My New Toy Called Blabberize

I found a new toy to play with in my hybrid and my online classes called Blabberize. I can use this for my weekly announcements and my students can use it in their discussion forum introduction posts and on their blogs.

I am excited to use it in my spring course. Just Google blabberize and you can play, too.

Week 14 Day One 6 Steps to Comic Book Making

This week's Monday lesson was done online rather than F2F because of my trip to Tempe, Arizona for my husband's Ironman event.

The discussion was facilitated by Michelle P. and Ian R. The questions that were posed related to the 6-step process of comic book writing that Scott McCloud (pictured above) wrote about in his book Understanding Comics.

One of the more interesting questions involved how would you design a comic book for a blind person. Amy H. did a great job of answering this question.

"When creating a comic book for the blind I would start off by designing a normal comic but the pictures would be raised so you could feel your way through the story. I would also incorporate smell by having an aroma come from the page that will hit you when you turn the page. I think it would be hard to really get my audience to taste the comic but I would integrate smells of food that smell as though they are in your mouth. And last to really get the comic to stand out I would have sounds that go off with the turn of the page, almost like cards that play music when you open them."

Another question related to transfering the comic book medium to the movie medium. Krista H. did a nice job answering the question below.

Compare and contrast the comic medium with the movie medium after watching this video clip of Watchmen and reviewing the Watchmen comic. What can a comic book do more effectively than a movie and visa versa?

 "Comics and movies are, of course, very different, and their differences are quite obvious. Comics are simply read and viewed at a stand still, while movies are just viewed but have real-life action and sound accompanying it. It takes a lot more work on the brain and thinking process to read a comic than it does to watch a movie, and as usual movies tend leave out certain points and put it ridiculous ones for Hollywood's sake (considering works of literature being made into films). In other words, movies tend to be much more embellished than a comic, possibly because they need to grab the attention of a much larger crowd.


- Comic books can do things that movies cannot, and the same thing applies to film. When reading a comic like the Watchmen, one is getting the true, full story. When it is transformed into a movie, however, things are lost (or as stated above, added with things that may seem pointless). I believe that to read a story within a comic, things can be more easily understood and pondered. Movies, however, move so fast and do not necessarily have the time to give one the background story or time to think about what is happening. There are always more benefits to reading a comic, as well. Reading a comic increases vocabulary and can help someone grow more intellectually than a film. Reading words definitely cannot harm one's eyes like a huge screen up-close. Art and written words merged together are much more original and appreciated than them being re-made on a television screen. Movies, however, tell a story in a way that captures many more people's attention. The story is more enhanced, as well. It is a way for the comic to "come alive" with 'moving' pictures and sounds. In some cases movies, for lack of better words, "dumb down" the initial point of a story so that it can also be more universally understood. Although they both have setbacks, both the comic and movie medium have their own special ways of appreciating and portraying comics."

Week 13 Day Two: Time, Motion, and Emotion in Comics

Sam E and Samantha led an online discussion on time, motion, and emotion in comics. Blog Post 5 was to take a Peanuts comic strip and analyze time, motion, and emotion.

Mike M did a great job with his post on the Peanuts strip below.

The first panel shows snoopy atop his dog house. Following the stoic nature of his character he remains still with his back straight and his gaze forward while the girl seems to cringe at his story. Her frown and scrunched up eyebrows seems to lead her to snobbishly announce to snoopy that she refuses to waste money on such a thing. Snoopy remains stoic, and completely unaffected by the rude comment. The girl turns around and with a pompous air about her ends her critique with, "however if you get some free author's copies, I'd be glad to have one." Her demeanor suggests that she is trying to con him into giving her a free copy, and her harsh critique was simply a ruse. As she walks away, and the dog house becomes no longer visible Schulz sketches in some motion lines to indicate snoopy's throwing of his typewriter at the little girl's head.

www.comicstriparchive.com/Peanuts/

Week 13 Day One: Comic Strip Acting

Cedric and Krista took charge as TAs of the day as the class continued studying comics as literature. They divided the class into groups and gave each group a task to come up with a 3-framed comic strip that would incorporate certain things. The objective of the lesson was to learn the vocabulary of comics.

Each group had to make their cartoons come alive and act them out. The themes were recent events in the news. Krista and Cedric acted out theirs first. A couple of suggestions that I would make to this pair would be to have the groups prepare the cartoon strip on flipchart paper as the cartoon drawing on the board took a bit of time.

The other suggestion was to have students take a post test on the vocabulary to make sure that they did, in fact, learn it. A pre-test was given in preparation for the lesson which most people did well on.

The journal activity was a bit different. Bubble gum was handed out with a comic strip. People free wrote on their strip and then came up to the front to show the strip and read their journal entry.

Week 12 Day Two: Comics as Literature

Today we began the unit on comics as literature. Lisa and Talia did a great job introducing the subject of comics with their presentation which the students viewed before coming to class.

For the journal entry they found a very cool video which gave a brief history of comics. See below.

Emily wrote this:

"Comics... personally when i think of the term comic, I think of comedy or light-hearted literature if you will. Comics I feel have changed so much over time. Initially their subjects  were about everyday life, romance politics, and so on. I thought it was funny how there was a comic code that restricted what sort of ideas one could publish. I feel the comics are definitely a form of art and who is to say what you are allowed or not allowed to write about. It is also interesing to me the basic idea of comic books, and how some invlove supernatural, some poke fun of controversial issues, but in the end they all convey how complex the world is and how each indvidual uses different approches to express his or her thoughts."

I love what she said about how comics convey the complexities of our world. This is what literature does, doesn't it?

Lisa and Talia then broke the groups up into the color of shirts they were wearing and had the groups work in pairs with groups of four working on the same cartoon strip coming up with the dialog. I loved working with Megan on our Peanuts cartoon strip. It was harder than I thought to fill in the bubbles. We analyzed plot, theme, and character as we created our dialog. The groups presented their dialogs as they projected the cartoon strips on the screen. As you can see above, Francesca and Erica are enjoying their dramatic presentation of their Popeye and Olive Oyl cartoon.

Week 11 Day 2: Vintage Radio

The students this week were to create a 5-minute radio script around a horror theme. Here is Samantha's post:

Announcer:

Good evening. It's that time again for 5 Minutes of Horror, the radio show that will chill your soul and rattle your minds. Sit back and don't relax.

Narration Provided by Michael Jackson's Thriller- Vincent Price


Music:

Eerie theme music


Narrator:

It was midnight, maybe later; Darkness leaves no hint what the hour may be.


Sound: Ocean waves russel the shells on shore; whispering.


Music: none for the remainder of the story


Narrator:


A man is startled awake in his home not far from the shore.


It was another nightmare he has become accustomed to since the death of his twin daughters


Barely a year ago they had drowned at sea. First one, then the other


After a week's search, no bodies were found.


The man, Jonathon has since moved from the home he and his since divorced wife had raised their daughters but could not stand to be away from the sea.



Sound: Only the sound of the waves, the whispering shells and Jon's heavy breathing.

Narrator:


Sweat drips down his fatigued face.

Without turning the lights on Jon makes his way down the stairs and into the kitchen.

He opens the refrigerator in search of a refreshment to calm his thoughts.



The light from the fridge spills onto the kitchen floor.


Jon notices a small pool of water by his feet; probably a leak.


Finally turning on the light he notices there are multiple pools of water and to his surprise and greatest fear, a pair of damp foot prints leading to the front porch.




Sound: The waves have ceased to exist in his mind; silence.

Narrator:

Against his own will, Jon makes his way to the screen door and slowly pulls it open.
His eyes are now closed for fear of seeing the two reminders of his past life.
As he stands there he feels two cold, wet, child hands wrapping around each of his.


Sound: A huge wave breaks and crashes on the shore

He opens his eyes.


-Que Vincent Price laugh

Many students forgot to go back to the title, which was "They Came by Night." So many of the scripts were about something or someone coming in the night rather than things or people coming in the night. It is hard to create a story that doesn't sound like a cliche. I think Samantha did the best job and got her kudos when we met on Monday.

Week 11 Day One: Monologues

Matt and Vince did a great job on their monologue presentation beginning with a journal entry based on a George Carlin monologue about all the 21st century cliches we use to identify ourselves. Have a listen.

From there, the students worked in groups of three to come up with a comic monologue. Our group decided to do it on Excuses 101: How to Skip School. We came up with 5 excuses. Two groups came up with Halloween monologues, while other groups talked about tatoos, FGCU, and a day at the gym.

We used polleverywhere to vote on the best monologue, which happened to be the last group. This was the winning entry delivered by Mike, written by Catherine, and directed by Joe.

Diaries of Mike

So, true story. I was in the weight room waiting for my turn on the bench when I saw this guy just checking himself out in the mirrors. I asked this Guido if I could work with him. He ignored me for awhile and continued looking at himself in the mirror. Finally he picked up his weights and laid back. (Act out) He was doing well for awhile and then (sound effects: fart sound)… Right after, he ran as fast as he could off to the bathroom.

Lots of reflection going on in this lesson. I expected more quality out of the writing than what I got. On reflection, I would have the TAs create a rubric for what makes a good monologue. Maybe elicit from the students after the journal writing a discussion of the elements that Richard Pyror and George Carlin incorporated  in their monologues that made them funny. Perhaps in addition to talking about the content of a good monologue, a discussion could follow about an effective delivery.

When the students voted on the best monologue, they would have to use a rubric.

The good thing about yesterday was that I was able to use the TA evaluation sheet. Students filled that out and sent it to Matt and Vincent. I am anxious to read some of the comments. The students have been practicing all semester on writing sandwich critiques.