How To Add Comic Template To Google Doc

This post is co-authored by Ditch That Textbook's Matt Miller and Cori Orlando, a teacher on special assignment (TOSA) from Simi Valley, California. Detect her blog, Leading in Limbo, at leadinginlimbo.weebly.com.

Nosotros (Cori and Matt) are betting that comics are a memorable part of your childhood, whether they were the color comic strips in the Sun newspaper or comic books.

If not, so it was probably animated comics — cartoons!

They're visual. They're colorful. Adults and children alike flock to animated movies at theaters when they're released.

There's a draw that comics have on our lives. Graphic novels and comics describe in reluctant readers, and making comics taps into our students' creative side.

Quinn Rollins writes this nigh comics in his book,Play Like a PIRATE:

It'due south funny that we endorse combining pictures with words every bit a good way to tell stories to young children, but as they get older, we want children to carelessness their motion-picture show books. I'd argue the things we valued equally children still take value for united states of america every bit adults — and at every age in betwixt.

Comics in the classroom

There is power in students having to go through the creative process. They need to synthesize their thinking in order to produce. Higher level thinking occurs when students create a not-linguistic representation of their ideas.

Plus, information technology lets students tap into their inner inventiveness — which is a fun and fifty-fifty effective practice in the classroom. Letting students pursue their creativity not but increases students' engagement in grade but also empowers them to take ownership of their learning.

Here's an example of what a comic strip in Google Slides or Drawings could look like! Click here to see the original Google Drawing file. (Experience gratuitous to File > Make a copy … but please don't ask for editing rights!)

Google + comics = greatness!

Google Drawings and Slides is a great medium for giving students this creative outlet. Information technology lets them create a framework with shapes, add speech/thought bubbles, and insert images in one identify.

Use Google Drawings if you desire your comics to be on a single image. (Call up of it similar a digital sail of paper or a poster board.)
Use Google Slides if y'all want multiple pages. (Think of the slides similar the pages of a comic book.) I (Cori) LOVE using Google Slides with students considering they have access to the "explore push button". It is a quick way for students to find images (rather than having to open a new tab).

Hither'south a quick walk-through of how we'd get started making comic strips in Drawings or Slides …

Pace ane: Set up the framework of the comic

Yous can create a 4-console comic strip as simply equally with two lines (horizontal and vertical) to divide it into iv equal sections. Hither's a template so you can see it.

PRO TIP: Concur in the "shift" central while drawing lines to make them perfectly horizontal or vertical.

You can resize your Google Drawings or Slides to make them broad like traditional newspaper comic strips. Go to File > Folio setup > Custom. Choose the size you'd like. In this template, I made it viii inches wide and iii inches alpine.

PRO TIP: Draw a rectangle. Re-create/paste it as many times equally you lot need it. Accommodate them side by side to each other with equal spacing in between. And then highlight all iv rectangles and resize them at the same time to fit the page! (See epitome at right.)

If you lot're feeling brave, really mix it up! Here'southward one I (Cori) created where the panels aren't anywhere near the aforementioned size! The get-go slide has elevate and drop speech bubbles and callouts that might assist your students in getting started.

Footstep 2: Add images

Y'all have So MANY options for adding images to your comics! Here are some of our favorites:

Accept your own pictures and permit students be the stars of the comics! This is 1 of my (Matt) favorite ways to personalize comics with students. Use the Alice Keeler Webcam Snapshot Chrome extension to have a webcam pic. When it saves to Bulldoze, just insert it into your comic from Drive. They can pose, apparel upwards in grapheme, bring in props, etc.
Find your favorite of these Creative Eatables or public domain image sources: Unsplash, Creative Commons search, Pixabay and more than. (If yous have a favorite that didn't make the list, add information technology in a comment at the bottom of this post!)
Utilize Bitmojis! They're these fun drawing versions of yourself. Go to bitmoji.com and set yours upward. Add the Chrome extension to your Google Chrome web browser and elevate them right on the folio.
- NOTE: Some Bitmojis images aren't advisable for younger students. An alternative: create some Bitmoji images alee of time and relieve them to a folder in Google Drive (open the folder in your web browser and drag the Bitmoji images at that place … or salve them to your device and upload them to the binder). Then share the binder with students.
Add icons from The Noun Project (thenounproject.com ). These icons can add together to what y'all're creating in your comic — or serve as props or extras for your characters! If you're using the free Creative Eatables version, exist sure to put a trivial attribution text box somewhere in your work.

Step 3: Polish it off

Add together a background behind the panels to brand information technology pop. Apply images as the background (can use Creative Commons images through Google search within of Drawings) or just use a colour or a texture … whatever! Choosing a background gives students another opportunity to decide and justify that decision.

Add speech bubbles, idea bubbles and narration using the shapes tools. Speaking or thinking for a character is besides college-level thinking. Students must know a lot about their topic to be able to put themselves in another person'southward shoes and recollect for them!

Create 1 page with Drawings. Create multiple pages with Drawings. Or create a whole comic volume by designing them on separate slides in a Google Slides presentation! Then download equally a PDF (digital comic book) or embed in a webpage.

Extra: Add a layer of deeper thinking with collaboration

Many teachers think that a classroom with less than one device for ane student is a disadvantage.

In fact, it tin bring out a learning surround that wouldn't exist if each student was working one:1.

Here are some of the benefits of pairing students up with a partner on just ane device:

Take students work on a comic strip in pairs. In add-on to the product they create (the comic strip), the conversations they have and decisions they make together can exist more productive than if they did it by themselves.
Paired work on comic strips has great benefits for the teacher, too. It frees you upward to broadcast around the room and overhear on educatee discussions. It gives you the risk to see into their thinking (which is a form of assessment!). Plus, yous can e'er stop and redirect and ask leading questions if necessary.
This prepare-up as well promotes the student-centered classroom. Students can get started right abroad and piece of work independently, letting them really own the learning.

By giving students a take chances to explain their thinking, information technology kicks the level of critical thinking upwards a notch. Justifying your thinking is a higher level on Webb's Depth of Knowledge. Students tin can explain their creative decision making, from the background, to the expression on their faces in the selfies they took and the dialogue that they chose. This promotes metacognition, where students are thinking most their thinking.

Y'all tin can add an additional layer of deeper thinking by letting students create a screencast video to explicate their comic. Using a free screen recording tool like Screencastify (screencastify.com), students tin can display their comic and justify what'southward in information technology and its significance. This lets them practice their skills in video creation and amplifies their voice.

How could comic strips fit what yous practice in the classroom? If you've used them before, what suggestions do you lot have? Please share them in a comment below!