Personal Narrative Comic

By: Emily Rickett

Synopsis

In this unit, fourth grade students will create a personal narrative writing and drawing piece of their own through comic strips. Following the Common Core Standards, students will be introduced to graphic novels, comics, dialogue, the writing process, and art techniques through a variety of mentor texts. After studying mentor texts, students will have the opportunity to create a simple three panel comic strip to help them practice writing and illustrating a comic strip. During this practice comic strip, students will be given basic art supplies in order to focus on content and composition.

After becoming more informed about graphic novels, comics, and personal narratives students will create their own comic strip of a personal narrative. Students will work independently to create their own comic strip with the help of their teacher and peer editors. Before students start their comic strip, they will have a discussion on designer’s statement where we discuss how they want their comic strip to function and be understood. Students will start their comic strip by first, hand-drawing a storyboard. Once students have completed a rough draft of their drawings, they will go back and add dialogue and text throughout their comic strip. When they have finished, they will have a peer edit their comic strip. Once edited, students will complete a final copy of their comic strip using a variety of technology and art supplies (ink, crayons, colored pencils, paint, watercolors etc.). Each panel will be on its own piece of paper. That way, the order of the strip can be easily changed without the designer feeling that they need to start all over again.