Lessons from a comic frame

Deepali Sagar Bajaj

Every teacher these days has to innovate if she has to keep her students engaged and interested. This is particularly true of subjects like social studies, which are seen as ‘boring’. How can we inject some life into a subject like social studies? Did you ever think of using comics?

Using comic strips in pedagogy
The idea of using comic strips as a teaching aid was first given by by Allan Paivio, an American professor of psychology, in 1986 when he proposed the Dual Coding Theory (Paivio, 1991). He stated that during the process of learning, a human being gives equal weightage to verbal and non-verbal processing. He maintained that a person’s recall and recognition increases many folds when the material is in both verbal and visual form. Mayer and Moreno (1998) complemented this finding by saying that when a teacher uses techniques like computers and cartoons in the classroom the learning is better and longer retained.

The benefits of using comic strips in the classroom
Combination of visual images and written material: Teachers have been using PPTs regularly in their classes, therefore comic strips break the monotony. Instead of reading lengthy pieces of text, students can obtain the necessary information in a fun and interesting manner. The visual images are a treat for the students as they provide them with a cohesive and choreographed imagery that gives them the feeling that they are reading a piece of fiction rather than actual literature.

Cartoons are flexible:

The teacher can decide where she wants to use comic strips and how she can get the best results out of them. S/he can formulate scripts in which they can take up different fields and incorporate the decided topics in the same comic strip. This way, students can learn things simultaneously as well as learn the art of analyzing and synthesizing.

Integrates various domains: Every student has a different style of learning and understanding. Comic strips encompass both cognitive and psychomotor domains as they incorporate various intelligences like auditory, visual, and kinaesthetic (Mayer & Moreno, 1998).

Comic strips engender creativity: Students can be asked to create their own comic strips. This will help improve both their creative and research skills.

Emotional connect: Students will connect more with the characters of the comic strips and perhaps even develop a sense of empathy. Textbooks are monotonous and don’t encourage the student to think beyond what is written.

Development of thinking skills: Comic strips can develop analytical and critical thinking skills. After seeing imagery characters portraying the content and narrative speech, even the most reluctant reader gets drawn to them.

Motivation: Students realize that the teacher has something different from the routine to present to them. The curiosity to learn in a new way motivates students to take the content of comic strips seriously.

Creating a comic strip

Since this is a relatively uncommon idea, if you want to teach a specific idea/concept it is likely that you may have to create your own comic strips. Here are a few guidelines to keep in mind while creating one.

Number of pages: Comic strips can be of one to three pages. While designing a comic strip, keep in mind the number of scenes you want to depict, keep them short and crisp, and see that they consist of relevant and necessary information.

Story development: Comic strips depend upon plot construction or story development.

While working on the story structure remember the following:
• Divide the story into three parts, i.e., beginning, middle, and end.
• The events should move towards achieving the goal.
• The characters, situations, as well as events should be introduced in the beginning.

Once you have decided on your story, work on the script. The script should match the understanding levels of your students. Remember to add sound effects to make it more interesting.

Once the script is ready, work on the characterization. Try and make your characters humorous, give them some quirk. For e.g., perhaps you can make Akbar a little absent-minded? Students will be motivated to read them because they will consider them cartoon characters.

Conclusion: With technology and modernization seeping into education, the routine chalk and talk method is becoming obsolete. Everything is available to the student on the Internet. The only thing that a teacher should keep in mind is how she can present the content to the students in a novel way so that they are motivated to learn. Comic strips are an excellent answer to this question. The best thing about comic strips is that it can be used widely across curriculum be it science, mathematics, social studies, or the languages.

Comic strips have the ability to influence students to read and learn. With the tools available, creating comic strips is neither difficult nor a waste of time. Moreover, if a teacher uses comic strips as a medium of teaching in the class, the concentration and response of the students will be much better.

References
• Bloom’s Taxonomy of Learning Domains http://www.nwlink.com/~donclark/hrd/bloom.html
• Clark, J. M. & Paivio, A. (1991). Dual coding theory and Education. Educational Psychology Review. 3(3). pp. 149-170
• Comics: A Multidimensional Teaching Aid in Integrated Skills Classes http://www.esl-lab.com/research/comics.htm
• Comic Strip http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/comic+strip
• Dual Coding Theory http://www.instructionaldesign.org/theories/dual-coding.html

The author is Assistant Professor, Chitkara College of Education for Women, Punjab. She can be reached at deepali.sagar@gmail.com.