators should encourage students to practice inclusivity and collaboration as they take turns adding to the story, build on each other’s contributions, and figure out how to include everyone’s ideas.
To learn more about these skills, and how they promote students’ healthy growth and the development of empathy, please check out our Empathy Framework.
Materials
Activity Partners
Instructions
- This project involves students from two classes who work together on a comic book by taking turns adding to the story and illustrations. Coordinate with your partner educator on the project logistics, and consider the following options:
• One class focuses on the photos and illustrations, while the other class focuses on the text (or each class creates their own book starting with the illustrations, then both classes can swap books and add text to each other’s books).
• You might alternate these roles one page at a time, so both classes get an opportunity to add photos / illustrations and write text.
- Introduce the project to students: working on a collaborative comic book with their partner class! Help students come up with a strategy for how they will approach this task, and ensure that everyone has an opportunity to contribute ideas and participate. For example, you might also assign each character to different students, so they can tell the story from their own perspective.
To create the book, follow the Book Creator instructions below.
- After completing your book, consider facilitating a live virtual exchange and reading the comic book aloud together!
- Finally, engage students in a reflection by asking the following questions:
• What was your favorite part about this project?
• Did you encounter any challenges while working on our comic book? How did you overcome these challenges, or use your creativity to solve them?
• Did the story turn out differently than you expected? How did our collaboration shape the story?
• What did you learn about our partner class from their contributions to our book?
Book Creator Instructions
- Sign up for a free Book Creator account (if you don’t have one already).
- Navigate to your Teacher Dashboard and add a new library for your class.
- Share the invite code so your students can join the library.
- Click on ‘New Book’ and choose one of the comic templates on the second row.
- Build out your comic with panels, stickers, speech bubbles and more.
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