Eight or nine forty-five minute class periods

In this lesson, students will create their autobiographies which can then be presented online on a blog website, enabling the students to express themselves to the larger system of online communities. This lesson will help students learn how to utilize technology in order to create an attractive, eye-catching website that expresses aspects of their personality and tells their life story.

Students will be able to:

• create a graphic autobiography integrating images, graphics, and text
• work within the structure of the programs Comic Life and Photoshop
• integrate the Principles of Design: Balance, Rhythm, Proportion, Emphasis, and Unity; as well as the Elements of Art: Line, Color, Texture, Shape, Form, Space, and Value

Storyboard

Class 1. Hand out various types of comic books and graphic novels. Have students identify the narratives within the plot and any of the Principles of Design/Elements of Art within the images. Have them write a summary of the narrative and make a list of the Principles of Design/Elements of Art that they find, and how they were shown. Class 2. Tell the students that they are going to create an autobiographical comic book or graphic novel. Instruct them to individually brainstorm a list of major events and/or experiences in their lives and write them down. Have them use this list in order to flush out their ideas into paragraph form to use as a memoir. As homework, have the students edit their work for spelling, grammar, and content. Teacher note: You may want to choose how many memories or experiences the students can elaborate on for their comic book. Class 3. Have students sketch ideas for symbols and images they associate with memories on their list of experiences. Encourage them to bring in photos from these times to represent their memories. They can also look through magazines and comic books for images that already exist. Class 4. Have students choose their most effective images and begin to structure a rough draft of a storyboard in their sketchpads. Classes 5-7. With the computers, show a sample of a finished product in the Comic Life program, wherein photos and images from Photoshop appear with text about the events from the brainstormed list. Allow students plenty of time to experiment with the capabilities of Comic Life and give demonstrations when necessary. Once they have brought in photos from home, drawings, sketches, and magazine images they may do the same with Photoshop. Teacher note: Throughout the project, have students present their works-in-progress to each other and hold a class critique. The students should use the constructive criticism to help them edit their comic books. Class 8. Students will then compile the written memoirs and the comics onto a blog, such as Blogspot or one of their choice (if your school allows blogging). Class 9. Then have students structure a PowerPoint presentation of their finished products in order to present to the class. Have a final class critique and then present the comic books to the school community for a collective exhibit.

3-point rubric for computer graphics using Principles of Design and Elements of Art. Differentiated instruction:

• Students with writing difficulties may use Voice Recognition in the case of transferring their story into the computer.
• Kinesthetic learning through keyboarding and other computer/technological skills

For additional inspiration, research comic or graphic novel websites. Research websites that will allow submissions for posting.