Comic Life

Comic Life is an online tool that allows people to create electronic comic books. The great thing about Comic Life is that it is usable on both a Mac or a PC and it is so easy to navigate that adults and children of all ages can use the program. Comic Life allows the user to use clip art from Microsoft Office or personal images and upload them into pre-existing layouts. Once the images are uploaded Comic Life allows the user to customize nearly every part of their Comic. The text and the text bubbles can easily change font, color, and shape. Also, when using Comic Life the user can add design elements to their pictures and their background.

I chose to create a Comic Life that could be utilized in the classroom setting. As part of the 7th grade Georgia Performance Standards Literature students are required to differentiate between Autobiographies and Biographies. Comic Life is an excellent tool to allow students to demonstrate their understanding of these genres. I created a sample Autobiography. By utilizing this tool to create my Autobiography I was able to demonstrate to my students the effectiveness of utilizing images to help the reader gain a deeper understanding of what he or she is reading. Also, because space for text is limited it forced me to write clear and concise sentences. The use of transitions comes more naturally when making the text to appear as dialogue as opposed to a formal essay. While I would not want to completely eliminate the formal essay this is a great alternative. Students can use Comic Life to practice many different literary elements. Also, Comic Life could easily be utilized as a pre-write. Students could later take the information presented in their Comic and expand upon it to create an essay. To view my Comic Life in a wiki click here. To view the Comic Life through Google Docs click here.

Charles Thacker, author of How to Use Comic Life in the Classroom, discusses how and why to use Comic Life in the classroom. Thacker is a proponent of Comic Life and argues that Comics in general are great for early or uninterested readers to learn and understand sequencing. Thacker agrees that the use of Comics provides a more natural use of transitions. Comics can also help early readers with comprehension because it provides illustrations to enhance the text. Thacker introduced ideas about Comics that I had not considered. For example, the effectiveness of utilizing Comics to teach figurative language, point-of-view, characterization, and for differentiating instruction to meet the needs of all learners. Thacker discusses in detail about how to use Comic Life in place of the traditional book report. As a Literature teacher I love this idea. Reading book report after book report is not fun. However, viewing diverse and vivid Comics that can still demonstrate the student's knowledge of the basic story elements that occurred in the novel would be much more exciting for me and my students. Thacker ends his discussion on Comics with an extensive overview of how to utilize Comic Life. His instructions cover every aspect of Comic Life and the different ways a Comic can be customized.