✾ Unit Reflection 3 ✾
Module three was primarily focused on transforming understanding into picture and comic form. Rather than giving a "boring," writing assignment to show understanding and comprehension of a novel, the readings within this module showed online resources to take comprehension to the next level.
Within the first part of the module, we read two pieces of work regarding the transformation of ideas into pictures. The one article that stood out to me was Comics, the Cannon and the Classroom by James Bucky Carter, because it focused on making the reading of Cannon classics a little bit easier and more fun. As a student, I can remember dreading my reading assignments from time to time because I found reading old classics a tad boring and disinteresting. In my case, my teachers did not really do much to make the classics more fun to read. All I really remember doing was having an in class discussion about what we read. Although discussions can be very valuable, I found that students are more engaged and more excited to read whenever they are given a fun assignment like creating a comic or a picture to show their interpretation of the text. In fact, the article proved a point; students remember and take in more information whenever they take the time to draw out a picture of their understanding. To me, giving a students a chance to take the time to read and draw a picture of what they read is extremely valuable. Students tend to not look back on their work in high school and say "yeah, I wrote this really cool paper." Instead, they tend to say "I remember doing this really cool assignment where we had to create a comic." I want my future students to have fun and of course, learn something new while doing it; I cannot wait to use these online tools in the future!
For the second assignment we read two chapters within Teaching Literacy Within the Digital Age by Mark Gura. This reading was very interesting to me because I have never had the opportunity to create or even use a comic strip for an assignment. Within chapter 8, Gura pointed out multiple online generators to create comics and I took the time to do research on a few that he had pointed out. It was amazing to me that there are so many online resources that us as students and future educators can use every single day. Write Comics and Strip Generator, two online comic generators that Gura had mentioned, were free, easily accessible and very easy to use. After taking the time to use the generators and see what they were all about made me excited to plan a future assignment for my students. Not only did the chapters focus on different online resources, but it also focused on the more technical side of creating comics. For example, chapter 10 mentioned a part of a comic strip that I have never even heard of, which is the "gutter." The gutter is a space between scenes where you can add text and give a little explanation as to what is going on within the pictures. To me this was interesting because I had always thought of comics as being JUST pictures. Having a space to explain the scenes is a valuable thing because if a student is creating a comic, they can enhance their understanding of the text they are portraying by adding a short quote from whatever they were reading.
Lastly, as a class, we took what we had read in the previous assignments and brought it to life. Within the assignment we had to pick a book of our choosing and create a short comic strip of a scene of our choice. Needless to say, I loved everything about this assignment. I love being able to take whatever I have learned into my own hands and create whatever I want, however I want. From what I could tell, my fellow classmates also enjoyed the assignment, too. Also, I know that since I've been at Slippery Rock, I have not really had the chance to create something fun to portray my understanding. In fact, I almost felt like a kid whenever I was doing the assignment because I am pretty sure I smiled the whole time I was creating my comic strip. After completing my comic, I feel as though I gained a whole new understanding on the book that I had chose and I have also found books that I would love to read after seeing my classmates completed projects.
After this module, I am more than excited to give an assignment like the one we did in class to my fellow students. There is enormous value in giving students the chance to interpret and create anything they want, as long as they are following the limited guidelines and portraying their understanding. I loved this module and I cannot wait to learn about even more online tools to use in the future.
Within the first part of the module, we read two pieces of work regarding the transformation of ideas into pictures. The one article that stood out to me was Comics, the Cannon and the Classroom by James Bucky Carter, because it focused on making the reading of Cannon classics a little bit easier and more fun. As a student, I can remember dreading my reading assignments from time to time because I found reading old classics a tad boring and disinteresting. In my case, my teachers did not really do much to make the classics more fun to read. All I really remember doing was having an in class discussion about what we read. Although discussions can be very valuable, I found that students are more engaged and more excited to read whenever they are given a fun assignment like creating a comic or a picture to show their interpretation of the text. In fact, the article proved a point; students remember and take in more information whenever they take the time to draw out a picture of their understanding. To me, giving a students a chance to take the time to read and draw a picture of what they read is extremely valuable. Students tend to not look back on their work in high school and say "yeah, I wrote this really cool paper." Instead, they tend to say "I remember doing this really cool assignment where we had to create a comic." I want my future students to have fun and of course, learn something new while doing it; I cannot wait to use these online tools in the future!
For the second assignment we read two chapters within Teaching Literacy Within the Digital Age by Mark Gura. This reading was very interesting to me because I have never had the opportunity to create or even use a comic strip for an assignment. Within chapter 8, Gura pointed out multiple online generators to create comics and I took the time to do research on a few that he had pointed out. It was amazing to me that there are so many online resources that us as students and future educators can use every single day. Write Comics and Strip Generator, two online comic generators that Gura had mentioned, were free, easily accessible and very easy to use. After taking the time to use the generators and see what they were all about made me excited to plan a future assignment for my students. Not only did the chapters focus on different online resources, but it also focused on the more technical side of creating comics. For example, chapter 10 mentioned a part of a comic strip that I have never even heard of, which is the "gutter." The gutter is a space between scenes where you can add text and give a little explanation as to what is going on within the pictures. To me this was interesting because I had always thought of comics as being JUST pictures. Having a space to explain the scenes is a valuable thing because if a student is creating a comic, they can enhance their understanding of the text they are portraying by adding a short quote from whatever they were reading.
Lastly, as a class, we took what we had read in the previous assignments and brought it to life. Within the assignment we had to pick a book of our choosing and create a short comic strip of a scene of our choice. Needless to say, I loved everything about this assignment. I love being able to take whatever I have learned into my own hands and create whatever I want, however I want. From what I could tell, my fellow classmates also enjoyed the assignment, too. Also, I know that since I've been at Slippery Rock, I have not really had the chance to create something fun to portray my understanding. In fact, I almost felt like a kid whenever I was doing the assignment because I am pretty sure I smiled the whole time I was creating my comic strip. After completing my comic, I feel as though I gained a whole new understanding on the book that I had chose and I have also found books that I would love to read after seeing my classmates completed projects.
After this module, I am more than excited to give an assignment like the one we did in class to my fellow students. There is enormous value in giving students the chance to interpret and create anything they want, as long as they are following the limited guidelines and portraying their understanding. I loved this module and I cannot wait to learn about even more online tools to use in the future.
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