What are journey comics?
A journey comic is a comic book or strip that explores a student's journey through life. The strip can cover a particular scene, or a book can cover a whole chapter or chapters of a student's life. These comics have pictures and narrations like regular comics; however, the topics are related to the student's life and have a a conflict that is resolved.
What does a journey comic look like?
This is a just example and students can choose from a variety of different layouts, colour or black and white, language(s), etc.
What are some topics students can use?
In the book Braving Up: Radically Inclusive Teaching with Newcomer and Emergent Plurilingual Students by Dover and Rodriguez-Valls, students choose topics such as learning to play a new sport, and moving to a new country. Have students use a mind map to find out what is important to them. (For an example of a mind map see Poetry blog post).
How do I introduce this topic?
Bring in comic books and invite students to bring in their favorites. Circulate these books into read aloud, independent reading, or shared readings in the classroom. Encourage students to read some new comics at home.
Explain to students the variety of topics comics can be about and how they can be written to be humorous, serious, or scary. Break up the elements of what makes a comic- the characters, dialogue bubbles, how to read a comic strip, how many slides you tend to see, etc. Once students are familiar with what a comic is and what it looks like, then introduce this assignment.
Provide templates for students to build their own strip.
Why are journey comics important?
Journey comics are a good strategy for plurilingual students because they can convey the majority of the thoughts and ideas through drawings and the written dialogue serves in adding extra details. These comics can help students process their emotions and/or a serious event that impacted their life.
Comics also help students connect their writing to visual representations, thus linking words and pictures. Comics are great for students who feel they are "too old for picture books", but have not progressed to novels.