Atomic Comics!

This week's lesson was a continuation of our last class where students used Photoshop to design alternate identities for themselves. We took things a step further and had students write narratives centered around the characters they created. They planned their stories out on a storyboard and began drawing comics books that introduce their identities and overcome some sort of challenge. Although the students didn't have time to complete their comic books, they were surprisingly good at outlining their stories using the storyboard handout we provided. We are thoroughly excited to see the final graphic novels the students create next Saturday.

Out students informed us that most of them have had experience drawing comics before. Some of hem have done it in previous Saturday School classes and some of them create comics in their free time. Because the students were familiar with the medium we were working with, they were able to jump right into their work and spend time focusing on writing their narratives. We often try to center our lessons around new skills or techniques, but by starting with something students already know they can put more energy into developing creative new ideas instead of worrying about materials. The only difficulty that we encountered is that students work at different rates. By the end of class, some students were nearly finished and most of the students had just begun their first page. We decided to carry the lesson over to another week because though some students were working slowly their comic book designs were very impressive and developed. We wanted to give them as much time as the need to fully finish their work.