I have been wanting to do a comic themed lesson for a while now and finally everything lined up. I grew up loving comics and while not many of my students read them, they are all familiar with the movies. The idea was that we could have some good questions and discussions because many of the students would know some of the nuances of the characters. I wasn't disappointed. The comics we used were Civil War #1 and #3 which is a part of the Marvel Universe with mostly your A-list characters that have multiple movies about them. The plot took a little bit of explaining but the students picked up on the main conflict quick enough.
(source: http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20111216093135/marveldatabase/images/9/9a/Civil_War_Vol_1_7_Textless.jpg)
Day 1: Civil War #1 (Marvel)
Goal - Prep for EOG by providing EOG style questions to go along with the reading.
Reflection - I felt that many of them did better than expected. Maybe it's the casual writing style, presentation, or something else but many were picking up on vocabulary and context clues they otherwise have not done well with. Overall I thought it went pretty well. Here is a link to the worksheet.
Day 2: Civil War #3 (pg 13-24) (Marvel)
*alternative or in addition is #4 pg 1-15
Goal - Have students explore how conflict effects relationships.
Reflection - I thought of this lesson a few months back when the students were studying the American Civil War. In the previous comic, Iron Man and Captain American fight it out with Iron Man getting the upper hand. The heroes on both sides show inner conflict as friend fights friend. This reminded me of a story about two brothers who fought on separate sides and even against each other in battle during the Civil War. You can find their story here. Here is the worksheet which includes their story along with writing prompts drawing comparisons between the two.
Has anyone else used comics in the classroom? Are there any comics or characters out there you would like to see brought into the classroom?
