Making Curriculum Pop


I'm a great fan of Bill Zimmerman. He has a wonderful website called MakeBeliefsComix which I described in Make Your Own Comic at MakeBeliefsComix and Practise Languages at MakeBeliefsComix. So I was thrilled to see that Bill has created a new book, Your Life in Comics, 100 Things for Guys to Write and Draw. It's been published by free spirit publishing and the art work is by Tyler Page. 

What’s more fun than reading comics? Making your own.

Most other books give you all the words and illustrations so you don’t have a say about what happens. Your Life in Comics isn’t like that. Instead it’s an interactive comic book where you can tell stories from your own life. There are also cartoons where you get to decide what happens to other characters. Fill in the talk and thought balloons to show what people say and think—their fate is in your hands! Other fun freestyle activities let you doodle, make lists, and write about cool stuff in your life. 


What I love about this book is that it targets boys, (recommended for ages 9-13) and does so in such a way as to encourage them to express their feelings in writing (and images.) I'm not saying girls wouldn't want to use the book too; in fact, I know I would have loved something like this as a kid. But the characters are mostly male. It's often important to boys that they can identify with "boy things", so this book could be perfect for them.

Essentially, Your Life in Comics offers kids prompts for writing and drawing in comic formats. I like the variety - there are activities that focus on personal achievements, sports, and embarrassing moments, as well as starters for narratives. There are also opportunities to draw comic pictures inside frames, add to started comics, and design cool stuff. Included at the back of the book are a range of different blank templates.

I love the fascinating suggestions sprinkled throughout, ideas that might start kids on designing their own websites or discovering more about inventions, codes and virtual worlds. I really enjoyed Page's art work too - it's quirky, expressive, and fun, yet leaves lots of room for a kid's own work. 

This book would make a great resource for teachers, keen to find prompts they can use with boys. I think it would also make an ideal gift for boys who love comics, and might be just what they need to get them started in using the comic format to express themselves. The website also has free templates to download. It's fantastic when publishers offer freebies to kids, parents and teachers like this! 

(This review was first published at The Book Chook.)

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Replies to This Discussion

Thank you, Susan, for such a lovely review of my book -- I am deeply appreciative! I would so much welcome feedback from educators who test the book with their students. This would be so useful as I work on another interactive comic book for girls. All suggestions and ideas are very welcome.
Sincerely,
Bill Zimmerman
Hi Susan: I'm the publisher of Bill's new book, and we very much appreciate your thoughtful review and shout out to Free Spirit Publishing. Can you fix the link to our site though since it's not working (www.freespirit.com).
I'm excited to have learned about Making Curriculum Pop, and am happy to be a new member of your community. Best wishes, Judy Galbraith
Hi Judy, thanks for letting me know about the link. MCPoP is a warm and friendly cyberplace - I'm sure you'll love it.
I'm going to check this out; it may prove useful for my class - I have a unit on memoir that involves my kids creating a memoir in comic form.
Love the idea of memoir in comic form, Melissa! If you have time, why not post an outline of it as a discussion?
Melissa,
Perhaps, too, your students would find my web site, MakeBeliefsComix.com, helpful in creating their comic memoirs. They could use the characters on the site as surrogates for themselves and their friends and family.
I always encourage students to create biographical comic strips, particularly when a new term begins. It's a wonderful way of introducing themselves to others.

The other thing I'd love to see is teachers setting aside 20 minutes or so in the classroom, perhaps at the end of day, when students would be encouraged to create a comic strip of something they learned in school that day, or about a book or character they were reading about, or about something on their mind or something they may have overheard. Imagine if students did this each day and over the course of a year they could create a book of comic strips or cartoons about their lives both as students and as individuals. What a great record this would be of their journey during the school year!
Bill, forgive my ignorance, but what exactly IS the difference between a comic and a cartoon? When I was a kid, comics were in magazine format and cartoons were what we watched on TV, but I'm sure they're being used interchangeably to refer to digital or print graphic stories now.
Susan,
I see the two -- comic and cartoon -- as interchangeable. But the journalist in me, who worked for newspapers all my life, sees the cartoon generally as a one-panel drawing which makes a political statement of some sort. I'm not answering your question very well, but that's the best I can do/bill
Thanks Bill!
Excellent! This goes on my wish-list for my course. Thanks for creating a resource of this type.
Tony,
If you use ''Your Life in Comics'' with your students, please let me know how it works out -- what the students liked, what they didn't like, what suggestions they might have to make the book better in future printings.
I'm working on another book for girls, too, and I'd welcome their suggestions about the types of things they'd like to see in their book. I'd so much welcome ideas and suggestions for educators -- I want to make the book as useful and fun as possible.
Thanks,
Bill
Hi Bill,
My students are working on memoir writing in our Persepolis unit and while many of my students are older (17 and 18), I'm putting your link on our course homepage and I will encourage the kids to check it out as a possible option. Your book sounds cool and I'll try and get one into our library.
Cheers!
Maureen

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