It’s project time. Looking for something new and unique and something that will interest students? How about having your students create their own comic strip or comic book to showcase their knowledge in the unit. Want students to summarize a book or a passage? Want students to write a dialogue? Whatever subject you teach, you can use this lesson for any grade and any topic.

Of course, students can hand drawn their own comic by folding a piece of paper into six squares. But to really make it look professional, let’s use some technology!

For those with limited internet access, our first suggestion is to use Microsoft Powerpoint to create a comic. Use Microsoft’s auto ‘shapes’ that look like speech bubbles, insert into each slide and away you go!

Sample Powerpoint Comic Strip

Or you can use Powerpoint to set up a sample outline of what you wants students to do:

Next, is a simple website called wittycomics.com Although your background and characters are limited, it allows the students to focus on the message and dialogue rather than the visual component.

WIttyComic Comic Strip

The next website, toondoo.com does require you to register a username and password with an e-mail address, but it is free. It is more advanced than the previous site and has lots of characters and props to insert into the strip.

ToonDoo Comic Strip

Stripgenerator.com is another free comic strip creating website.

Another website, which looks to be very advanced is pixton.com, although this site is not free.
You may also want to ask your tech people if your computers are equipped with the software program ComicLife.

We talked about creating comics and cartoons about a month ago, and we are back with some more ideas and new sites.

Did you know that creating comics is one way to differentiate in your classroom? Differentiated instruction can be in the form of choices and regards for multiple intelligences. Having students work on cartoons fits both categories as you are adhering to the visual/spatial intelligence and logical/mathematical intelligence. You can also allow students to have choice with these activities. You may give them a number of different comics to choose from and they pick a certain number of those to complete.

Our newest comic creation website is called Make Beliefs, a free comic strip creation tool that provides students with a variety of templates, characters, and prompts for building their own comic strips. The site provides students with a pre-drawn characters and dialogue boxes which they can insert into each box of their comic strip. The editing options allow users the flexibility to alter the size of each character and also their emotions.

Sample Comic from MakeBeliefsComix.com

The nice thing is that they are black and white outline and make quality copies on the copy machine. You can even have your students color them in themselves.

The following samples were created from ToonDoo and I let me students finish the already started comics.

Or let the student create the whole comic strip:

These make ok copies as well, although you can decide if you want to add background and other items (there are soooo many items to add in!)

Some ideas for students to draw with their comics are to:
-Introducing someone
-Asking someone about their plans
-Declining an invitation, making an excuse
-Talking about food
-Telling a sibling what to do
-Talking about likes and dislikes
-Describing what you did on vacation

As you can see, these activities can be used in Level 1 and go all the way through Level 4 and above in any foreign language class.

We’ve talked before about having students create their own comic strips and useful websites to make them, but today we are talking about actual comics that you can use in your classroom.

I love finding comic strips that deal with the current vocabulary theme or grammar concept we are currently working on. I’ve collected numerous comics over the years, as I receive a comic in my inbox daily from gocomics.com. Did you know they had comics in Spanish? My favorite is the authentic Condorito, but I do enjoy a good Ziggy too. Here are some examples that you can introduce to your class; it’s a good way to build a connection with your students, too.

During Health Unit

For more comics and ways to use them in your classroom…

During Formal Commands Unit

During Food Unit

Grammar of Tener

You may want to introduce a weekly comic and project it on the board. You may want to copy them onto worksheets, or put them on the back of quizzes or test. Or you may choose to hang them up no a bulletin board in your classroom.

*For more chistes, check out our Spanglish jokes that students love.
*Check out our very own postcards featuring some of our favorite jokes.

We are excited to be honored this week as the “Featured Teacher Author” in TeacherPayTeacher’s weekly newsletter which goes out to thousands of teachers. To see the newsletter (along with its 10 free teaching downloads) click here.

We are also now a contributing blog author at The Lesson Cloud and have posted a blog about a good starting activity for back to school as an icebreaker or getting to know you activity, which I just used today with my homeroom.

If you follow us on twitter or facebook, you know we often post some corny chistes. We keep a log of them on our Chistes page, where you can find a few of our comics as well. We are please to announce that we are now selling a “Papa” Comic focusing on the differences between “la papa” “el papá” and “el Papa”. For only 1.75 (which includes FREE SHIPPING) you can order your own postcard of this comic to display in your classroom.

And speaking of comics, we would like to offer our latest creation of this Spanglish joke:

After introducing the verb saber, I post the following comic on the board as students enter the room. After they have read about “sabelotodo“, “know-it-all”, I ask them to create their own comic with the verb saber.

Students use this Condorito comic strip to write in the questions and the final response.
Click on each picture for a larger version, which you can download and use in your own classroom.

One of my favorite grammar points to teach is the difference between the verbs SER y ESTAR. While both verbs mean “to be” in English, in Spanish they couldn’t be more different. I know many teachers use an acronym to teach this sometimes difficult topic.

Ser:
DOCTOR (Description, Origin, Characteristic, Time/date, Occupation, Relationship)
DON’T (Description, Origin, Nationality, Time)
JETCO (Jobs, Events, Time, Characteristics, Origin)

Estar:
CLIFT (Condition, Location, -Ing verb, Feeling, Taste)
PLACE (Position, Location, Action, Condition, Emotion)
ELF (Emotion, Location, Feeling)
HELP (Health, Emotion, Location, Present Progressive)

My favorite is DOCTOR and CLIFT because I use the idea to create a character of someone who is an “especialista de ser y estar”. I totally play this up, telling my students that they will have a guest speaker as a substitute and that I will not be in class because I have “meetings”. On that day when they see that the “guest” looks a lot like their regular Spanish teacher wearing a lab coat and wearing a guest ID badge, they start to think I’m a bit crazy. But I’m ok with that.

They soon realize that the “Doctor” doesn’t speak any English at all and responds best when spoken to in Spanish. Although, he does rely on the students to help translate certain things to clarify for struggling students.

For a copy of this particular lesson, a 19 page document, including an ID badge, guided notes packet, over four pages of worksheets, and a quiz, click here.
For more Ser and Estar resources, including Ziggy Comics….

Be sure to read our previous post with 3 other great resources for ser and estar.

I have also found Ziggy en español comics to include some real great examples of using ser and estar.

This comic worked better in English when the verb was the same.

In the above comic, your students can explain that “está” is used because of the location, but then it changes to “es” because it is now starting description/characteristics.

And the comic below is a play on the difference between a TASTE and FEELING.

How is the chili today (taste)? I'm fine, thanks (feeling)

And, of course, on the day of the quiz you can post this comic on the Spanish Inquisition:

For Ser Estar bookmarks/reference sheets, please visit our Teaching Supplies store.

Mafalda y Condorito

In addition to being funny, the comics Condorito, Mafalda, and Macanudo can offer a great insight into the Hispanic culture and language. Mafalda, drawn by Quino (Jauquín Salvador Lavado) is a national symbol in Argentina. Condorito, the pride of Chilean comics, is brought to us by the mind of Pepo (René Ríos).

But today, we’d like to take a look at another Argentine comic. On a recent trip to South America we happened to pick up a collection of Macanudo comics at a local bookstore and not long after reading, we were already craving more and purchased several books online.

Pin this post

Macanudo is one of the more creative and original series we have seen in a long time. It combines ingenious wit and thoughtful insight to come up with delightful and hilarious strips. Macanudo is a creation of Liniers (Ricardo Siri).

Liniers, who draws himself as a rabbit (see picture, right), has created characters such as los Pengüinos, El misterioso hombre de negro, Enriqueta y su gato Fellini y su oso de peluche Madariaga, y el chico Martín y su imaginación Olga, and Z-25 el robot sensible, among many others.

For how to use these in your Spanish class and some sample strips…

Utilizing comics in your teaching is a great way to connect to your students and a good motivation to promote fluency. Students enjoy trying to understand comics and figure out the joke. You can incorporate them by:

• displaying as the students enter the room to start class
• copying on the back of tests, for students to explain as extra credit
• posting on the class website or sites such as Edmodo for students to comment on
• showing along with specific vocabulary or grammar used in the comic that goes along with your lesson
• creating a “chiste bulletin board“
• Take out the words and have students rewrite the dialogue
• Take out the last column and have students create an ending for the strip
• Have students create their own comics by using simple websites
• Incorporate comics they students might be familiar with, but translated. Garfield, Ziggy, Calvin and Hobbes, and others are available at gocomics.com/explore/espanol

Use during familia unit

¿Quién es grande o chiquito?

You can see more of Macanudo at the following sites:

http://macanudo.com.ar/ – daily comic
http://macanudoliniers.blogspot.com/ – blog of Liniers, with tiras

Click to make larger

What are your favorite comics from the Target Culture you teach? How do you incorporate them into your teaching?

We’ve written numerous times about using comic strips in your foreign language class. It is such a great authentic resource for students to read in context and the text is short enough that you can use it at even beginning levels. Our favorite authentic comic strip, is Macanudo by Liniers, an Argentina strip that is extremely original and creative. Read our previous post about Macanudo and how to use comics in your class.
If you are looking for comics for specific topics, check out our resource page.

Today we bring you 14 examples of this talent.
Talking about frequency with A veces and Siempre with verbs:Tecnología: Giving Advice Unit:Teaching “dejar de”
Clothing Unit: Vocabulary “estar de moda” and individualidad:Health Unit: Sick Vocabulary and Body Parts VocabularyAnimal unit:
Sports Unit: Why does this comic remind me of Brasil’s NeymarIdentity: Quien Soy?Humans Ruin Everything:

Vacation/Jobs: Why does this reminds me of teachers?New teachers? New students? At a new school?

If you enjoyed these comics, there are so many more that you could incorporate into your class. Search “Macanudo” in the books section of Amazon and find books full of amazing authentic reading in Spanish.

We’ve taken the language out of a few authentic comic strips and used them as a writing assessment for students for students to write the dialogue of ordering at a restaurant.

Take this Condorito comic:

and then have students write their own dialogue:
or check out this edited version with more space to write.

You can also use the original comic as an interpretive reading activity.

Or take this comic from Baldo:

and when you take out the text students can write their own dialogue. Or you can give them prompts of what to write in each box as shown below.
Box 1: Asks for order
Box 2: States their order
Box 3: States order and gives reason
Box 4: Anything else, Offers something
Box 6: Will you bring me…

Here’s a Garfield comic:

where perhaps they are commenting on food or asking what the other is going to order.
Or this version where they might be commenting on the food.

Looking for a ready to use prompt with a rubric? We’ve got it ready for you:

Want more authentic images for your food unit. Check out these Spanish Memes about La Comida.

As you may know, the latest graphic novel from Señor Wooly is titled “Me llamo Víctor Parte 1” and is almost available. Hopefully you have pre-ordered it, as it is expected to ship in the coming weeks.

When I found out that Wooly had an advanced copy of this book, I took a page out of Federico’s playbook and decided to do something drastic…. Robé la oficina de Señor Wooly.

Robé la oficina porque TENÍA que leer esta historia.  I have been patiently waiting for this book since I appeared in the final installment of the Victor trilogy, FEO. Pero nunca me rindí.

Let me tell you, the wait was worth it! Here’s what I thought of the book: First of all, a huge shout out to Juan Carlos Pinilla, the artist of the book. Jim’s wonderful story goes nowhere without a talented artist who brings the story to life and let me tell you, the artwork in this book is stunning. The professional quality of the physical book is top notch.

Ok, let’s get to the story. Basically, this book is an origin story of Victor. After seeing how this character goes from his shallow, egotisical-self in the video “Guapo” to his embarrassment in “La Confesión de Víctor” to his lonely state at the beginning of “Feo” before finding true love and happiness by the end, this book takes a look at the defining moments of Victor’s obsession with his looks.

The story takes place when Víctor is 15 years old, as a somewhat “nerdy” student who enjoys reading (And yet in “Guapo” he sings “Yo no necesito leer….”) and seems to be one of the only students who is not interested in the school’s special visitor who is welcomed in an all-school assembly.

What I love is the references throughout the book. Students who are familiar with Senor Wooly’s songs will pick up on several references from the Woolyverse. Although to be honest, that’s the real secret of Wooly’s songs and stories…. he uses high frequency vocabulary and terms that occurs naturally in language. There are certainly many phrases and words that are used from the Víctor Trilogy, plus you might catch some other familiar phrases and other Easter eggs. For example, this character seems to be wearing two very familiar colors. And is that a corázon…. en su mochila?

Like Víctor, you’ll want to read this book at least 3 times.

To top it off, there is even an Oprah reference that many students will understand as it is a popular meme.

While there is a second part to this book, the first part can stand on its own and does answer several things about why Víctor is the way he is in the video “Guapo”. After seeing Víctor in “FEO” I felt some sympathy for the guy, but after reading this book, I’m not sure I can fault him for his behavior and ego in “Guapo”. In fact, I feel sorry for him.

I don’t want to give away any spoilers, so I’ll just say that the last two Graphic Novels from Wooly have been the best (La Casa de la Dentista and Me Llamo Víctor). I am not kidding when I say that either could be sold in Spanish speaking countries as actual books as children would be entertained by the story and mesmerized by the artwork (which is credit to not only Juan Carlos Pinilla, but to the coloring work of Davi Comodo and lettering by Lucas Gattoni). We are lucky as Spanish teachers to have the stories written with a text that is high frequency and comprehensible (with a full glossary included). Without the glossary, you would not know that this is a book for language students, that’s how good it is.

I can’t wait for the rest of you to read it and to hear what your thoughts are. I am excited to get my own official copies and add them to my FVR classroom library. For more information about FVR, check out my FVR page with free resources as well as my posts on FVR. You can also read my posts about how I’ve incorporated other Wooly stories into my classroom.

If you have any questions, (without asking for spoilers), let me know in the comments below.