I’m preparing to speak tomorrow at KSS, the KIPP charter school network’s national conference, about making and reading educational comic books in the classroom. Over 2000 KIPP and non-KIPP teachers regularly attend (http://kipp.org/00/kss2011/) so it should be an incredible opportunity to get some teachers and students interested in posting additional comic books to the EZ Comics website! I’m hoping to videotape the entire workshop and put it up on this blog to offer some easy resources on exactly how and why educational comic books can be valuable.
Here is the workshop’s description:
Teachers, get excited for the best workshop at KSS this year!
Imagine a lesson plan that would give students the opportunity to learn about history, writing, editing, publishing, artwork, design, and teamwork all at the same time. And one more thing: they have a lot of fun and love the project as well. Impossible? Think again. Last year, EZ Comics worked with a group of students at KIPP Academy Middle School as they created a historical comic book on the Holocaust, working together to chronicle the incident’s impact, consequences, and lessons for future generations.
For the students, this was an incredible experience—they have never had so much fun during a “learning” project. And, best of all, at the end of it they had a finished product—a beautiful, bound historical comic book—that KIPP classes will be using for generations to come. For the teachers, this was the dream lesson plan- an opportunity for students to teach themselves, while having fun and learning so much along the way.
Ultimately, the Holocaust Museum of Houston printed over 3,000 copies of the final comic book, giving it out to students who attended a special performance of The Kaddish Project, a symphony about survivors of the Holocaust. The comic books will also be spread and sent to other Holocaust museums all over the world. Not only did these students have an opportunity to have a fun and incredible learning experience, but they also had the opportunity to see their work presented to over 3000 of their peers.
Teachers attending this workshop will learn about a new and innovative method of education—students learning about history and culture through the creation of historical comic books. The workshop will include a discussion of the exact lesson plans and process involved in making educational comic books, as well as a hands-on session where teachers will be able to experience the comic-book creation process. Get excited for a really fun workshop!
It should be a really interesting workshop! Attached are a few old pictures of the KIPP kids illustrating the powerful pages of the comic book on the Holocaust. The book can be found here: Dark Memories: the Story of the Holocaust and an ABC News Clip about the students can be found here: https://www.ezcomics.com/site/kipp_academy
