This is awesome. I think it's pretty cool what you're doing with these classes.

Reading the advice about doing comics, written in comics format, makes me wonder if your classes have ever looked at Scott McCloud's books? (I'm thinking particularly of his newest Making Comics. )

Greg, is it possible that Edwin was hinting that it might take the whole day to get something right when he shifted the direction of the sun in the last panel? (Or am I just reading too much into what is, quite probably, a genuine error?)

That’s WAY too subtle. But it’s an interesting point. I’ll pass it on to him as a possible explanation.

But the mistake I was talking about was forgetting to keep the shadows opposite from the light source, which is something many of my kids struggle with. Hell, it’s something pros often mess up. So I wasn’t going to bust Edwin on it too hard when he clearly put his heart into it. But it’s something I’ll be sure to remind him to be careful of, when we are looking at his new pre-inked pencils again next week.

Any advice, any projects you started with, any books I can use, any advice for selling this to my boss, I’d appreciate all of it. Please let me know.

The single biggest asset we have as a program are the books we put out. Those have served as an advertisement, as an explanation, they mollify anxious parents and administrators, they have been calling cards and led to zine exchanges like the one I wrote about above... nothing succeeds like publication.

So that's my advice. Don't set it up like a CLASS, where kids just do lessons and then go home. Set it up as something like a school newspaper or a yearbook club, something where everyone knows that we are going to have X pages in print by Y date. Get something tangible in print, something they create. Even if it's just a photocopy 'zine with a print run of thirty or fifty, that you do on the school copier (which is actually how we do ours; I just stitch and trim the books at the printshop, these days.) Then you have a series of training sessions beforehand. Those are your actual lessons. I walk them through layout and lettering and caricature/facial expression and point-of-view and all the rest of it, over the course of six or eight weeks, and then the rest of the year we're just putting out zines. Each one we put out I raise the bar a little -- start by asking for two pages of content, then the next one it's two pages plus a splash page... and so on. You'll be amazed at how the kids take ownership of something that's in print... once the first issue is out and people can see it, then your kids really will start holding each OTHER accountable, you don't have to nag nearly as much.

As far as selling the benefits of kids doing their own comics to administration is concerned, just keep hammering on the idea that it's still kids writing, it's a stealth literacy program. And it's CHEAP. What are they out? Some time for you, some photocopying, pens and paper. We do our layouts on 11x17 white bristol that I get in wraps of 250 from the local paper company. Draw in pencil, ink with alternating ballpoint pens and Sharpie markers for the spot blacks. Supplies and printing are less than $100 a school year.

The principles I teach them are basically the same things you see in most of the books on the subject -- McCloud, Eisner, How To Draw Comics The Marvel Way, whichever one you look at it's still mostly about clarity and storytelling. I do try to stay away from those pernicious How To Draw Manga books that are popping up like mushrooms; not everyone can draw that way, and rather than create a caste system based on who can and who can't, I try to keep on the idea that comics are comics, it's words and pictures together, the rest is just style. The biggest obstacle I run into is kids just wanting to riff on the same drawing over and over, so getting them to change the point of view and actually use the page as a storytelling unit is what I try to focus them on.

All of this is about form. Content, I leave up to them, with the caveat, "Don't get us shut down." They're smart enough to know what that means. Sometimes I have to add, with the ones that are pushing the envelope, "You can't just do that just to show off. You have to have a reason. Give me a defensible reason I can use with my boss" (for using violence or making an off-color joke or whatever) "...and I'll defend it for you." And sometimes I have defended the kids on questionable stuff.

What else? Play fair, be a good editor, remember it's not about choosing what stories they're telling but just helping to facilitate the process of telling them. Put the burden on them. "It's your story. What do you think would work best?" That kind of thing.

I keep meaning to sit down and really write up a curriculum book for all this and illustrate it with samples and anecdotes. But I never seem to get the time. Someday. In the meantime I hope that gives you a start.

I'm trying to get a group of 4th & 5th graders at my school to put together their own comic, but we're moving slowly. We'll see if it ever gets finished.

This also says volumes about how much it means to have a role model working to understand and empathize with her, somebody to GET IT. (These posts always make me feel good, so I'll share the love here!)

Congratulations to all the kids for such impressive work!

Some of them use reference -- I'm not a TYRANT about it -- but out-and-out swiping, or "copying" as we say in middle school, is out. My students are 6th, 7th, and 8th grade, though, not third. Scott's crew at Riverside Reads are the third graders. But yeah, they're actually that good. Remember that 8th-graders Lindon and Tiffany have been publishing every six weeks or so for the whole time they've been in middle school; Lindon could probably put together a portfolio and get work at this point.

Your students don’t read your entries on CSBG, do they?

Naw. Some of the grads, sometimes. That's about it.

But they know that I'm terribly fond of all of them, really. It's a great group this year. I had to snap pretty hard at Connor a few weeks ago and he was dejected for the next week or so thinking that I didn't like him. He finally fessed up and I explained that really I genuinely like everyone at both schools very much, that setting boundaries and being tough about maintaining them was not a symptom of dislike, and that really if a teacher didn't enjoy the company of young people they better get out of the profession. I added as an afterthought that in fact there have only been two students over the last fourteen years that I honestly disliked. So then of course that was what they all seized on -- as I was talking to Connor more and more of them stopped to listen, till we had almost the whole room -- and consequently I had to tell THAT story. It actually turned into an interesting day; my students are endlessly fascinated by the history of the class, and, especially, what goes on in a teacher's head. Understandable, I gues, since teachers impact them more than parents a lot of the time, and we tend to not explain ourselves as well as we might.

I've noticed that kids will walk through fire for you if you treat them fairly and you are transparent in your reasoning, and it helps if they can sense that you like them, even when you have to be stern. (Which is often, actually, in middle school. Even my kids, who are a bookish lot and love what they're doing, tend to be a bit on the wild side.)

Someday I'll get around to posting the stories of my two Bad Seeds.... one, I actually wrote up years ago for a CBR 'zine I was part of called Caravan, and I probably will run that in this space if I ever need to "go reprint" again. The other was actually scarier, and a bit depressing. I've never tried to write it up, probably because I consider it one of my real failures; my consolation is that I had plenty of company, because dozens of us tried to help that kid. One of these days I'll get to it.

That last sentence was supposed to be "Thank you *for* doing this with them", of course. My fingers don't like working right on the weekend.

-Zirbert

I'm amazed at how out-and-out *good* these kids are, especially considering they're only in the third grade! Every single page you've shown has something in it that's technically and / or creatively impressive. I laughed out loud at more than one of the jokes the kids put in.

The artwork varies, of course, but none are bad by any stretch of the imagination. (I have to ask - is there some tracing, or at least copying from existing published drawings, going on in some of the manga-influenced pages? Some of the composition and linework just seem *too* good for third graders, although I'd be very happy to hear that the work was 100% original!)

I've been writing lately in my blog about my fears for the current educational system. Thank you for giving me an example of a teacher who obviously cares about their work and their students. It's clear that these kids are going to remember you for the rest of their lives. I'll be linking to this article as a reason to hope for the school system despite its flaws.

Your students don't read your entries on CSBG, do they? It just occurs to me that you might not want them to read some of your notes, for various reasons - at least not until they're a little older, and no longer in your class. (I'm thinking of things like your saying which students have become favourites, etc. Not bad, but maybe not something you want them reading and talking about.)

It might be good, though, by way of encouragement, to let the kids know about some of the comments that have been (and no doubt will be) posted. They've done some great stuff here, and I hope they keep it up. Thank you got doing this with them!

-Zirbert
http://zirbert.blogspot.com

http://www.comicbookproject.org/