Lesson plan designed by Kai Medina & Emma Griffiths
Lesson Description: Introduces the importance of considering the whole system when producing something; avoiding perfection. Students will participate in discussions and activities surrounding graphic novels while touching lightly on astronomy/ecology.
Objective: Students will think holistically to create a comic book page for their class subject.
Grades: 5th-12th
Example Powerpoint; https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1j1iQCEHXzwFAV7cgLX_aRrHiMzBMjuVpbJw8n6P2Puc/edit?usp=sharing
Do-Nows:
Land of the Lost
Provide a picture of an unfamiliar creature to the students, such as the Longisquama (see image). The students will hypothesize, in groups, as much as they can about the creature, and why it has each given trait.
i.e., why might it have feathers? Why might its tail be long? Why are the feathers that color? Why does it have a long snout?
Ask each group to point out one thing they noticed, and why it might be there. When possible, relate their guesses to real world connections. For the Longisquama, some facts could be how feathers evolved, Batesian vs Müllerian mimicry, peacocks and sexual selection, and Batesian vs Müllerian mimicry.
The Golden Disc
NASA sent a golden record on the Voyager, which carries information representing humanity. Students will think about what they would put on the disc, to represent their community. This can lead to a discussion on what represents our culture, and how might an alien with no familiarity of our earthly systems interpret it. Historic issues such as mistranslations may also be connected.
Design A Rover
Students will spend 10-15 minutes designing a rover that will land on Mars and search for signs of life. As they design, discuss with groups individually about the body of the rover, arms, Martian conditions, power, cameras, wheels, signs of life, etc. Ask them why they chose the specific shape of the various parts. If they don’t know, have them consider why they naturally went for that one. For instance, a half-spherical shape could be reminiscent of a car, which was designed to help make it more aerodynamic.
Anecdotes & talking points:
Parable of a Sunfish
An anecdote of a professor who would have students stare at a sunfish for a week and interpret as much as they can solely from their observations.
Further reading here: https://jamesclear.com/louis-agassiz
The Orca
Why is the Orca whale colored black and white? When you look downward in the ocean, it’s camouflaging to the darkness. If you look up into the bright sky, the white half of it is camouflaging with the bright light.
Introduction Activity: Drawing and Abstracting
Students will fold a paper to separate it out into four quadrants. They will then choose to draw either castle or a person in a two minute time frame within one quadrant. In doing so, they cannot finish early and must draw as much / as detailed as possible.
After the two minute mark, announce, "Pencils Up!", and ensure nobody is drawing past the time frame. Repeat the activity in each quadrant, giving them less and less time with each round (i.e., 1 minute, 30 seconds, 15 seconds).
At the end, provide time for them to discuss and laugh on how bad the shorter-timed drawings came out. Ask students what the greatest challenge was (they may comment on the time limit, difficulty focusing on what to draw, having to simplify drawings, etc). Connect these to real world methods of studying and time management.
Question students why they drew what they did when provided a small amount of time. Why did they choose those lines and shapes to draw over any other. Consider the cultural applications. How do we know a stick figure is a person, or a rectangle and 2 cylinders is a castle, or a certain shape represents a teardrop? There are innate symbols in our culture that may not translate outwardly (connects to golden disc do-now). Finally, the simplification of symbols will connect to the topic of abstraction in a following activity.
Working Definition
Provide several examples of comics (example) and ask them "what is a comic?". Together create a classroom definition a comic.
Working with Style
Show clips from various sources and discuss style. The more variety the better, to show that there is not just one way to make a visual art piece. Below are three examples, but feel free to differ based on the interests of your students.
Spiderman Into The Spideyverse - Spider bite scene
Avatar: The Last Airbender - Episode one, ship fight scene
Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! - Episode one, their first collaboration on an animation
Each clip was carefully selected for an overall style gradient, scene type, and because each is appropriate for 5th-12th age groups to watch and enjoy on their own time. Characters are not sexualized, and involve various representations of race and neurodivergence.
Have students work in groups to determine what was different and what was similar between the clips. Additionally, ask "why might they have chosen this specific style?"
Stylistic Analysis
On the right, below the videos, is an image from ‘Understanding Comics (The Invisible Art)' by Scott Mccloud.
The triangle represents every style a cartoon could fall into. One corner is realism, one is simplicity, and the third is abstraction. Homer Simpson's hair is a good example of abstraction. Nobody has hair like that, even when simplified, so someone abstracted out from hair. Consider where different styles may fall on this scale.
Discuss with students where styles in the clips they just watched would fall on this triangle. You may choose to expand this discussion into topics like sources of inspiration, who the audience is, time constraints, artistic ability, and other sources of media that students enjoy.
Stylistic Divergence
Give the students 5+ minutes to draw one character or person in as many different styles as they can. See the image to the right for an example.
Comic Project
Students will combine their knowledge of the classroom subject with what they discussed surrounding comics and style, to create a page in a comic book.
Comic Vocabulary worth discussing: https://sites.google.com/site/graphicnovelclassroom/vocabulary
This page must include:
- Imagery that matches your classroom definition of a comic
- The target subject (i.e., a fraction problem, a chemical reaction, energy conversions, etc).
- A minimum of five panels
- At least one speech bubble
- At least one bleed (when imagery is not held within a box/panel, but goes off the page)
Prompts during project time: How do we draw things like wind or time passing, that we can’t see? How do we shape the gutters in a comic, and what purpose do they serve (gutters: the spaces between panels in a comic)? What color choices should we use?
Below is an image from the comic series Invincible, where the main character is claiming it's cheap/lazy to repeat the same panels in a comic book.
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