Classroom Activities
Drawing basics: Draw What You See: Peer Critique, Direct Instruction
Students have 5 minutes to draw the image without shading. Focus on breaking things down into squares, circles, rectangles, triangles. After this students will switch drawings with the person next to them. With their partner, students will identify one thing that their partner did well and two areas of improvement (focusing on the SHAPE of the object, not the shading). Students will have 5 more minutes after their peer critiques to finish up their work based off of the peer critique.
Drawing basics: Begin With A Loose Sketch: Active Learning, Direct Instruction
Select a volunteer and this student will pose for about 30 seconds. In this time, I will show students how to draw first with a loose sketch, creating our stick figure that captures the angles of a student’s posture. Emphasize the importance of moving quickly and not worrying about realism so much as correct angles and proportion. This is the ‘stick figure’ starting point for students.
Drawing basics: Use Negative Space: Direct Instruction, Scaffolding, Feedback
Walk around the classroom and speak one on one with students. Depending on the student’s ability, print out a copy of the image projected on the board for them to see up close. Have them highlight the negative space or trace it themselves to better understand.
Drawing basics: Simplifying Things: Gamification, Direct Instruction, Feedback
Demonstrate the benefit of simplifying images in the background- emphasize how it saves time and centers the viewer’s focus on a certain subject. Project a VERY blurry image on the board- a tree for example. Students can guess what it is and are encouraged to share their ideas with other students. Then, have students try to draw what it is using basic shapes. Continue this exercise with other simple images one may find in the background of a composition (dog, house, desk, add something silly like another teacher’s portrait, etc.). Progressively get less blurry with each image but emphasize that
Developing an Illustrative Style: Character Design
Students fill out a character sheet with name, personality, appearance, and challenge they’ll face. Students will draw 5 different sketches of the character. Each time, students should explain what features they will exaggerate of the character’s.
Students draw the same character or object three times: one realistic, one cartoonish, and one using a chosen art movement (e.g., Pop Art, Expressionism, Manga).
Drawing basics: Creating a Composition
Application and one on one feedback, student critique at the end of class.
Storytelling
One Paragraph Memoir: Activity: Students write a paragraph about a real moment where they overcame a challenge. It must include exposition, climax, and resolution. Provide specific areas for students to fill out each part of the story.
Closure
Give students a variety of strange panels to fill in a short story. (Combine with other aspects of graphic narratives? Line and emotion? Happy panel as a circle?)
Students are shown two panels with a missing panel in between. Their task: draw or write what the missing panel is (i.e., the “closure” moment)
Passage of Time: Sound
Give students a list of onomatopoeias (e.g., BAM, ZZZ, WHOOSH) and ask students to draw a small panel using a matching sound effect.
Passage of Time: Motion
Students draw a moving object (ball, superhero, falling leaf) three times using different motion techniques: motion lines, blurred limbs, subjective motion.
Backgrounds and Visual Character Language: Line
Students choose an emotion and use only abstract lines to express it (angry zigzags, joyful spirals, etc.). Then share and guess others’ emotions.
Pictionary-style, but with comics icons (e.g., sweat bead, stars, swirly eyes). One student draws an icon-based expression, others guess the meaning.
Backgrounds and Visual Character Language: Backgrounds
Students create 4 mini panels using the same character but changing background icons/colors to reflect different emotions.
Putting It All Together
Provide 3 different panel layout templates. Students create a 1-page story using the same idea in each layout and compare how the layout affects pacing.
In groups of 3–4, each student draws one panel of a comic continuing a story started by the first. Focus is on visual continuity and closure.
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